Acocozpan (Mdz39r)

Acocozpan (Mdz39r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This compound glyph for the place name Acocozpan has two principal elements, the color yellow (coztic) and a canal or water channel (apantli), which could be meant to provide the starting ā- and the locative suffix -pan. The canal has yellow water in it. Apart from the unusual color, the water has its usual wavy lines of current or waves and the droplets (or beads) and shells splashing off the top of it. The canal has a trapezoid-shaped structure on the sides and bottom. It is yellow on the outside and red on the inside, next to the water.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

Berdan and Anawalt have suggested a reading of this place name as "On the Very Yellow Water." Karttunen finds that reading to be far fetched and suggests the root is the verb cocoxoca, "to make a sloshing sound," resulting in "On the Rough Water." She also mentions the possibility of cocox- ("sick") as being intended. [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)
Date of Manuscript: 

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Mexico City

Semantic Categories: 
place name
Syntax: 
adjective
noun(s)
reduplication (in gloss/text)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Movement
Names (places)
Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods
Water
Colors: 
yellow or golden
Shapes and Perspectives: 
trapezoidal
Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
2
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
inherent/internal/merged
Keywords: 

canals, canales, amarillo

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 

ā(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl
āpan(tli), canal or water channel, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/apantli
coztic, yellow, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/coztic
cocox(qui), sick person, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cocoxqui
cocoxoca, to make a sloshing sound, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cocoxoca
-pan (locative suffix), at or on, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pan

Karttunen’s Interpretation: 

"On the Rough Water." [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]

Additional Scholars' Interpretations: 

"On the Very Yellow Water." (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 169)

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

"En el Agua Turbulenta"

Image Source: 

Codex Mendoza, folio 39 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 88 of 188.

Image Source, Rights: 

Original manuscript is held by the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1; used here with the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0)