Ahuacatlan (Mdz39r)
This compound glyph for the place name Ahuacatla consists of an avocado (ahuacatl) tree with imbedded teeth (tlantli), the latter providing the phonetic value for the locative suffix, -tlan (place, by, among). The tree has a leader and two additional branches, plus some extra leaves, and red curly roots. The tree appears to provide a frontal view. The teeth are white, and the mouth--which is in profile facing to the viewer's right--is slightly open.
Stephanie Wood
The locative suffix, as given in the gloss for the place name, is -tla (or -tlah, if we show the glottal stop), which suggests a place where avocados are abundant. But, given the teeth, the final (-n) was probably inadvertently omitted, and the locative suffix is -tlan. As Gordon Whittaker has discovered, the full mouth of teeth can often imply the locative suffix -tlan with a ligature -ti-, resulting in the post-position -titlan. But this is an exception and the ligature does not appear in this place name.
Stephanie Wood
ahuacatla. puo
Ahuacatlan, pueblo
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
avocados, trees, roots, teeth, dientes, aguacates, árboles, raíces
![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Ahuacatlan39rGlyph_0.png?itok=IquYLp_n)
ahuaca(tl), avocado, avocado tree, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ahuacatl
tlan(tli), tooth/teeth, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlantli
-tlan (locative suffix), by, near, among, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/
"Avocado Place" [Frances Karttunen, unpublished manuscript, used here with her permission.]
"By the Avocados" (Whittaker, 2021, 101); "Where There are Many Avocados" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, p. 169))
AHUACA-tlan2
"Lugar de Aguacates"
Stephanie Wood
Codex Mendoza, folio 39 recto, https://codicemendoza.inah.gob.mx/inicio.php?lang=english
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)