msamba

The Mixtec script looks like pictures. It’s a writing system. How does it work? What happened to it? Here’s what makes their glyphs unique, even how their usefulness outlasted colonization.

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~ Summary ~

Workers in California’s strawberry fields organize under pictography from the land of their home language: La Mixteca, Oaxaca. Glyphs reaching back 1000 years record the history of a people called the Mixtec (by the Aztec Empire) or Ñuu Dzaui (in their classic language). I’ll animate how this writing system was initially deciphered, how it works, and how it challenges our perspectives on writing. Along the way, I’ll animate some key points that really intrigued me when I read about them in my main sources:

an old colonial map served as a first Rosetta Stone for identifying glyphs
the system’s basic pieces consisted of logograms, tonal puns, puzzles and parallelisms
“Mixtec” script can be considered pure logography, setting it apart even from “Aztec”
reading glyphs required deep understanding of the old language and diverse modern varieties
experts drew a line, putting “true writing” on one side and Mexico’s old scripts on the other
voices close to the scripts replied by nuancing or outright challenging definitions of writing
pictorials use schemas and pieces, needing both deciphered and interpreted in order to be read
pictography wasn’t proto-writing but an advancement, with advantages over phonetic scripts
mistakes reveal who wrote and read the books, and roles they played in pictorial performances
scribes found a way to write multilingually, conveying messages in two languages at once

These insights lead us to end on the relevance of pictography to the community, the ñuu, throughout history. Pictography gained renewed importance under colonialism and, through what my main authors consider a prolonged period of erosion and endurance, continues to echo through the language, culture and artwork.

Thanks for watching. As in the poem title near the end, Ñuu Savi notice how often others speak for them, which happens yet again in this video. Below are links to help their efforts, to connect directly with their perspectives, and to vet my sources in detail.

~ Resources ~

Art, animation and most music by me. My sources document explains and supports claims and gives credit for images, sounds and fonts:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e…

Other groups I often point to include the general list at the bottom of this section:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y…

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