Acolhua (TK207r)

This painted compound Nahuatl hieroglyph represents the personal name or ethnicity Acolhua (a person from Acolhuacan or the Tetzcoco region), attested as pertaining to a man. The compound has three or four parts. The water (atl), at the top, starts the name by providing the phonetic syllable A-, although it likely made a semantic contribution to the original place name from which this ethnic label derives.. This water is painted a purple-gray color. It has lines of current (movement) and alternating droplets or beads and turbinate shells splashing off the flow. Below the water is a bent arm and hand. The water appears to come out of the shoulder (acolli), and this body part provides the Acol- start to the name/ethnicity, overlapping with the sound provided by atl. This element may contribute a semantic value to the original place name Acolhuacan, so we are not counting it as a disyllabogram. One could also wonder if the extended hand, perhaps grasping, accounts for the -hua- phonetic syllable that concludes the name or ethnic label. The final element, the lower body part (tzintli) of a man, most likely contributes the phonetic syllable for the reverential suffix -tzin. This reverential is not included in the gloss, but perhaps it was meant to be.