But are Mesoamerican glyphs still used today?

How are the ancient glyphs of Mexico, Guatemala and Central America written now? These examples made me stop talking about these writing systems only in the past tense.

My previous video about the history of the glyphs, mentioned a couple times:

Glyph demonstration mentioned in the video:

(See my sources doc below for details and full credits.)

~ Briefly ~

Last time was about the history of these various scripts. This time, let's meet the glyphs in the present, see how they are used, and get curious about their future.

~ Credits ~

Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang. Much of the music, too.

My doc full of sources for claims and credits for music, sfx, fonts and images:

[NativLang]

(Insert glyphic comment here once Unicode support is implemented.)

[CGaboL]

Not Maya, but here in Mexico City there are some Nahuatl glyphs used as symbols for public transport, most notably the metro. As 50 years ago, there was an illiteracy problem so they added pictograms to all stations and some are Nahuatl glyphs like Ciudad Azteca or Apatlaco

[yourstrulykeren]

As a Guatemalan Maya, I love So often people discuss Maya people as a dead civilization when it is very much alive and has the potential to reach new levels of complexity! Appreciate your work!

[danielocheita]

As a Guatemalan who's been to Iximche several times, I never knew about that new stela. Awesome!

[MarcoLandin]

Traveling through the Mayan countryside in Yucatan I can attest to their mild use not only in regional tourism but in daily life.

[Hellfire]

Kind of a tangent, but in general i think it's weird how often people refer to indigenous people and cultures that are still around in the past tense.

[baggioardon]

I've actually concepted and designed a Mayan keyboard, but clearly ran into trouble making it functional (my idea was to model it after the Japanese keyboard which allows you to pick from a syllabery or draw out characters). I also referenced and communicated with Frida Larios and her work who you might be interested in. She's been developing new ways of incorporating the Maya script in the modern day!

[therevelistmovement]

Mayan: easily, the single MOST artistic writing system on Earth.

[pierreabbat]

Cuauhtemallan (Guatemala) is a translation of K'iche', a Mayan word meaning "many trees".
There are Mayan Mayanists, such as Pablo García Ixmatá, who's written books about the Tz'utujiil language.

[almostclintnewton]

Nothing makes me happier than "dead" cultures being revived •́ ‿, •̀

[Luboman]

As a Guatemalan-American with some Mayan ancestry who has learned Mandarin Chinese, I can give my two cents here--the Mayan glyphs have to be simplified and standardized. There's some beautiful cursive Mayan on cups and plates discovered in royal tombs that date from 750 AD to 900 AD. That is where we should start, just like simplified Chinese invented by modernizing linguists in China in the 1950s and 1960s embraced cursive Classical Chinese as the starting point. Cursive writing is historically and culturally accurate while providing some very simplified forms that all speakers of that particular language can agree on. Then you have to standardize the script--no more of this "let's have 5 to 10 symbols for the same syllable" confusion that Classical Mayan writing has. There should be one symbol, one syllable. Simplified and modernized traditional Chinese characters are somewhat easy to learn because there is a strict correspondence of one character going to one syllable. And the 70 to 75 radicals that comprise ALL Chinese characters remain strictly in those forms--there are no fancy flights of the imagination by writers. Better yet, the order in which these radicals are written and placed within characters is also never changed but strictly adhered to. Writers in traditional and simplified Chinese don't get to be playful like they are allowed to be in Classical Mayan writing. It's too damn confusing to be this loosey-goosey with writing norms that utilize visually complex characters/glyphs. So modern Mayan writing--if we want to teach it to huge numbers of people, especially children--has to embrace what modern Chinese writing and orthography already does so successfully.

[luizfellipe]

0:48
OOOOH Acapulco!!!
This place is sooo famous in Brazil.
You see, there is an old (1950's I think) Mexican TV show called El Chavo de Ocho (that still shows to this day in Brazil) and like every Brazilian might have seen this, there one _special episode_ where Chavo and "the rest of the village" all go take some vacations in this place.
Then it became very popular in Brazil

[LautaroArgentino]

This is quite interesting!

I have two PDF simply named "Writing in Maya Glyphs", which you can find on the internet, and acts as great introduction to writing in glyphs. It guides you through writing your name as a first activity and it couldn't be more fun!

The second part gives you more vocabulary so you can also write simple sentences.

[jacobparry]

It'd be so heartening if in a few years, people could send texts to their friends, write emails to their bosses or whatever, all in the glyphs their ancestors used all those hundreds of years ago.

Although it was created in the 18thC, I wish my fellow Welsh speakers would use the Coelbren y Beirdd, bardic alphabet, as a show of our uniqueness as a nation. It also made a lot of good changes to the orthography of Welsh, which is also good.

[yuppi]

I love how as soon as the language was rediscovered, the experts took a step back and instead of keeping the studies to themselves, they gave it back to the descendans of the Maya. Also, i'm not sure if the inspiration came from there, but one of the svripts used for Toki Pona strikes me as very similar to maya glyphs.

[TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

I personally want to live in a world where every writing system is as easy to type in on a computer or phone as the Latin scripts. Where people get in touch with their native language using the script of their ancestors. Where you can send a text in Old English Runes or Maya glyphs.

I think that would just be lovely.

[eomguel]

1:12 There is an unofficial interpretation of the modern version of Mexico's national emblem. Yes, it does represent the myth of the foundation of Mexihco-Tenochtitlan, but in the few surviving codices from precolonial times there is no snake, just the eagle on the cactus. Some scholars believe that the snake was added by the Spaniards who, abhorred by the Mesoamerican widespread worship of the feathered snake god Quetzalcoatl which they considered demonic, attempted to symbolise its destruction by the European Christian monarchy. In fact, a mural in Mexico's National Palace by Diego Rivera metaphorically depicts the ultimate defeat of the European monarchic rule over Mexico as a departing golden eagle. If you pay close attention to the emblem though, the snake is not dead and it shows its fangs as if about to strike a bite. So, in a way, the golden eagle represents Mexico's Spanish heritage which to this day tries to devour the snake, which in turn represents Mexico's indigenous roots and native population/cultures/languages that are pretty much alive and resisting.

[theconqueringram]

Good to know that the Maya script is being preserved.

[JosePineda-cyom]

Fun fact: Spanish was the first modern European language whos grammar was described in scientific ways. After centuries of European erudites fixating on Latin and Greek and pissing on the vulgar tongues, Antonio de Nebrija focused on the vernacular Castillian and created a book describing it - and, inadvertently, mostly fixing it as well. He was very visionary when he told Queen Isabella that this was necessary in order to make Spain a great empire, "as empires always propagate their language". And, wanna know which Western language was the 2nd to have its grammar described (more or less) properly? Rum droll please... it was Nahuatl, the Aztec's tongue. Next was French, then italian, some time latter Purepecha (the language of the Tarascan Empire, the fierce rivals of the Aztecs) and Quechua (the Inca's speech) were documented, latter came Otomi, Aymara, Mayan, Huastecan, and a number of other, less spread native languages.
Spanish priests and monks were *incredibly* active in their anthropological/linguistic endeavors in the New World, documenting dozens of languages in order to ease evangelization efforts. Their cousins the French, on a smaller scale, did also an astounding work in today's Canada - up there, even the nuns were doing linguistic work and some nuns' works were instrumental in understanding the grammar of Algonquinian languages. Too bad the Anglos were not interested at all in preaching to the natives of New England, or documenting their languages

[AncientAmericas]

Another great video! I could watch your Mesoamerican videos all day long!