Tenahuac (MH676r)

Tenahuac (MH676r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Tenahuac (perhaps “Near Someone” or “With People”) is attested here as a man's name. The glyph shows the face of a man in profile, looking to the left, toward the tribute payer. So close as to cover up part of the head that belongs to the face, and therefore very near to someone (tenahuac) is an upright stone. The stone has the typical curling ends and alternating diagonal stripes. The stone is a phonetic indicator that the name starts with Te-.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

Our Online Nahuatl Dictionary provides a sixteeeth-century example of tenahuac with this plural sense: huel tetloc, tenahuac tinemiz = podrás vivir al lado de la gente, entre la gente = you will be able to live at the side of people, among people. (See the link in the dictionary field in this record.) It is a beautiful thought for naming a baby to predict that future of being among people all its life, not alone. Perhaps it was a gregarious baby. -Nahuac is also an adverb that appears in this collection to refer to towns that are near something, such as woods (Cuauhnahuac), or near a bend (Acolnahuac), on the verge of war or near a battlefield, perhaps (Yaonahuac). Sometimes a speech scroll (evoking the word nahuatl) is used as a visual for this geographical sense of -nahuac.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Source Manuscript: 
Huexotzinco, Matrícula de (MH)
Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzingo, Puebla

Semantic Categories: 
personal name
phonetic dimensions
Syntax: 
adverb
noun(s)
Writing Features: 
compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)
Cultural Content & Iconography: 
Anatomy, human body parts
Gender (male)
Names (personal and/or theonym)
Stones, Rocks, Lapidary, Masonry
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Colors: 
black & white drawing (no color)
Shapes and Perspectives: 
striped
spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling
diagonal or angled
profile view
frontal view
facing left
Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
2
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
right to left
Keywords: 

cerca, junto, gente, personas, nombres de hombres

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

tenahuac, with or near someone, or with people, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tenahuac
te-, nonspecific human object prefix, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/te
te(tl), stone, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tetl
-nahuac, next to or near, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/nahuac
tehuan, with another person or persons, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tehuan

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

Cerca de Alguien, o Con Gente

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 676r, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=432&st=image.

Image Source, Rights: 

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).

Historical Contextualizing Image: 
See Also: 

Tenahuac (MH756r)

Tenahuac (MH497r)

Tenahuac (MH663r)