Iyaqui (Verg29r)

This compound Nahuatl hieroglyph is a black-line drawing of the personal name Iyaqui (“Young Distinguished Warrior”), attested here as a man’s name. Three elements comprise this compound. One is the head of a young man in profile facing left. His hair appears to be short and curly, which may express his youth. This must be the semantic sense of “youth” of this noun, Iyaqui. Water comes from his mouth, which seems to be a phonetic complement for the -a- sound in the middle of the name. Finally, two alternating footprints go off toward the left from the man’s forehead. The adverb iyaquic means “on foot,” which makes the footprints into a phonetic complement to the term iyaqui, referring to the warrior. The footprints can also provide the syllable -ya- from yauh (to go). Another very similar Iyaqui compound appears in the Codex Vergara on folio 32r.