[Aztlan] R's in mayan

[Elaine Day Schele]

Hello David and Fiona,

I believe that what John was referring to was the sound that the "r" makes, 
not the letter itself, since the ancient Maya did not have an alphabet like 
we have.  Instead, they had a syllabary.  "A syllabary is a phonetic writing 
system consisting of symbols representing syllables. A syllable is often 
made up of a consonant plus a vowel or a single vowel"
(2007 http://www.omniglot.com/writing/syllabaries.htm)

Many Mayanists have worked on trying to figure out what the syllabary looked 
like. FAMSI has posted John's drawing of it on their website at:

http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/montgomery/syllabary_a.htm

http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/montgomery/syllabary_b.htm

Elaine
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David and Fiona Gray" <davefiona at yahoo.com>
To: <aztlan at lists.famsi.org>
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 4:59 PM
Subject: [Aztlan] R's in mayan


> Hi all,
>         I am in the process of reading John Montgomery's book"How to read 
> Maya Hieroglyphs". He writes for the most part R in Mayan is exceptionally 
> rare (page 11). He doesn't give an example of how the Maya would write an 
> R though.  I would like to  know what it looks like as i am planning this 
> year  to give  homemade Name glyphs as Christmas  presents and it would 
> make it much easier if  I could use an R.
>
> Thanx in advance for any help for your words of advice
>
>
>
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