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Throughout the history of Mesoamerica, an unknown number of languages and language families became extinct and left behind no evidence of their existence. What is known about the pre-Columbian history of the Mesoamerican languages is what can be surmised from linguistic, archeological and ethnohistorical evidence. Often, hypotheses concerning ...
Not all specimens of native literature can be readily classified. A prime example of this are the Yucatec Mayan Books of Chilam Balam, mentioned above for their historical content, but also containing treatises on medical lore, astrology, etc. Although clearly belonging to Maya literature, they are profoundly syncretic in nature.
The use of Mayan languages came to an end in many important domains of society, including administration, religion and literature. Yet the Maya area was more resistant to outside influence than others, [notes 6] and perhaps for this reason, many Maya communities still retain a high proportion of monolingual speakers. The Maya area is now ...
The Maya made paper from the inner bark of a certain wild fig tree, Ficus cotinifolia. [1] [2] This sort of paper was generally known by the word huun in Mayan languages (the Aztec people far to the north used the word āmatl [ˈaːmat͡ɬ] for paper). The Maya developed their huun-paper around the 5th century. [3]
Unlike the Aztecs and the Inca, the Maya political system never integrated the entire Maya cultural area into a single state or empire. Rather, throughout its history, the Maya area contained a varying mix of political complexity that included both states and chiefdoms. These polities fluctuated greatly in their relationships with each other ...
The first major work of Mayan literature known to be originally written in Latin script are the Annals of the Cakchiquels (since 1571). [22] Since the mid 1990s, Maya intellectuals attended workshops organized by Linda Schele to learn about Maya writing, [24] and with digital technologies, Maya writing may indeed face a resurrection. [22]
Before the arrival of Spanish conquistadors, the Aztecs destroyed many Mayan works and sought to depict themselves as the true rulers through a fake history and newly written texts. [20] Knowledge of the Maya writing system continued into the early colonial era and reportedly [by whom?] a few of the early Spanish priests who went to Yucatán ...
During the 19th century, the word 'codex' became popular to designate any pictorial manuscript in the Mesoamerican tradition. In reality, pre-Columbian manuscripts are, strictly speaking, not codices, since the strict librarian usage of the word denotes manuscript books made of vellum, papyrus and other materials besides paper, that have been sewn on one side. [1]