CMGG entry for "21+"      (This article is part of the Learner's Maya Glyph Guide and Concordance.)

Translation: Numbers greater than “20”
Part of speech: Noun

Spellings of "21+"

                  

AT-E1168-lecture6.t0:52:14                                                        AT-E1168-lecture6.t0:52:14                                                                      AT-E1168-lecture6.t0:52:14

20 and 2                         6 and 20                                                  52          80          55         80             96                   57          80                 5 and 3 x 20 = 65 <tz’ak:bu>.li

 

·     These are distinct from the higher counts of days in the DN or LC. These are actual numbers counting objects.

·     At AT-E1168-lecture6.t0:52:14, Tokovinine explains that for numbers higher than “20” the native mode was to say the single digit first, before the “20”, so: “2” and “20” for “22”, “6” and “20” = for “26”, etc. He further explains that one occasionally does find this order of writing. but that in most of the written texts (including the surviving manuscripts from the Postclassic period) we find it the other way around: the single digit comes after the “20”. The speculation is that this system is very old, and inherited from another language (e.g. from the Olmecs) where the 20’s were said before the single digit. So they adopted that order when writing, but when reading it out, they would read out the single digit first.

·     For numbers higher than 40, multipliers were used for the WINIK/WINAAK logogram, and the remainder was written with bars-and-dots. The multiplier could be written either by writing the WINIK/WINAAK multiple times, or by writing a multiplier using the bar-and-dot notation, connected to the WINIK/WINAAK.