[Aztlan] Water Over the Earth

Tue Nov 3 16:28:25 CST 2009

Hi all,

just a short comment. 'Hay kab' has been a proposal by Erik Boot in the mid-90s. This is contained in an unpublished paper (Notes on Maya Hieroglyphic Writing, 3; February 4, 1997) he distributed among fellow epigraphers. Many other readings have been proposed since (tz'ay, tz'oy, ch'ay, ek'may, hub'uy, etc. etc.). Maya epigraphy has become an archaeology of interpretations ...

Best, Christian

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 14:13:17 -0600
> Von: "Barb MacLeod" <bmacleod at austin.rr.com>
> An: aztlan at lists.famsi.org
> Betreff: Re: [Aztlan] Water Over the Earth

> Hello, All,
> 
> If David Bolles is reading this thread, hopefully he will join in.
> I mentioned the improbability that /jay/ 'thin', 'spread out' could be 
> cognate with /hay/ 'destruction' 'flatten (in destruction)' because it is
> so 
> tempting to lump them, and because in modern Yukatek there is no longer a 
> /j/ vs. /h/ contrast to distinguish them. But this contrast is registered
> in 
> the Motul (and a cognate /jaay/ occurs on vases in the PSS). I haven't
> gone 
> looking in other languages for cognates; it's worth doing. It also seems 
> unlikely that the root /hay/ originated as /ha'/ 'water plus a suffix 
> /-i(l)/, though a form /ha'-il/ 'pertaining to water', 'watery', exists,
> as 
> Dave demonstrated. The possessed form, by the way, varies according to 
> innateness, such that 'its water (of a river)' is /y-a'-al-(il)/. In any 
> case, the other Motul and Cordemex entries I gave earlier strongly suggest
> that /hay/ is a sovereign root and is not directly related to *watery* 
> destruction.
> 
> S'far as I know, the STAR-OVER-EARTH/yi/ya collocation is still 
> undeciphered. Perhaps we'll hear from someone who has considered every
> known 
> context to see what morphological and semantic variations it may have. The
> yi syllable--thought by many to signal a mediopassive--is often
> superimposed 
> on the KAB. But a mediopassive interpretation should not apply to ya,
> except 
> perhaps quite late (and would be a whole 'nother can o' annelids). I don't
> know whether anyone has yet suggested a HAY or HAY KAB reading for the 
> STAR-OVER-EARTH glyph, but Prudence, I think it's quite viable, and who 
> knows? Perhaps the flanking water droplets on the STAR are there to cue
> the 
> first part (as in ha) of the root. This reading would help explain the 
> variation between yi and ya. But of course Tortuguero 6 has to be the 
> headbanger.
> 
> It is also tempting to suggest that there is some iconic history with the 
> thing that links it to the gushing eclipse sign hanging from the belly of 
> the crocodile on Dresden p. 74, but as with all iconic temptations, I
> would 
> be cautious. Contexts for STAR-OVER-EARTH make it rather clear that it's
> not 
> about flooding, and probably not about spreading things out nor thinning 
> them, but rather about wholesale pillaging and flattening of buildings.
> 
> Barb
> 
> 
> 
> *******
> 
> David Hixson wrote:
> 
> >
> > This would have been my translation of haiyokocab as well.  Except for
> the 
> > extra /i/ inserted into the word.
> >
> > I would have expected, based upon standard Maya root formation that
> there 
> > would have been a consonant or a glide
> > before or in place of the /i/.
> >
> > /ha/   /'i[l]/   /yoko[l]/   /cab/
> >
> > A quick look through the Cordemex resolved this question for me, as
> there 
> > is in fact a word "ha'il" (with the glottal
> > stop between the vowels).  This term is glossed as "acuatico, aguadija, 
> > secrecion".
> >
> > Without that glottal stop, I don't think one should ignore that /i/ as 
> > possibly changing the meaning of this term.
> >
> > Therefore, while I still think Michael's transcription of the various 
> > roots within this term are absolutely correct, I do
> > caution that this seems to assume an insertion of a consonant between
> the 
> > first two vowels, or the the omission
> > of the second vowel.
> >
> > Perhaps there is a linguist on the list who could explain the placement
> of 
> > this /i/, since I welcome any corrections
> > to my understanding of Maya orthography.
> >
> > -Dave
> >
> ********************
> 
> Prudence M. Rice wrote:
> 
> >
> > So could this phrase be the meaning of the so-called "star
> > wars"
> > glyph that shows droplets over an earth sign?
> 
> Michael Grofe wrote:
> >
> > I submitted my message before I saw all of yours, so my apologies for
> the
> > redundancy.
> > Barb, is it possible that we have here a pun for both /ha/ as 'water'
> and
> > /hay/ as 'destruction' over the earth?
> >
> > Bolles' reading of /hay/ as 'flatten' would seem to be semantically 
> > related
> > to the root 'stretch thin, make flat', yes? I also found an entry he has
> > about /hai/ as 'of or pertaining to water', but this seems to be a
> > contraction from /hail/:
> > http://www.famsi.org/reports/96072/h/hah_hakzic.htm
> >
> > Prudence, the iconography in the "Star War" glyph certainly is
> suggestive 
> > of
> > this 'water over earth' destruction by flood - albeit with the
> > EK'star/Venus sign included. The current tentative reading of this
> > collocation,
> > proposed by David Stuart (1995:265, 311?13), is /hub'/, meaning 'fall,
> > collapse', and elsewhere as 'destroy, knock over'. However, as far as I
> > know, the only clues we have regarding the reading are a commonly
> infixed
> > /yi/ that can replace the KAB' component, or follow it as a suffix, 
> > whereas
> > other examples have a /ya/ suffix. I found one example on the now famous
> > Tortuguero Monument 6, G4 which contains both the /yi/ and the /ya/ as
> > suffixes following the whole version of the "Star Wars" glyph that 
> > includes
> > the KAB' component. The /-yi/ would seem to be a completive/past tense 
> > form,
> > though it may tell us that the root does have a final /-y/. The /-yi-ya/
> > combination is less common, but it may read 'since it was
> > destroyed/attacked'.
> > Barb, any thoughts?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Michael
> >
> >
> 
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