Tepalnemi (MH591r)

Tepalnemi (MH591r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black-line drawing of the compound glyph for the personal name Tepalnemi (“Servant,” attested here as a man’s name) shows a frontal view of a stone, which serves as a phonetic indicator that the name begins with Te-, which is an indefinite pronoun referring to people in general. Going around the stone are footprints, which are semantic indicators of the the movement of nemi, the verb meaning "to go about." This -nemi may or may not have a phonetic indicator value. The term tepalnemi refers to a servant, not literally to someone who goes around with others. But a servant will sometimes live with others.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

Footprint glyphs have a wide range of translations. In this collection, so far, we can attest to yauh, xo, pano, -pan, paina, temo, nemi, quetza, otli, iyaquic hualiloti, huallauh, tepal, tetepotztoca, totoco, otlatoca, -tihui, and the vowel "o." Other research (Herrera et al, 2005, 64) points to additional terms, including: choloa, tlaloa, totoyoa, eco, aci, quiza, maxalihui, centlacxitl, and xocpalli.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

luis tepalnemi

Gloss Normalization: 

Luis Tepalnemi

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzingo, Puebla, Mexico

Semantic Categories: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Jeff Haskett-Wood

Shapes and Perspectives: 
Parts (compounds or simplex + notation): 
Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation): 
Keywords: 

footprints, huellas, stones, piedras, sirvientes, mozos, servants, live-in

Glyph or Iconographic Image: 
Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s): 
Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

Mozo de Servicio

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 
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: