Tizayocan (Mdz22r)
This compound glyph for the place name Tizayocan has three elements. There is a simplified hill or mountain (tepetl) that could be serving as a silent locative, not entering into the place name phonetically. Inside the hill shape are black dots which convey the idea of chalk (tizatl). Below the hill there is a series of horizontal, alternating footprints.
Stephanie Wood
The footprints represent the noun for road (otli), providing a phonetic value for the "yo" element, which refers to a place that has a "lot of" something or is "full of" something. This differs from the footprint on top of a hill, which more typically indicates the verb pano (to cross over), providing the phonetic value of the locative suffix -pan, such as can also be seen in the compound glyphs for Tlaltizapan, Ocpayocan, Xomeyocan, and Xocoyocan. (See: Gordon Whittaker Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs, 2021, 100.)
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.
Stephanie Wood
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
tiza(tl), chalk, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tizatl
-yo(tl)-, having that characteristic or quality/inalienable possession, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/yotl
-can (locative suffix), where, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/can-2
"Where It's Chalky" (Whittaker 2021, 101)
Codex Mendoza, folio 22 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 54 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).