LIN 347 - Maya Hieroglyphic Writing I

(4 credits)

This course provides an introduction to Classic Maya writing and texts from a linguistic and anthropological perspective. After an introduction to the origins and functions of writing in Mesoamerica, specifically Classic Mayan culture, students will learn to read Classic Mayan texts. They will examine aspects of the grammatical structure of relevant languages, the relationship of spoken languages to the script, and develop strategies for decipherment based on our understanding of modern Mayan languages. After learning how to decipher texts and supplying linguistic values to written signs, students will analyze and interpret a body of Maya texts for information of general anthropological and linguistic interest such as dynastic history, social and political organization, language and ethnicity, ritual, cosmology, belief systems, verbal morphology and syntax, and local ecology.

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