2000/06/01 by Stephen Houston, John Robertson, David Stuart · 9 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Latin American history and culture #Ancient Egypt and Archaeology #Media, Communication, and Education
paper · doi:10.1086/300142
openalex publication_date 2000/06/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/30
Recent decipherments of Classic Maya hieroglyphs (ca. a.d. 250 to 850) reveal phonological and morphological patterns that, through epigraphic and historical analyses, isolate a single, coherent prestige language with unique and widespread features in script. We term this language "Classic Ch'olti'an" and present the evidence for its explicable historical configuration and ancestral affiliation with Eastern Ch'olan languages (Ch'olti' and its still-viable descendant, Ch'orti'). We conclude by exploring the possibility that Ch'olti'an was a prestige language that was shared by elites, literati, and priests and had a profound effect on personal and group status in ancient Maya kingdoms.