cultivated nations of the Western Continent ascend this scale of graphic development? This question is as yet unanswered. All agree, however, that the highest evolution took place among the Nahuatl-speaking tribes of Mexico and the Maya race of Yucatan.
I do not go too far in saying that it is proved that the Aztecs used to a certain extent a phonetic system of writing, one in which. the figures refer not to the thought, but to the sound of the thought as expressed in spoken language. This has been demonstrated by the researches of M. Aubin, and, of late, by the studies of Señor Orozco y Berra.[1]
Two evolutionary steps can be distinguished in the Aztec writing. In the earlier the plan is that of the rebus in combination with ideograms, which latter are nothing more than the elements of picture-writing. Examples of this plan are the familiar "tribute rolls" and the names of towns and kings, as shown in several of the codices published by Lord Kingsborough. The second step is where a conventional image is employed to represent the sound of its first syllable. This advances actually to the level of the syllabic alphabet; but it is doubtful if there are any Aztec records entirely, or even largely, in this form of writing. They had only reached the commencement of its development.
The graphic system of the Mayas of Yucatan was very different from that of the Aztecs. No one at all familiar with the two could fail at once to distinguish between the Manuscripts of the two nations. They are plainly independent developments.
We know much more about the ancient civilization of Mexico than of Yucatan; we have many more Aztec than Maya Manuscripts, and hence we are more at a loss to speak with positiveness about the Maya system of writing than about the Mexican. We must depend on the brief and unsatisfactory statements of the early Spanish writers, and on what little modern research has accomplished, for means to form a correct opinion; and there is at present a justifiable discrepancy of opinion about it among those who have given the subject most attention.
- ↑ Aubin, Mémoire sur la Peinture didactique et l'Écriture figurative des anciens Mexicains, in the introduction to Brasseur (do Bourbourg)'s Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique et do l'Amérique Centrale tom, i; Manuel Orozco y Berra,, Eusayo de Descifracion geroglifica, in the Anales del Museo nacional de México, tom, i, ii.
