Tlachquiyauhco (Mdz45r)

Tlachquiyauhco (Mdz45r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Tlachquiyauhco features a ball court (tlachtli) and rain drops (quiyahuitl) falling on the court. The locative suffix (-co) is not shown visually, but perhaps the landscape provides a semantic locative. This ball court has the classic shape of a capital letter "i" lying on its side. The court a colorful one, with turquoise blue in the upper right corner, followed by (clockwise) yellow, green, and red. It also has yellow rings in the center. There are six water signs with a single droplet at the bottom of each one, representing rain (quiahuitl) or quiyahuitl).

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

Quiyahuitl and quiahuitl are really the same word with two different spellings, both acceptable. The colors of the four quadrants of the ball court vary in the examples from the Codex Mendoza in this collection. (See below, right.)

Importantly, the rain in this compound could be playing a phonetic rather than a logographic role, in that -quiyahuac says "outside" or "at the entrance," and that may be the referent. The translation of the glyph may therefore be "At the Entrance to the Ball Court," or "Outside the Ball Court."

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

phonetic dimensions

place name

Syntax:

locative (not visual, but represented semantically)

noun(s)

Writing Features:

compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Names (places)

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods

Sports, Games, Leisure

Water

Weather, Climate

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Shapes and Perspectives:

circle(s) (small, often concentric)

circle (half)

horizontal

rectangular

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

back to front

Keywords:

ball courts, ballcourts, canchas, pistas, juegos, pelotas, rain, lluvia, agua, Tlaxiaco, Mixteca

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

tlach(tli), ball court, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlachtli
quiyahui(tl), rain, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/quiyahuitl
-quiyahuac, outside or at the entrance, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/quiyahuac
a(tl), water, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/atl

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 45 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 100 of 188.

Image Source, Rights:

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).