Hi Dave
Sure. I started looking at Mayan
1) to compare with Chinese/Japanese
2) because it is an independent writing system that (one assumes) can have had no connection with the other traditions.
Nevertheless it is amazing that the principles they used are quite reminiscent of the Egyptian system.
Well the one that jumps out of the stele or whatever is that Mayan is mostly heads and Egyptian has a lot of birds. In both cases there is a mix of logographic and phonetic elements. In Egyptian you even have an alphabet. Noteworthy in the Mayan case is that the phonetic elements have a large number of alternatives (about a dozen ways to write “u” for example). I could go on …
Frank
The Maya phonetic symbols are CV syllables e.g. “ti” but apparently can also be used for the corresponding VC i.e. “it” or the final vowel may not be realized: thus, rather like an alphabet. I understand the same thing happens in the case of Hittite and maybe linear B. So not quite like hiragana/katakana where there is no possibility of reversal.
However, in contrast to Chinese or Egyptian, radicals i.e. parts of the character/glyph indicating the meaning or the type of word are not used.
j2epatent 
Hi Dave
Sure. I started looking at Mayan
1) to compare with Chinese/Japanese
2) because it is an independent writing system that (one assumes) can have had no connection with the other traditions.
Nevertheless it is amazing that the principles they used are quite reminiscent of the Egyptian system.
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Hi Frank
Could you compare and contrast Egyptian and Mayan writing systems?
Dave
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Well the one that jumps out of the stele or whatever is that Mayan is mostly heads and Egyptian has a lot of birds. In both cases there is a mix of logographic and phonetic elements. In Egyptian you even have an alphabet. Noteworthy in the Mayan case is that the phonetic elements have a large number of alternatives (about a dozen ways to write “u” for example). I could go on …
Frank
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Please do!
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The Maya phonetic symbols are CV syllables e.g. “ti” but apparently can also be used for the corresponding VC i.e. “it” or the final vowel may not be realized: thus, rather like an alphabet. I understand the same thing happens in the case of Hittite and maybe linear B. So not quite like hiragana/katakana where there is no possibility of reversal.
However, in contrast to Chinese or Egyptian, radicals i.e. parts of the character/glyph indicating the meaning or the type of word are not used.
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