Dissertation Research: Ch'orti' Verbal Art and the Poetic Discourse Structures of Maya Hieroglyphs

在Brian Stross博士的指导下，Kerry Hull先生将为他的博士论文收集数据。他将对危地马拉使用的Ch‘orti’玛雅语进行语言学研究。这种语言是构成大多数玛雅象形文字的语言的最接近的直系后裔。赫尔一年的实地考察将涉及到口头背诵，直接引出，以及通过音频媒体记录治疗，农业和其他仪式。仪式和口头传统的转录将形成与母语人士分析讨论的基础，以充实这些古老表达形式中的关键细节和不透明的典故。然后将结果与玛雅象形文字中发现的特征进行比较，目的是将Ch‘orti’的诗歌话语形式和古老的隐喻参考与玛雅象形文字中祖先的语言联系起来。在目前破译玛雅象形文字的阶段，大量的表达可以在不完全理解其隐喻或仪式意义的情况下进行音节阅读。奇奥尔提语在语言上与玛雅象形文字的相似性表明，这两种语言可能也有相似的诗歌结构和古老的形式化表达。这项研究的意义是双重的。首先，该项目将直接有利于正在进行的玛雅象形文字的破译。从现存的汉语讲话者那里收集到的数据也将形成迄今为止对汉语仪式语言的诗歌风格最彻底的研究。这些话语中隐藏着古代文化观念和隐喻意象的痕迹，这些将为古玛雅人的语言、文化观念和仪式实践的研究提供信息。Ch‘orti’的数据将为分析在玛雅象形文字铭文中发现的风格相似的仪式形式提供基础。这方面的研究将使玛雅象形文字的讨论超越语法和词汇，表明这种书写系统在其他领域也很复杂。其次，该项目将保存目前正在消失的诗歌语言和仪式知识形式。这些文献对未来几代讲Ch‘orti’语的人以及拉丁美洲研究、历史、金石学、考古学、人类学、语言学、民族诗学和民族志的学者都很有用。

Under the direction of Dr. Brian Stross, Mr. Kerry Hull will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will conduct linguistic research on the Ch'orti' Maya language spoken in Guatemala. This language is the closest direct descendent of the language comprising most Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions. Hull's year of fieldwork in Ch'orti'-speaking communities will involve participant observation of oral recitation, direct elicitation, and recording through audio media of healing, agricultural, and other ceremonies. The transcriptions of ceremonies and oral traditions will then form the basis for analytic discussions with native speakers to flesh out critical details and opaque allusions in these ancient forms of expression. The results will then be compared to features found in the Maya hieroglyphic script with intent of correlating the poetic discourse forms and archaic metaphorical references in Ch'orti' with those of its ancestral language in the Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions. At the present stage of decipherment of Maya hieroglyphic writing, a large number of expressions can be read syllabically without a full understanding of their metaphorical or ritual meaning. Ch'orti's linguistic affinity to the language of the Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions suggests both languages may also share similar poetic structures and archaic formalized expressions. The significance of this research is twofold. First, the project will directly benefit the ongoing decipherment of the Maya hieroglyphic script. The data gathered from living Ch'orti' speakers will also form the most thorough study so far of the poetic styles of Ch'orti' ritual speech. Hidden within such speech are vestiges of ancient cultural conceptions and metaphorical imagery that will inform research on the language, cultural conceptions, and ritual practices of the ancient Maya. The Ch'orti' data will provide a basis for analyses of stylistically similar ritual forms found in Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions. This aspect of the study will carry the discussion of Maya hieroglyphic writing beyond grammar and vocabulary, showing that this writing system is complex in other domains as well. Second, this project will preserve the currently disappearing forms of poetic speech and ritual knowledge among the Ch'orti'. This documentation will be useful both for future generations of Ch'orti'-speakers and also for scholars of Latin American studies, history, epigraphy, archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, ethnopoetics, and ethnography.