Language of the Olmecs

[Peter Selverstone]

Apologies for my last posting which was inadvertently
sent to the list.  This is the correct posting. Peter.
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Lloyd Anderson wrote:

>Mike Gaby asked:
>>Also anyone know the form of Mixe-Zoquean
>>allegedly spoken by "Olmecs"?

>This is of course a very difficult question, since
> the Olmecs flourished around 1500 BC to 400 BC
>or so (depending on who one asks).
>It may not be Mixe-Zoquean at all.

>According to John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman,
>it is Proto-Zoque, by the following reasoning:

>a)  Loan words in Mesoamerica are from Mixe-Zoquean
>     into other languages, including high-culture words
>b) The Olmecs were the originators of Mesoamerican
>     high culture.
>c)  Therefore the Olmecs must have spoken a Mixe-Zoquean
>     language

>And they further claim
>d)  The writing system of La Mojarra must represent the
>      Epi-Olmec people.  Given its date and location (Veracruz,
>      2nd century AD by its long counts), and the lack of evidence
>      for extensive migrations during the relevant time frames,
>      this writing must be interpreted as the writing of the successors
>      to the Olmecs, "Epi-Olmecs".
>e)  The writing system of La Mojarra is now in large part deciphered,
>     and is a Mixe-Zoquean language, specifically proto-Zoquean.

The most recent publication by Kaufman and Justeson on this subject is:

   A Newly Discovered Column in the Hieroglyphic Text on
   La Mojarra Stela 1: A Test of the Epi-Olmec Decipherment
   John S. Justeson and Terrence Kaufman
   Science 1997 July 11; 277: 207-210. (in Reports)

Full text of an expanded version of this paper is available at:
       http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/justeson.shl
A pdf fomat version is at:
       http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/justeson.pdf
(access to these locations may require registration, but does
 not require a subscription)

The original paper is:

   J. S. Justeson and T. Kaufman, Science 259, 1703 (1993).

An important subsequent article (in Spanish) is in an INAH journal:

   J. S. Justeson and T. Kaufman, Arqueologia 8, 1992 (1996).

Unlike Lloyd, I am not a linguist, but my understanding is that the
identification of the language of the Epi-Olmec writing system is
based on the results of a complete grammatical analysis of the
texts which conforms to the structure of pre-proto-Zoquean and to
no other reconstructable language.

One would not expect things to suddenly fall into place for a
writing system in which only four texts are known, however,
as reported in the more recent article in Science, an unexpected
discovery did provide a compelling test of the work.  Unless
someone demonstrates problems with either the evidence or
the reasoning or proposes another language consistent with
the regularities of the very long text of Stela 1, I'm happy to
accept the conclusion presented in that paper:

     This study shows that a previously unknown
     segment of text can be read and
     understood in terms of the same model for
     language structure, sign values, and spelling
     conventions that were developed in the
     previously achieved decipherment of the
     epi-Olmec script, and shows that the segment's
     content is well integrated with the
     previously read portion of the same text.
     Conversely, there are no phenomena in this
     stretch of text that challenge the model in
     any way. It is difficult to imagine that this
     model would yield a complete, coherent,
     and grammatical text if these portions of
     the decipherment-language structure, sign
     values, and spelling conventions-were not
     essentially correct. In our view, the data
     confirm the results obtained in the first two
     of our by now six years of our work on the
     decipherment of epi-Olmec writing.

When a testable hypothesis is presented in detail in
peer-reviewed journals, critics should make an effort
to understand the hypothesis, cite the basis of their
reservations, and submit their work to the peer review
process.  It appears to me that the only serious review
and testing of the epi-Olmec work has been done by
the authors themselves.  In my (amateur) opinion,
this reflects badly on the state of scholarship in
Mesoamerican writing systems.
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Peter Selverstone
peter at netway.com
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