·     No glyphs given in K&H.

·     HoustonEtAl-TLK.p2: speculates that AK’ might be a female turkey, because of instances of the logogram without the full wattle.

·     EB is the only source to list ak’ach as “turkey hen”, K&H, K&L, BMM9 all list it as “(male) turkey”.

·     Do not confuse this with the homonym ak’ = “dance”. [This is only relevant for the people who subscribe to reading logogram AK’ = “dance” – I prefer AK’OT, which is then not a homonym of AK’ = “turkey”).]

·     Is -ACH some sort of noun- or animal-suffix? It’s found (optionally) in AK’ACH “turkey” and EHMACH “raccoon”?

o Dorota Bojkowska: Don’t know, but both are sometimes left out, i.e. written in brackets.

o Sim: do not confuse with another noun suffix which fell into disuse – EB.p20.pdfp25.fn15: Albeit tentative, the entries akul (EC) vs. ak (LC), batz’ul (EC)) vs. batz’ (LC), and pipul (LC) vs. pip (LC) may indicate that there once existed a group of animal names that originally had an -ul suffix (e.g., akul, batz’ul, chanul, chil kayul, pipul, sak chikul, sipul), which apparently during the late Classic period was lost (with the exception of conservatism on part of certain scribes/sculptors). This suffix may have been existential in nature. Also another group of nouns, if correctly identified, seems to have been suffixed with an -ul suffix (e.g., anul, ebul, lekul, temul, tz’ikul).

·     Features:

o The “snood” – the curved, flowing, tapering, slightly spiral wattle, divided into 4-5 sections, some sections with centre dot or dotted spine.

o Short, thick, hooked beak.

o Nostril.

o Optionally – oval with 3 tiny dots in the top right. [Sim: this seems to be the “bone property marker”, which is slightly out of place here; perhaps present because of the “leathery” head of a turkey?]

o Can resemble the bird variant of AJAW (see the CRN examples), including even having an ear with strip of paper pulled through the hole in the earlobe: Dorota Bojkowska confirms this and thinks it’s an infixed glyph, perhaps not simply AJAW, because the strip of paper pulled through the hole in the earlobe is not a sign of high status or prestige, but rather of captives about to be sacrificed, or a clown.

 

·     The substitution of the logogram for the pure syllabogram spelling a:k’a in the CRN ruler Chak Ak’ Paat Kuy’s name helps to determine the pronunciation of the logogram. The element below k’a remains a mystery.

·     So far, there is no example of ak’ach in pure syllabogram spelling.