5. Several ancient American civilizations, including the Maya and Zapotec, used an immensely complicated and intricate writing system based on the ordering of glyphs to create word-sounds, with multiple ways to spell the same word
Originating as an early proto-language, commonly designated “Proto-Mayan”, in the Chiapas-Guatemalan highlands, this language is believed to have begun dividing and evolving around 2200 BCE to create multiple regional dialects each adopting their own local variations; eventually culminating in the “Classic Maya Language” around the 3rd century CE and used until the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica, the written form would survive as the predominant pre-Columbian record of the ancient civilization.
Conventionally written by members of the priesthood, the Maya script was an intricate combination of logographic and syllabic signs depicted in a glyphic fashion to create words; a similar style can be seen in the languages of the modern world, mot notably as part of the Japanese writing system. Comprising an elaborate array of glyphs, painted onto ceramics and molded into walls, these phonetic symbols spelled out the sounds of words and thus gave meaning to otherwise disconnected syllables; these inscriptions were read left to right and top to bottom. As a result of this writing style, arranged in columns and blocks, with more than 800 glyphs known to have existed, the same word could be depicted in wildly different fashions making translations and understanding immensely complex.
Predating that of the ancient Maya, the Zapotec languages, also using a logosyllabic system of writing, is thought to have been the earliest predecessor of all successor glyph-based languages in Mesoamerica, dating to approximately 500 BCE; there is continued debate whether the written Zapotec language is the oldest in ancient Mesoamerica, with discovered Olmec figures possibly dating to roughly 600 BCE. Interestingly, Zapotec is a tone language – a language in which the meaning of the spoken word is dependent on the pitch of the voice – and features 4 distinct tonemes: high, low, rising, and falling; this language feature is more commonly observable in Asiatic languages, specifically in South Asia, strongly suggesting the aforementioned cultural links between the regions in early migration to the Americas.
