Phonetic glyphs stood for simple consonant-vowel (CV) or vowel-only (V) syllables. Harmonic and disharmonic echo vowels Yucatec Maya writing in the Dresden Codex, c. In addition, some syllable glyphs were homophones, such as the six different glyphs used to write the very common third person pronoun u.

For example, bʼalam 'jaguar' could be written as a single logogram, bʼalam a logogram with syllable additions, as ba- bʼalam, or bʼalam -ma, or bʼa- bʼalam- ma or written completely phonetically with syllabograms as bʼa-la-ma. These syllabic glyphs performed two primary functions: as phonetic complements to disambiguate logograms which had more than one reading (similar to ancient Egyptian and modern Japanese furigana) and to write grammatical elements such as verbal inflections which did not have dedicated logograms (similar to Japanese okurigana). For example, the logogram for 'fish fin'-found in two forms, as a fish fin and as a fish with prominent fins-was read as and came to represent the syllable ka.

Glyphs used as syllabograms were originally logograms for single-syllable words, usually those that ended in a vowel or in a weak consonant such as y, w, h, or glottal stop. For example, a calendaric glyph can be read as the morpheme manikʼ or as the syllable chi. Because of these dual readings, it is customary to write logographic readings in all caps and phonetic readings in italics or bold. Individual glyphs or symbols could represent either a morpheme or a syllable, and the same glyph could often be used for both. The Maya script was a logosyllabic system with some syllabogrammatic elements. These variations most often appeared when they would better fit the surface being inscribed. In place of the standard block configuration, Maya was also sometimes written in a single row or column, or in an 'L' or 'T' shape. Glyphs were sometimes conflated into ligatures, where an element of one glyph would replace part of a second. Within a block, glyphs were arranged top-to-bottom and left-to-right (similar to Korean Hangul syllabic blocks). The blocks within the columns were read left to right, top to bottom, and would be repeated until there were no more columns left. Maya texts were usually written in blocks arranged in columns two blocks wide, with each block corresponding to a noun or verb phrase.

As of 2008, the sound of about 80% of Maya writing could be read and the meaning of about 60% could be understood with varying degrees of certainty, enough to give a comprehensive idea of its structure. Carved and molded glyphs were painted, but the paint has rarely survived. Mayan writing consisted of a relatively elaborate set of glyphs, which were laboriously painted on ceramics, walls and bark-paper codices, carved in wood or stone, and molded in stucco. From left to right: bʼa- bʼalam, bʼalam- ma, and bʼa- bʼalam- ma Maya inscriptions were most often written in columns two glyphs wide, with each successive pair of columns read left to right, top to bottom Three ways to write bʼalam using combinations of the logogram with the syllabic signs as phonetic complements. However, if other languages were written, they may have been written by Chʼoltiʼ scribes, and therefore have Chʼoltiʼ elements. There is also some evidence that the script may have been occasionally used to write Mayan languages of the Guatemalan Highlands. It is possible that the Maya elite spoke this language as a lingua franca over the entire Maya-speaking area, but texts were also written in other Mayan languages of the Petén and Yucatán, especially Yucatec. Languages Įvidence suggests that codices and other classic texts were written by scribes-usually members of the Maya priesthood-in Classic Maya, a literary form of the extinct Chʼoltiʼ language. Though modern Mayan languages are almost entirely written using the Latin alphabet rather than Maya script, there have been recent developments encouraging a revival of the Maya glyph system. Maya writing was called 'hieroglyphics' or hieroglyphs by early European explorers of the 18th and 19th centuries who found its general appearance reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphs, although the two systems are unrelated. Maya writing used logograms complemented with a set of syllabic glyphs, somewhat similar in function to modern Japanese writing. Maya writing was in continuous use throughout Mesoamerica until the Spanish conquest of the Maya in the 16th and 17th centuries. The earliest inscriptions found which are identifiably Maya date to the 3rd century BCE in San Bartolo, Guatemala. Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs, is historically the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered.

Ancient inuit glyphs