Tlahuel (MH518v)

Tlahuel (MH518v)
Simplex Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description: 

This black-line drawing of the simplex glyph for the personal name Tlahuel (perhaps "Hello!" or "A Conjuring Expression") is attested here as a man's name. It shows part of a human face in profile, facing toward the viewer's right, and emitting five speech scrolls, three curling upward at the ends and two curling downward.

Description, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis: 

Tlahuel is a name that is also attested in the Codex of Santa María de la Asunción. (See the Online Nahuatl Dictionary.) Tlahuel has been translated as "Hola!" in one source and a conjuring expression in another. (See the Gran Diccionario Náhuatl.) Thus, the speech scrolls coming from the person's mouth in this glyph may be a greeting or an expression of conjuring. For other speech scrolls in glyphs, see below.

The noun tlahuelli speaks to rage, fury, and indignation, seemingly provoking the opposite of fine and dignified speech. Huel is an intensifier (like "greatly"), and that ties in with tlahuelli as relating to an intense feeling, although perhaps it was once an intensely positive thing. In contemporary speech, tlahuel seems to be a friendly greeting.

Added Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image: 
Gloss Diplomatic Transcription: 

dio tlavel

Gloss Normalization: 

Diego Tlahuel

Gloss Analysis, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Date of Manuscript: 

1560

Creator's Location (and place coverage): 

Huejotzingo, Puebla, Mexico

Semantic Categories: 
Cultural Content, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Keywords: 

scrolls, volutas, palabras, hablar, conjurar, nombres de hombres

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

Tlahuel, a name, a greeting, or a conjuring expression, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlahuel-0
tlahuel(li), anger, rage, fury, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tlahuelli

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation: 

¡Hola!

Spanish Translation, Credit: 

Stephanie Wood

Image Source: 

Matrícula de Huexotzinco, folio 518v, World Digital Library, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_15282/?sp=116&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).

Orthography: 
Historical Contextualizing Image: