Translation Project

I have always been interested in the Mayan language. One of my dreams is to learn the Mayan language and then to open a school in Mexico where Sonjiala and I would teach Mayan children how to use Mayan hieroglyphs to write modern Maya and Spanish. Mayan hieroglyphs consist of a syllabary where each glyph generally represents a consonant and a vowel. There are other glyphs which represent words or roots of words. The syllabary would have to be extended to be used for modern Maya which has more consonants than classic Maya. More glyphs would also have to be added to represent Spanish consonants. Because a different character would have to be created for each of the four vowels associated with every new vowel at least four new glyphs would have to be designed. I would be loath to attempt to create new glyphs myself out of fear that they would be rejected by the people who speak Maya. Another option to modify existing characters with marks as is done to portray the modern sounds of Japanese in the traditional syllabary. As modern Maya is tonal the glyphs might also be modified to reflect the three tones high, low and neutral.

Anyway I am far away from that project. In the mean time I am going to translate Juan Pio Perez's Diccionaio de la Lengua Maya. I think that this work will be hosted on L'etendard Sanglant. But I will probably post some early drafts here.

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