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

Alternative readings: UN
Translation: avocado
Part of speech: Noun

Logogram spellings of uun

                                                    

K&L.p46.#2                                                                                      TOK.p16.r3.c3                BMM9.p12.r7.c3           

UN                                                                                                      UUN                                UN                                                                                                                                              

 

                                        

K&L.p14.#1                                                                                      TOK.p31.r3.c4

UN                                                                                                     UN

 

·     No glyphs given in K&H.

·     Variants (2):

o A. Boulder – features:

§ An upright vine (i.e. growing upwards).

§ Cross-hatched circle (=the seed of the avocado fruit?) – optionally occasionally with no cross-hatching.

Do not confuse this variant with TAK = “dry”, which has K’IN in the top left whereas UUN / UN = “avocado” has a cross-hatched circle.

Do not confuse this variant with tzu, which has LEM in the top left whereas UUN / UN = “avocado” has a cross-hatched circle.

This is similar to HOP. It’s not clear whether a distinction can be made between a cross-hatched circled and a non-cross-hatched circle because the non-cross-hatched circle examples might just be due to erosion.

o B. Mammal head (probably a dog?) – features:

§ Mammal ear.

§ Open mouth with 1-2 fangs.

§ Parallel arcs in cheek and back of head (“sound waves”).

·     Pronunciation:

o Both TOK and K&L (which consistently indicate long vowels) give UUN for the “boulder with vine” variant.

o TOK.p16.r3.c3 (the vine-based variant) is given as UUN (long -uu-) while  TOK.p31.r3.c4 (the mammal head variant) is given as UN (short -u-).

·     I have not seen either variant used to write the concept of “avocado”. All the instances of both which I’ve seen are as a rebus to write the month name uniw.