Aztec script

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Aztec
Script type	Pictographic and logosyllabic
Time period	Most extant manuscripts from the 16th century
Languages	Unicode range	U+15C00 to U+15FFF (tentative)[1]
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

The Aztec or Nahuatl script is a

Origin

The Aztec writing system derives from writing systems used in Central Mexico, such as Zapotec script. Mixtec writing is also thought to descend from Zapotec. The first Oaxacan inscriptions are thought to encode Zapotec, partially because of numerical suffixes characteristic of the Zapotec languages.^[2]

Structure and use

Aztec was

A glyph could be used as a rebus to represent a different word with the same sound or similar pronunciation. This is especially evident in the glyphs of town names.[6] For example, the glyph for Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, was represented by combining two pictograms: stone (te-tl) and cactus (nochtli).

Aztec Glyphs do not have a set reading order, unlike

Numerals

The Aztec numerical system was vigesimal. They indicated quantities up to twenty by the requisite number of dots. A flag was used to indicate twenty, repeating it for quantities up to four hundred, while a sign like a fir tree, meaning numerous as hairs, signified four hundred. The next unit, eight thousand, was indicated by an incense bag, which referred to the almost innumerable contents of a sack of cacao beans.^[7]

Historical

Aztecs embraced the widespread manner of presenting history cartographically. A cartographic map would hold an elaborately detailed history recording events. The maps were painted to be read in sequence, so that time is established by the movement of the narrative through the map and by the succession of individual maps.

Aztecs also used continuous year-count annals to record anything that would occur during that year. All the years are painted in a sequence and most of the years are generally in a single straight line that reads continually from left to right. Events, such as solar eclipses, floods, droughts, or famines, are painted around the years, often linked to the years by a line or just painted adjacent to them. Specific individuals were not mentioned often, but unnamed humans were often painted in order to represent actions or events.^[8] When individuals are named, they form the majority of the corpus of logosyllabic examples.

Disappearance

Aztec script fell out of use due to colonial ecclesiastical and governmental authorities, with the help of the local inhabitants who were indoctrinated in Spanish culture. The evangelizers classified Aztec script as a creation of the devil and considered syllabic ideographic symbols as intangible characters. The Old Library of Texcoco, which according to various contemporary sources, contained a larger literary, technical and historical collection than the Old Library of Tenochtitlan, was destroyed by the colonial government under the orders of the religious Juan de Zumárraga, who collected the Aztec documents to be incinerated.^[9]

See also

• Aztec codices
• Damago Soto
• Hieroglyph
• Nahuatl language

References

Notes

• Lacadena, Alfonso (2008). "A Nahuatl Syllabary" (PDF). The PARI Journal. VIII (4).
• OCLC 2243103. Archived from the original
  (online facsimile) on 2009-11-22. Retrieved 2009-06-09.
• Prem, Hanns J. (1992). "Aztec Writing". In Victoria R. Bricker (volume ed.), with Patricia A. Andrews (ed.).
  OCLC 23693597
  .
• OCLC 50217224
  .
• Zender, Marc (2008). "One Hundred and Fifty Years of Nahuatl Decipherment" (PDF). The PARI Journal. VIII (4).
• Nuttall, Zelia (2008). "On the Complementary Signs of the Mexican Graphic System" (PDF). The PARI Journal. VIII (4).
• VanEssendelft, Willem (May 2011). The word made stone: deciphering and mapping the glyphs of the Tizoc stone (PDF). Harvard Special Collection: DingoFence. p. 86. Archived from the original (PDF) on Feb 2, 2014. Retrieved 2012-10-15.

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aztec glyphs.

• Lawrence Lo. "Aztec". Ancient Scripts. Archived from the original on 2017-10-28.
• Nicholson, H. B. (1974). "Phoneticism in the Late Pre-Hispanic Central Mexican Writing System". In E. P. Bensen (ed.). Mesoamerica Writing Systems. pp. 1–46.
• Thouvenot, Marc (2002). "Nahuatl Script". In Anne-Marie Christin (ed.). A History of Writing: From Hieroglyph to Multimedia. Flammarion.