[Aztlan] EK & CHAY glyphs related?

[Gary Daniels]

Aaron,

Thanks for this. It was incredibly helpful. I wish I had seen it before I
sent my last email.

So EK is simply a truncated form of LAMAT? Had I known that, my question
would have answered itself. :) So regardless of how it's truncated, it still
means 'star.' That makes perfect sense. Thus no inversion has occurred at
all....just differing truncations of a larger glyph. (Though that does make
me wonder if the choice of truncation point adds any meaning to the final
form. It seems in the Mayan language EVERY LITTLE DETAIL adds meaning of
some sort.)

>>In this case, a literalistic reading might be more like
> 'blood star' or 'sacred star' than 'bad star'.

Hmmm...Blood Star has a nice ring to it. Definitely more ominous sounding
than STAR with WATER DROPLETS. For a star associated with destruction, it
seems a more fitting name. Death Star would be even better....but George
Lucas would sue. Of course since George Lucas stole Star Wars from the
Mayans, perhaps we can steal Death Star from him. :)

>>the root 'Nik' means flower, while the root 'Kin'
> means sun, indicating that flowers are reflections of the sun

You've answered a question I asked weeks ago. I was looking for any
connection between stars and flowers in Mayan thought. I had no idea there
would be such an elegant connection between NIK and KIN. Actually, it's mind
blowing the more I think about it: Sometime in the distant past when
creating a word for flower they simply reversed the word for sun. But is it
simply that flowers are reflections of the sun....or is the sun also a
reflection of flowers? The glyph for KIN actually looks like a flower which
suggests they thought of the sun as a flower. So I'm assuming it goes both
ways? My suspicion is that flowers and stars are connected in some similarly
elegant way....but I haven't found the evidence yet.

By the way, what is your source for the NIK/KIN information? I'm writing a
paper and will be including this information in it.

-gary








On 1/23/10 5:59 PM, "Aaron" <awoolrich at comcast.net> wrote:

> Hi Gary,
> 
> I'm by no means an expert, so bear with me. I think you are correct in seeing
> the same 'EK' or truncated Lamat/Venus glyph in both words. With this
> particular form, I doubt the inversion of the glyph can be very significant
> since I'm pretty sure the truncated Lamat glyph means Star regardless of it's
> orientation. The full (non truncated) Lamat day-sign displays a quadrilateral
> symmetry, therefore a change in meaning based on any (re)orientation is highly
> dubious. (If you take the "W" form and wed it to the "M" form, you create the
> full "X" form.)
> 
> My guess is that the dots you're wondering about represent water or blood, or
> more generally Ch'ul, sacred fluid. The Lamat glyph had associations with war
> events in the Classic period, as in "Venus Tlaloc warfare", so it's not
> suprising to see it, especially in conjunction with blood designs, used in the
> context of disaster. In this case, a literalistic reading might be more like
> 'blood star' or 'sacred star' than 'bad star'.
> 
> As for other inversions in Mayan, my understaning is that depending on the
> glyph, the significance is more likely to be in distinguishing between a
> phonetic and logographic reading, or otherwise subjective, perhaps simply
> aesthetic, criteria. Glyphs designs aside, phonetic linguistic inversion is
> possibly more likely to emphasise a reflective, rather than simply negative
> relationship. For example, the root 'Nik' means flower, while the root 'Kin'
> means sun, indicating that flowers are reflections of the sun, not the
> negation of the sun. Perhaps adding some support to this notion, the root for
> mirror, 'Nen' is phonetically its own mirror image.
> 
> -Aaron
> 
> 
> 
> On 1/22/10 3:19 PM, "Gary Daniels" <Gary at LostWorlds.org> wrote:
> 
>> Are the glyphs for EK and CHAY related or did they evolve separately? CHAY
>> looks like an upside down version of EK. Is this the case or just a
>> coincidence?
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