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

Alternative readings: NAH
Translation: building, structure, house; first
Part of speech: Noun

Logogram spellings of naah

A black and white drawing of a bridge  Description automatically generated                                                                                                                 

TOK.p7.r1.c4                   BMM9.p10.r6.c2                                               JM.p177.#1             JM.p177.#2               JM.p177.#3                  JM.p178.#1

NAAH                                NAH                                                                     NAH                          NAH                           NAH                               NAH

 

A drawing of a faucet and a tap  Description automatically generated                               

K&L.p29.#4                                                                                                                          MC.p165.r1.c2.1&2&3

NAH                                                                                                                                      NAAH / na / NOJ?

 

                                                                                         

MHD.1G2a.1&2          MHD.1G2b.1&2&3               0004vb                    0004vl               0004vr            0004vt

NAAH                            NAAH                                      NAAH                      NAAH, na          NAAH, na        NAAH, na         

 

                            

PY5.1&2&3                                                                      0004vs                   0004vs

NAAH                                                                                NAAH                     NAAH

 

0004vc

NAAH

 

·    No glyphs given in K&H.

·    AT-YT2021-lecture17.t0:23:05-23:55: And very much like [in] present-day Mayan languages, the term “house” naah actually refers to something more than a single building. Like archaeologists... we usually call it [a] “patio-group” – so it’s a group of houses sharing a courtyard. In [the] present-day Ch’orti’-speaking area, a house will also include the courtyard in front it – so it would actually be the “edge of the house”: ti’ naah for the “mouth of the house”. […] So the palace at Sufricaya (where I work) is called “Three Platform House”, basically there are three platforms around the courtyard. The palace at Palenque – initially at least – was called the “Five Platform House” – presumably the enclosed space with some central buildings in the middle.

·    Variants (3):

o A. Reduced: “axe-blade”.

§ MHD distinguishes between MHD.1G2a and MHD.1G2b, though the difference is not clear to me.

§ The difference isn’t a “left-pointing blade” vs. a “right-pointing blade” (which is the case for Bonn’s 0004vl vs. 0004vr.

o B. Head: “axe-blade” + human-head:

§ The head can be below or to the right of the “axe-blade”.

o C. Head-only: Just the human-head, without the “axe-blade”.

·    MHD statistics (2024-05-17) – the reduced variant is much more common than the head variant. The head-only variant is probably very rare – MHD doesn’t even recognize such a variant, it’s only given by Bonn:

o Reduced (“axe-blade”): 1G2a (290 hits) + 1G2b (230 hits) = 520 hits.

o Head (“axe-blade” + human-head): PY5 = 28 hits.

o Head-only: no statistics available, as MHD doesn’t have a codepoint for it.

o MHD.1G2s is the “axe-blade” as syllabogram na. That doesn’t have that much to do with the “axe-blade” as logogram NAAH, but the statistics are vaguely of peripheral interest here: 1G2s = 35 hits, so much less common than the logogram reading.