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Few
years ago in Cascajal, a Southern Mexican archeological site,
a serpentine bloc has been found with a hitherto unknown
pictographic script (1).
The article reports:
Previously, no script has been associated unambiguously with
the Olmec civilization, in many respects the progenitor of all
later complex societies in adjacent Central-America
(2).
The location
of the ancient Olmec, Toltec and Maya civilizations is shown
in the map below.
The Cascajal site
consisted of two parallel mounds, dating from late first
millennium BC. The inscribed block weighs about
12 kg and measures 36X21X13 cm. On the flat side a script
consisting of 62 signs has been carved. The picture
below-right shows the photograph of the stele and on the left
we see signs that appeared four times, three times, two times
and once on the block. We can therefore conclude that the
script contains at least 28 characters and can be classified
as an alphabet whose letters are both pictures and seals.
This alphabet is as old as the cuneiform Ugaritic alphabet
(see Chapter 20, The Ugaritic Script). This can be
ascertained from several artifacts found in the Cascajal site
dated from 1200 BC up to 900 BC. The script had certainly a
prior period of development and did not pop up suddenly. The
Olmec alphabet contains some vegetal signs as well as some
signs reminding the Central Asiatic seals, such as the ones
numbered 10 and 26. The text is horizontal and contains
groupings of long and short glyphs conforming to all
expectations of writing. With such characteristics it can take
its place among the world’s first alphabets. But more
specimens are needed for its decipherment
(3).
The nearby
city Tula is accepted as the ancient site of the Toltec
culture (see map above). Statues with feather headdresses
found in Tula remind us the Central Asiatic shamans of Tuva.
The similarity of Tula with Tuva and the pyramids built by the
Toltecs are indications of their Asiatic origin
(4).
No written
tablet has been found in the Toltec land, but the Maya people
living in Yucatan developed a complicated pictographic writing
system. It is most probable that the Maya glyphs originated
from the simpler Olmec writing system. The Maya writing system
is much more complex and gave a lot of headache to the Mayan
scholars. This transformation from simple to complicated signs
reminds us what happened to the Sumerian script and to the
early Chinese script (see Chapter 13,
Evolution of Writing Systems).
The Maya
system contains several glyphs that stand for syllables and
also many glyphs representing words. Therefore, this system is
both syllabic as well as logographic. There are more than 1000
different glyphs in the Maya writing system.
The Maya also mastered astronomy, mathematics, art and
architecture, and had a rather complicated calendar. They
wrote on stone, ceramics, and bark paper.
Unfortunately most of the Maya books were destroyed by the
Spanish Bishop Diego de Landa.
It is
believed that the Maya language developed from Proto-Mayan
dating from minimum 2,000 BC. It then diffused into several
branches known as Yucatecan, Huastecan, Cholan, Qhanjobalan,
Mamean and Quechuan. All these Mayan dialects are
agglutinative languages and can be shown to pertain to the
Asiatic, Altaic language group. Here are some Maya words which
are very similar to Turkish. The Maya word is given in bold
and the corresponding Turkish word is in red within brackets
(5).
Leader:
Ahau (Agha),
Ax: Baat (Balta),
Servant, Low: Ashac (Uşak,
Aşağı), A lot,
Strong: Tchac (Çok),
Pine tree: Tcha (Çam),
Difficult: Tchetun (Çetin),
Augment, Climb: Tchich (Çık),
Left handed: Tchol (Çolak,
Solak), Boulder:
Kaa (Kaya),
Bird: Kutz (Kuş),
Inside: İçil (İçinde),
Female: İş (Dişi),
Belt: Kaşnak (Kasnak),
Day: Kin (Gün),
Sun: Kiniş (Güneş),
Person: Kişe (Kişi),
Old man: Koça (Koca),
Slave: Kul (Kul),
Mother: Naa (Ana),
Be: Ol (Ol),
Stay clean: Tamazkal (Temiz-kal),
Inundation: Tosh (Taşkın),
Hill: Tepek (Tepe),
Stone: Tetl (Taş),
Gather: Top (Topla),
Dust: Toz (Toz),
Full: Tul (Tolu,
Dolu), Filled:
Tulan (Dolgun),
Deep: Tup (Dip),
Pebble: Tzekel (Çakıl),
Scabies: Ueez (Uyuz),
Urinate: Uiş (İşe),
Reach: Ul (Ulaş),
Bore: Uy (Oy),
Humid: Yash (Yaş),
Green: Yashil (Yeşil).
Summer: Yashkin (Yaz-günü).
These 37 words form a small sample indicating the relationship
of the main Maya Yucatec language with Turkish. Since
there have been no physical interaction in the last two
millennia between Asiatic Turks and Central American Maya,
these words cannot be loanwords. They have to stem from a
common root language, which I have labeled as the
Proto-language. |