Sinais silábicos e escrita fonética maia (Fuvest 2001)
MICHAEL D. COE'S Breaking the Maya Code. Revised paperback edition. First published 1992. Thames & Hudson, New York, 1999 ($18.95). The decipherment of the Maya script was, Coe states, "one of the most exciting intellectual adventures of our age, on a par with the exploration of space and the discovery of the genetic code." He presents the story eloquently and in detail, with many illustrations of the mysterious Maya inscriptions and the people who tried to decipher them. Most of the credit, he says, goes to the late Yuri V. Knorosov of the Russian Institute of Ethnography, but many others participated. They did not always agree, and some of them went up blind alleys. Coe— emeritus professor of anthropology at Yale University—vividly describes the battles, missteps and successes. What is now established, he writes, is that "the Maya writing system is a mix of logograms and syllabic signs; with the latter, they could and often did write words purely phonetically."
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN APRIL 2000
[Ao lado do texto há uma ilustração em preto e branco de uma inscrição maia: um cartucho oval com glifos nas bordas e, no centro, a figura estilizada de um animal (felino manchado) com a cabeça voltada para trás. Legenda vertical: FROM BREAKING THE MAYA CODE]
Fonte: Scientific American, April 2000.
Which of these statements is true according to the passage?
- A) There is still uncertainty as to whether the Mayas used syllabic signs.
- B) The Mayas invented a purely phonetic writing system.
- C) Syllabic signs are evidence that the Mayas could match words and sounds.
- D) Scientists disagree about the major characteristics of the Maya writing system.
- E) Logograms were used by the Mayas to write phonetically.