nahuatl (Mdz2v)
This element for speech (nahuatl) has been carved from the compound glyph for the place name Cuauhnahuac. The visual captures what scholars call a speech scroll. This one rolls horizontally to the left, with the curling part down. It is painted turquoise.
Stephanie Wood
The speech scroll is a visual meant to evoke -nahuac, a locative, which sounds like nahuatl but means "near" or "next to." Its coloring (turquoise blue) may suggest a reverence for the spoken word. In Nahua culture, the ruler was the tlahtoani, the one who speaks. See below right, for other examples of the speech scroll, which can present itself to the left or to the right, usually curling under. One presentation of nahuatl has many curls and a yellow color, and this one awaits fuller analysis. Also below, right, the viewer may see some examples of how nahuatl could be used to represent the locative -nahuac.
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
speech scrolls, volutas
nahua(tl), speech, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/nahuatl
nahua, to speak, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/nahua
-nahuac (locative), near or next to, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/nahuac
la voluta
Stephanie Wood
Codex Mendoza folio 2 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 15 of 188.
The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).
