I have been given the Maya civilization--specifically focusing on the Popol Vuh, regarding
language acquisition and preservation. I am familiar with the Yucatan
Maya, but not with the Quiche and thus did some background research to
learn some more about this specific people and the Maya in general.
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| photo of modern Quiche Maya |
- Ch'ol-Tzotzil subfamily
- Huastecan subfamily
- Yucatecan subfamily
- Chujean-Kanjobal subfamily
- Quichean-Mamean subfamily
The Popol Vuh falls under the Quichean Mamean subfamily.
It consists of oral knowledge--cosmogony, mythology, traditions, and history-- written down and preserved for generations and civilizations yet to come to learn. Even today, The stories from the Popol Vuh continue to be told by modern Maya as folk legends, passed down orally.
Also, I would imagine that only the most elite could read and write during this time.
Thus, I would imagine oral knowledge served as a way for the common
people to learn stories about their origins of life, beliefs, values,
etc.
In this brief research, I realize that oral
knowledge can’t just be spoken if you truly want to preserve it for a
thousand plus years to come. What happens if one's civilization is wiped out? Or even just those who know the stories die or flee? I guess it depends on one's purpose for preservation and the value in the stories.
I think all oral knowledge that one wants to preserve must be written down, to prevent outside influences or even memory loss, from tampering with the pure knowledge passed down from one generation to the next. Also, in extreme circumstances, keeping a written record of oral knowledge increases the likelihood that at least some material will survive if one's civilization is wiped out.
I can check out the Popol Vuh at the BYU library today, and read from a manuscript derived from a translation of the original manuscript itself, which I plan to do so I can learn from the original source itself. 
I agree that at some point oral knowledge needs to be written down to ensure preservation, especially when it comes to language. Less common languages are dying out rather quickly, because nobody has written down the rules or alphabet of that language. However, I'd be interested to know if there remain any truly ancient oral traditions that have survived without writing...but then that would be hard to research if they aren't written down.
ReplyDeleteI also agree. I don't see how a language could possibly be preserved for generations author it being written down.Its possible for folk knowledge to be passed down because folk knowledge is usually routine everyday things, not technical enough that it requires to be written. Language on the other hand is technical. There are so many words: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, articles, etc, etc, etc. I mean, even though everything is written down in our language, its still changing. Theres just so little chance for languages to survive without them being written.
ReplyDeleteHave any of you guys played telephone? This is a pretty good representation of when stories are passed down without being written, which gives us some great stories like Alex blogged about!
Sorry about my spelling mistakes, my phone had the swipe texting, and so it makes up words sometimes. For example, I didn't mean to say "author," instead I meant to say "without." But my phone has a mind of its own sometimes, and if I'm not careful enough, I'll post things without catching them.
ReplyDeleteI love the telephone example. It's a brief, yet powerful example of some of the problems with orally transmitted knowledge. That's why stories and legends lend themselves so well to oral transmission...a few tweaks here and there to make it more exciting is actually a good thing!
ReplyDeleteBut how was this language preserved...do we have manuscripts written in this language? Is it sill spoken? Understood?
ReplyDeleteYeah I would like to know that too! I know that Mayans had pictures/symbols that represented things, but was that the only way they wrote? or did they have letters too? Also, I wonder what their language sounds like? I am assuming that they didn't speak spanish back then (cause want that introduced when the Spanish explorers came and conquered?
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you all said about languages dying out and the impact that has on how knowledge is preserved. When the French were in Egypt at the end of the eighteenth century, there was virtually no one who could speak Demotic (an ancient Egyptian language). When they found the Rosetta Stone, however, they were able to decipher the written language. If the language hadn't been put from an oral to a written tradition, we wouldn't know nearly as much about Ancient Egypt today as we do.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your point about mythology being oral knowledge. I had always thought of it as being written knowledge because today we read them. If someone was to tell us a myth in Greek or Egyptian, we wouldn't understand, of course, but now that I think about it, that's exactly how we would have learned them if we had been kids in Athens or Alexandria. It's just like the stories that our parents told us when we were kids about, say, Jack and the Beanstalk or Hansel and Gretel. I wonder if children in Ancient Greece (I keep referring to Greek mythology because it has had the most impact on western civilization, but that of Egypt, Scandinavia, China, the Native Americas, and elsewhere also generally apply) had favorite myths they liked to be told at bedtime: probably not, they're all pretty gruesome to an extent!
Great discussion
ReplyDeleteBrenda, I had thought about the telephone example too. It shows the importance of preserving the original word so you have a reference point to ensure more preciseness.
Here is a link to a thorough timeline of cracking the maya code. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/deciphering-maya-time-line.html
If the Maya hadn't used these hieroglyphics or codes, there's no way their traditions could have been preserved. However, I think it is necessary for cultures to mix for oral traditions to be passed on inter-culturally. If you don't know the language or have a way to learn the language, then it's impossible to understand anything.
Yeah Jared, that has always really shocked me...why are some cultures so violent? Why did past cultures enjoy the labrynth and chariot racing and jousting stop much? And even still today with the running if the bulls! Why did/do people enjoy harm on another? I know this doesn't have a lot to do with the subject on hand, But I am so interested in the psychology behind that. If they did tell those stories to their children, I wonder if this encouraged violence inhibited them from developing mentally, and kept them in more an animal-like state of thought?
ReplyDeleteI don't think the violence necessarily inhibited mental development...some of the most brilliant minds are war strategists...and the Romans had one of the most brutally violent forms of entertainment, but they are widely considered to be one of the great civilizations. Although I am interested if they could have been even greater minus all that "gladiator" train of thought...I don't know that this can be proven? Interesting thought Brenda.
ReplyDelete