Callalatl (Verg8r)

Callalatl (Verg8r)

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Callalatl (“House Land-Water,” attested here as a man’s name) shows a house (calli) in profile facing toward the viewer's left. Three sprays of water (atl), each with a droplet or bead at the end, emerges from the entry way of the building. Hanging down from the bottom of the T-shaped doorway of the building is a round bell with horizontal stripes and an opening at the bottom for the sound to escape.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

The bell seems to play a phonetic role to help the reader arrive at the sense of the water (irrigation) pertaining to house land, which was typically used for agricultural purposes, perhaps something like a kitchen garden. The verb "to ring" (calani) is something of a homophone for house land (callalli). The term for outside is calan, which is also close here.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

matheo.calalatl

Gloss Normalization: 

Mateo Callalatl

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript: 
Vergara, Codex (Verg)
Date of Manuscript: 

1539

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Tepetlaoztoc, near Tetzcoco

Semantic Categories: 
personal name
Syntax: 
noun(s)
onomatopoetic words
verb
Writing Features: 
compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Architecture, Construction, Buildings
Gender (male)
Music, Song, Dance
Names (personal and/or theonym)
Water
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors: 
black & white drawing (no color)
Shapes and Perspectives: 
bell-shaped (upright)
circle(s) (small, often concentric)
curving, curvy, curved
frontal view
rectangular
Parts (of compounds or simplex + notation): 
3
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
downward
Keywords: 

casas, campanas, campanillas, bells, agua, suena, pinjantes

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

cal(li), house, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/calli
a(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl
callal(li), cultivated house land, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/callalli
calani, to ring (as in a bell), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/calani
cacalaca, for bells to ring, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cacalaca

Image Source: 

Codex Vergara, folio 8r, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84528032/f23.item.zoom

Image Source, Rights: 

The non-commercial reuse of images from the Bibliothèque nationale de France is free as long as the user is in compliance with the legislation in force and provides the citation: “Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France” or “Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.” We would also appreciate a citation to the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/.

Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

Calli (MH485v)

Oyohual (MH495v)

atl (Mdz32r)