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

Translation: west
Part of speech: Adjective

Spellings of och k'in

                                                                    

K&H.p85.#7 = MC.p124.r5               JM.p195.#1                    MC.p124.r4

OCH:K’IN:ni                                         OCH:K’IN                        OCH:K’IN

 

·     No glyph(s) in BMM9, K&L, TOK.

·     Literally “enter sun” – the sun entering, presumably, the horizon in the west, as a reference to the West.

·     K&H and K&L list three words for “west” ochk’in, chikin, lak’in. They explain that only the first is used in Classic Maya, the other two are Postclassic:

o K&L.p88: chik’in – cardinal direction; used only in the Postclassic period in Yucatan, replaces the Classic-period Ch’olan term ochk’in.

o K&L.p97: lak’in – cardinal direction; used in the Postclassic period in Yukatan; replaced ochk’in of the Classic period (this is a typo).

o K&L.p100: ochk’in – cardinal direction; used in the Classic period in the Lowlands; replaced by chik’in in the Postclassic.

·     K&L do not consider this ‘fist’ OCH to be equivalent to the ‘rattle-snake tail’ OCH:

o K&L.p43: ‘fist’ OCH – graphic motivation and meaning unknown.

o K&Lp19: ‘rattle-snake tail’ OCH – rebus for och ‘to enter’ and o’ch ‘food, nourishment’ – calling the use of the rattle-snake tail as a rebus for writing the meaning ‘to enter’ seems odd – the tail shows the snake has entered the ground / a rock, etc, so it’s actually an ideogram – no used in a lot of contexts.

·     Features:

o Top: fist with thumb sticking out.

§ Thumb can point either to the left or right, but most commonly to the right.

§ Optionally, an infixed K’IN.

o Bottom: K’IN (optional ni end phonetic complement).