A Comparative Analysis of Ch’orti’ Verbal Art and the Poetic Discourse Structures of Maya Hieroglyphic Writing

Merismus

One of the most common couplets in most Mayan languages is the pairing of "sky" and "earth." A good example can be seen in lines 640-641 of the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel (Edmonson 1986) (Edmonson’s orthography retained):

elom caan                      burned will be heaven
       y etel luum                                     and earth

As did the writers of the Chilam Balam texts, the scribes of the hieroglyphic script often used references to "sky" and "earth" in couplet form to represent the idea of "totality," or "everywhere." (This concept of "everywhere" for "sky" and "earth" is common in most Mayan languages). At Copán and other sites the term k’uh, "god," was coupled with "sky" and "earth" to record "sky god, earth god," i.e. ’all gods.’ The pairing of such complementary elements that represent a whole is known as merismus. For example, on the West and South Side of a bench from Palenque it records the following identical parallelism that expresses just such a merismus (Figure 15):

nub’uul ta chan,  nub’uul ta kab’
"nub’uul" in the sky,  "nub’uul" on the earth

The verb nub’uul remains undeciphered but the structure of the couplet suggests "nub’uul" happens "everywhere." Ch’orti’ likewise makes constant use of the couplet "world, sky" to express the idea of "everywhere." For example,

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