Aocnel (MH627v)
This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Aocnel (perhaps "Good for Nothing," attested here as a man's name) shows what may be a tomato, pumpkin, or a gourd with greenery (not colored here) on the top and perhaps a stem at the bottom. This just might be an ayotl (squash), employed by the tlacuilo as a near homophone for Aoc-. A hand to the left of the food item grasps a tool with which, perhaps, to stir and mix (-nel) something in what could become a cup. See how this relates to other glyphs for Aocnel and to the glyph Tlanenel, below, which seem to have something to do with mixing.
Stephanie Wood
Aoc (an adverb) means no longer. Nel was originally short for nelli (an adjective), true, but James Lockhart explains that it became ubiquitous in particle combinations, losing the meaning of "true." See Lockhart's explanation in our Online Nahuatl Dictionary entry for canel.
Other Aocnel personal name glyphs in this collection (see below) sometimes have what appear to be cups with stirring implements. Yet another shows a vine with leaves. Gourds could be made into cups.
Orozco y Berra suggests a translation of "bueno para nada," good for nothing. See our Dictionary entry.
Stephanie Wood
Juan
aocnel
Juan Aocnel
Stephanie Wood
1560
Jeff Haskett-Wood
medicinas, medicines, remedies, plantas, tubérculos, frutas, nombres de hombres
aoc, no longer, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/aoc
nel(li), true, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/nelli
aocnel, null, good for nothing, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/aocnel
Bueno Para Nada
Stephanie Wood
Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 627v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=337st=image.
This manuscript is hosted by the Library of Congress and the World Digital Library; used here with the Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SAq 3.0).
