Because little words like Pop, father, lollypop, soda or towel snapping, are all valid translations of one word (pop) in English. While "Bag," can actually mean "Sack," "paper bag" "get fired," "old hag", "bags under the eyes," "put groceries into a container," "to destroy a town." It is even more discouraging to translate the stelae and manuscripts of the Maya.
Language is 100% what the AREA expects it to be. Yet the Maya languages are being translated as a word from the Yucatec, Queché, Chol, Jalcatec, Maya, Tzetzal OR Cordimex . . . all within the same sentence. I don't think it can work that way.
Working alone on the East Panel was very discouraging at first, and even though the first section was badly deteriorated; the second section was more than sufficient.
When Linda Schele first began to investigate the Maya glyphs, she had the idea that there were glyphs that could be read as whole sentences, partial phrases, and finally whole words. She had discovered a sample of each and she knew that she was on the right track.
With such a large, daunting task ahead, it seemed expedient that she should create classes and work sessions to see if someone else might be able to translate either a single glyph or many glyphs. Such detailed work done over 25 years produced the births, ages, accessions, and deaths of the various rulers. What she called "Star Wars" stuck out as a sore thumb but little could be done with it. The various polities around Palenque were investigated. It was found that there were glyphs in those areas that either agreed with the dates in Palenque or seemed to add more information about that polity, its government and the petty wars with its neighbors. Yet, the glyphs about events, even as clearly stated as Star Wars was, could not be understood in depth.
I believe the original concept of mnemonics was lost once the phonetics of a few key words were discovered to have viable readings. Once the phonetics agreed with the grammar, there was a great rush for all groups to "jump on the bandwagon" to produce more complete words for each glyph. The mnemonics of sentences and phrases were laid to rest under many blankets of research..
Normal archaeology methods were used on the assumption that the Maya never moved far from their home villages. Only nearby polities, but as far south as Honduras and San Salvador were investigated for "connections." It stands to reason that if the Maya went south, they also went north. Yet, very few glyphs have been deciphered with northern polities in mind and very few northern or southern myths were investigated for early glyphic content.
Within a few years, the grammar began to become firmly established. One can not investigate a language without understanding the grammatical structure. "U", a prefix on many of the glyphs which acquired six variants and more than fifteen other distinct forms. All are considered to be "U," with exactly the same meaning. This was not Linda's original view of the glyphs. Her original lessons were that each infix, prefix, affix, overfix, underfix or suffix alone or combined indicated different adjectives relevent to the action(s) of the central core glyph. With the advent of spelled out words, all this was forgotten. The majority ruled.
The following is an example of what the glyphs might mean if all histories of the whole of ancient Mexico are used. One of the most important glyphs is the ancient glyph used for the polity Palenque, Bak (bone), that of a mirror or rainbow (the sky) and finally, the infix for bowl which has been pushed into a specific translation: "wood." If one never used an ancient water bowl or trough made of wood, one would never make the connection to "bowl" only "wood" and by inference, "tree" or "boat." However as a "boat" of the Gods, it is a "bowl" of water in which the stars can be seen.
Its verification is found in the observatory of Jaipur, India and on the wall mural of Atetelco, Teotihuacan, Large bowls with special markings used both by India and by the Aztecs to lay out the stars on a grid and measure them accurately. A world view is not usually accepted, but because the stars are seen world-wide within a single night during 24 hours (12 hours on one side of the world and 12 hours on the other), one can take into account the various forms of star viewing, especially if they are similar in nature, i.e. the bowl form.
This "reading" makes use of the symbols that are found in the various histories and myths of the land, but is not completely accurate by any means. It also makes use of the few glyph words that have been worked out by the epigraphers attending the Maya Seminar. The following therefore, is a suggested reading only. East Panel
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