![]() Ancient Scripts: Aztec. Quick Facts. Type. Logophonetic. Genealogy. Mesoamerican. Location. ![]() Americas > Mesoamerica. Time. 14. 00 CE to 1. CEDirection. Variable. The Aztecs, or Mexica as they called themselves, were the elite of a militaristic empire centered at Central Mexico when the Spanish conquistadores landed in America at the beginning of the 1. CE. When they arrived at the fertile Valley of Mexico at 1. New Mexico - listen online to music and talk radio. The Aztecs, or Mexica as they called themselves, were the elite of a militaristic empire centered at Central Mexico when the Spanish conquistadores landed in America. Mexican Flag Description The flag of Mexico is a tricolor featuring three vertical bands of equal size. From left to right, these bands are colored green, white, and. CE, they found the land already settled and divided by city states. As a result, the Aztecs adopted a writing system that had been used for many centuries before and shared by many of the other nations of Central Mexico. The language that the Aztec spoke was called Nahuatl. It was also the language of the majority of the people in Central Mexico and a lingua franca in large parts of Mesoamerica. The origin of Nahuatl writing is poorly understood. It most resembles Mixtec writing in that both use dots for numbers less than twenty (in contrast to the bar- and- dot notation used in Maya and Zapotec), share similar construction style of compound signs, and place emphasis on short texts that rely on painted scenes for narratives instead of longer texts. It is thought that Mixtec writing influenced Nahuatl writing, but both are possibly influenced by earlier writing systems of cities such as Xochicalco, Cacaxtla, and the even more ancient Teotihuacan. Nahuatl writing was primary written on perishable media such as deer- skin and paper codices. General Overview. Nahuatl writing had three primary functions, namely to mark calendrical dates, to record accounting mathematical calculations, and to write names of people and places. Like other Mesoamerican scripts, the core of Nahuatl writing consists of a set of calendrical signs and a vigesimal number system. The most important calendrical cycle observed by the Aztecs was the 2. Newly formed collapse feature (sinkhole) Newly formed chimney or solution pipe (deep, vertical holes) Newly formed slump or depression (early stages, soil subsidence.Nahuatl. The tonalpohualli is essentially two parallel and interlocking cycles, one of 2. The following are the 2. Aztec sacred calendar. A date in the tonalpohualli is composed of a day sign and and a coefficient. The Aztecs had a 3. In addition, like other Mesoamerican cultures, the Aztecs also employed the Calendar Round, a 5. In this document, Aztec years are correlated to Western Gregorian years. The dot system, while feasible for calendrical use (since no number will ever exceed 2. Aztec Empire had to record large amounts of tribute frequently demanded from its provinces. The previous examples are taken from the Codex Mendoza, and they provide both the Aztec and Spanish versions of the information they are conveying. Logograms. In addition to calendrical and numeric signs, a number of highly pictorial logograms were used to write down personal names, names of places, and historical events. In the following example, the ancient cities Colhuacan and Tenayucan were shown to be conquered. The Nahuatl language is polysynthetic, which means that compound words and long phrases are constructed from roots and affixes. Reflecting this characteristic, Aztec names are often written as groups of highly pictorial logograms that make up the roots of the name. The glyphs are joined together or even sometimes combined into a single glyph (a process called conflation) to show that they form a compound word. The following are a number of examples of logograms forming glyph blocks. Note that logograms are transcribed using bold upper case letters in their root forms, meaning the unchanging part of the word. Also note that Nahuatl nouns are transcribed in italicized lower case letters in the absolutive case, which is the root plus an ending of either - tl, - tli, or - li. ![]() ![]() While too longer to explain here, the absolutive case in Nahuatl can be thought as the singular subject of a sentence. Chilapan means . The red (presumably hot) chile pepper glyph is the logogram CHIL, which represents the Nahuatl root chil- li (. The other glyph is a stylized cross- section of a river which is the logogram for APAN, standing for the Nahuatl root apan (. Note that in general, suffixes that meaning . Macuilxochic therefore means . Ocelotepec contains a glyph in the form of a wildcat head that stands for the logogram OSELO (ocelo- tl, . Once again the grammatical ending - c is omitted. Together the glyphs means . Nowadays this is a historical region of Mexico City that still preserves the canal and man- made islands of the lake that once covered modern Mexico City. Ilhuicamina, from ILWIKA (ilhuica- tl, . Note that the logogram ILWIKA . Chimalpopoca is composed of two logograms, CHIMAL (chimal- li, . Note that the temple in this case is part of the logogram TEMO. Ehecatlapechco means . To solve this, in certain cases a logogram is used for its phonetic value rather than its meaning in order to represent another root, suffix, or syllable(s) that sounds identical or similar to the logogram. This process is called rebus writing and is also quite productive in Aztec writing, as you can see in the following examples. Tiger Salamander Description. They have various markings including vertical stripes, which is where their name comes from. They are often brown in color and the. Liver Mass in Dogs & Cats: What are liver tumors? The liver is an organ consisting of several lobes that has a number of functions in the body, including metabolism. ![]() Coatzinco means . The buttocks, tzin- tli, is used in this case as its root form tzin happens to be homophonous with the diminutive suffix - tzin which roughly means . The suffix - co (. Oztoticpac is composed of root osto- tl (. The glyph for cave OSTO is the head of a reptilian earth monster, as Mesoamericans viewed caves as living beings. And in order to write the suffix - icpa, the sign IKPA (icpa- tl, . Also, its position on top of the cave reinforces the concept of . The logogram KWAW in the form of a stylized tree- branch tree represents the root cuah. To represent - nahua, Aztec scribes used the sign group NAWA containing a mouth and a speech scroll to represent the verb nahua . In the present day this city is known as Cuernavaca, a form resulting from the Spanish mishearing Cuauhnahuac and transforming into a word with Spanish meaning. Calixtlahuaca is composed of the words cal- li (. The glyph KAL in the form of a house transparently represents the root cal. What is interesting is that the lower element, the brown rectangle with vertical notches, would be read as the logogram MIL (mil- li, . The root for . Phonetic Glyphs. Rebus writing is one of the ways to represent sounds rather than meanings in Nahuatl writing. In addition, a number of Nahuatl logograms can also function as single- syllable phonetic signs. And in fact, like rebus writing, their phonetic values are derived from the words the logograms represent. However, unlike rebus writing which uses the full sound of the root, phonetic glyphs are always single- syllable and take their value from the first syllable (minus any ending consonants) of the word the logograms represent. This is called the acrophonic principle and is found throughout writing systems of the world. The following is a chart of Nahuatl glyphs with known phonetic values. For example, the glyph a is derived from a- tl . Note that while logograms are transcribed using upper- case letters, phonetic signs are transcribed with lower- case letters. Often names found in Aztec manuscripts and monuments included a good amount of phonetic glyphs. Sometimes the phonetic glyphs serve to complement logograms, in that they spell out one or more syllables of the logogram. Sometimes the glyphs spell out whole syllables without the presence of logograms. And somewhat more rarely, the entire name is written out fully phonetically. Mapachtepec is composed of the Nahuatl roots mapach- tli (. Instead of drawing a raccoon, the root mapach is written fully phonetically by a combination of the phonetic glyph ma and the logogram PACH . Xocoyoltepec means . The wood sorrel or oxalis is xocoyol- li in Nahuatl and is denoted by the logogram XOKOYOL in the form of a three- leaf plant glyph. The foot under the plant is the phonetic glyph xo, functioning as a phonetic complement to make it clear that the plant depicted is indeed the wood sorrel. Amacoztitlan, from ama- tl (. The water glyph is the phonetic sign a in this case, providing the initial vowel /a/ and serving as the phonetic complement for the logogram AMA . The ending - tlan is phonetically depicted by the glyph tla. Tozoztontli is the third month of twenty days in the Aztec solar calendar. However, the root is in fact toso, which is why the word is represented by a bird (phonetic glyph to) pierced by a spine (phonetic so). Piaztlan means . The root piaz is almost fully spelled out completely using the phonetic glyphs pi and a. The ending - tlan is omitted in this case. Cihuatlan simply means . The head of the woman functions as the logogram SIWA (cihua- tl, . The two black vertical stripes is the phonetic sign wa and serves as phonetic complement to show that the female head should be read as cihua rather than the similar- looking female logogram NAN . The ending - tlan is once again omitted. Ilancueitl was the wife of the first Aztec emperor Amacapichtli. Her name means . The first root ilama- tl changes to ilan in this situation and appears to be only represented by the phonetic glyph la above the skirt. However, the mask inside the skirt might be a logogram for ilama- tl, which means that the phonetic glyph la would serve as a phonetic complement. Tizoc is the name of seventh Aztec emperor as recorded in colonial manuscripts, although the exact form and meaning of his name is unknown. In fact, there are several ways to write his name that compound the confusion. In the current example, it is written phonetically as te- so, or Tesoc, which might be a derivative of the verb eso . On the other hand, on the famous Tizoc Stone which commemorates his military conquests, his name is drawn as a leg with dots. The dots typically represent chalk, tisa- tl, and the leg might be the phonetic glyph xo, which would support the reading of Tisoc. However, whether his name has anything to do with chalk is unknown. Interestingly, one of the differences between Eastern and Western Nahuatl dialects is the alternation of the sounds /e/ and /i/, meaning that one word in Eastern Nahuatl with the sound /e/ has a corresponding word in Western Nahuatl with /i/.
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