tzapotl (Mdz20v)
This element for tzapotl (zapote in Spanish, sapote in English), a fruit that comes from a tree, has been carved from the compound sign for the place name, Tzapotitlan. The tree consists of a trunk, a leader, and two more branches. The trunk is green, as are the branches. The greenery on the branches is a two-tone green. Protruding from each branch's greenery are three short stems, each one with a round fruit at the end. The tree also has curling, red roots. The term for the fruit is tzapotl; in Book 11 of the Florentine Codex the tree is called a tzapocuahuitl.
Stephanie Wood
In the other examples of the tzapotl (zapote, sapote) that we have from various compound glyphs (below right), we see green balls (an apple-like fruit) in lieu of the stones. Some of these trees have one, two, or three fruits per branch. Alonso de Molina translates tzapotl as "cierta fruita conocida," a type of fruit that is known (i.e. locally]. Some call this tree the Mexican apple, or "sapote tree" in English. According to Wikipedia, the fruit is edible, it contains pharmacological properties such as histamines, and the seeds may have been used by the Aztecs to make poison.
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
trees, branches, roots, árboles, ramas, raíces, fruits, frutas
tzapo(tl), sapote, a fruit tree, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tzapotl
el árbol zapote
Stephanie Wood
Codex Mendoza, folio 20 verso, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 51 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).
