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

Translation: road, way
Part of speech: Noun

Logogram spellings of bih

                                   

JM.p44.#1                    MC.p162.r5.c3                        AT-E1168-lecture6.t0:07:30(.6)              

bi/BI                              BIH/bi                                        bi:hi

 

·     No glyphs (as logogram BIH) given in K&H, K&L, TOK, BMM9, 25EMC, CMC4.

o It looks as if most of the standard teaching resources view this glyph only as BIX and not BIH.

o The “footprint” variant is considered by Bonn to be bi and BIH.

·     JM and MC are the only sources to give this as a logogram; BMM9, K&H, K&L, TOK give it as bi only.

·     It’s highly likely that almost all syllabograms have their origin in iconographic representations of the original words (reduced by the acrophonic principle to syllabograms. In that sense, in some cases (when writing the “original” word), it’s pointless to wonder whether such a glyph is functioning as a logogram or purely a syllabogram with underspelling (in this case, with the -h underspelled).

·     Do not confuse this with the visually (and semantically?) related BIX = “go by road, walk, travel”.