the word for "jaguar" in maya is "balam," okay ? now any maya who saw the jaguar head is going to say "balam," just like you're an english speaker, you see the jaguar, you'd say "jaguar." but there is more than one cat. so they could draw their jaguar head... and they could put a sign in front of it that tells you how to pronounce the first part of the word as "ba." this is "ba." or they could put at the end of it a sign that tells you whathe final sound was. this is a "ma". but they could also if they wanted to just eliminate the jaguar head and spell it completely with syllables, so that you would have "ba..." "la..." "ma." and you don't pronounce the last "a". keach: the glyphs recorded by bishop landa were, in fact, syllables -- 27 syllables. but hundreds of syllables were needed to record ancient mayan. maya scribes often carved these glyphs in fanciful ways to resemble animals or people. the creativity and innovation of maya scribes is one of the joys and challenges of deciphering. david stuart, george stuart's son, has been d