When we observe, in the table of alphabets of different European nations which I give herewith, how greatly the forms of the Phoenician letters have been modified, it would surprise us to find any resemblance between the Maya alphabet of two or three centuries since and the ancient European forms.  It must, however, be remembered that the Mayas are one of the most conservative peoples in the world.  They still adhere with striking pertinacity to the language they spoke when Columbus landed on San Salvador; and it is believed that that language is the same as the one inscribed on the most ancient monuments of their country.  Senor Pimental says of them, “The Indians have preserved this idiom with such tenacity that they will speak no other; it is necessary for the whites to address them in their own language to communicate with them.”  It is therefore probable, as their alphabet did not pass from nation to nation, as did the Phoenician, that it has not departed so widely from the original forms received from the Colhuas.

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The Alphabet

But when we consider the vast extent of time which has elapsed, and the fact that we are probably without the intermediate stages of the alphabet which preceded the archaic Phoenician, it will be astonishing if we find resemblances between any of the Maya letters and the European forms, even though we concede that they are related.  If we find decided affinities between two or three letters, we may reasonably presume that similar coincidences existed as to many others which have disappeared under the attrition of centuries.

The first thought that occurs to us on examining the Landa alphabet is the complex and ornate character of the letters.  Instead of the two or three strokes with which we indicate a sign for a sound, we have here rude pictures of objects.  And we find that these are themselves simplifications of older forms of a still more complex character.  Take, for instance, the letter pp in Landa’s alphabet, ### :  here are evidently the traces of a face.  The same appear, but not so plainly, in the sign for x, which is ### .  Now, if we turn to the ancient hieroglyphics upon the monuments of Central America, we will find the human face appearing in a great many of them, as in the following, which we copy from the Tablet of the Cross at Palenque.  We take the hieroglyphs from the left-hand side of the inscription.  Here it will be seen that, out of seven hieroglyphical figures, six contain human faces.  And we find that in the whole inscription of the Tablet of the Cross there are 33 figures out of 108 that are made up in part of the human countenance.

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We can see, therefore, in the Landa alphabet a tendency to simplification.  And this is what we would naturally expect.  When the emblems—­which were probably first intended for religious inscriptions, where they could be slowly and carefully elaborated—­were placed in the hands of a busy, active, commercial people, such as were the Atlanteans, and afterward the Phoenicians, men with whom time was valuable, the natural tendency would be to simplify and condense them; and when the original meaning of the picture was lost, they would naturally slur it, as we find in the letters pp and x of the Maya alphabet, where the figure of the human face remains only in rude lines.