xoxouhqui (Mdz23r)

xoxouhqui (Mdz23r)
Element from a Compound

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This element for "something blue-green" (xoxouhqui) has been carved from the compound sign for the place name, Xoxouhtla. It is a circle with the interior painted turquoise blue. The black ink blob was not intentional.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

This element underlines how blue and green overlap in Nahua color naming. Turquoise can be both green and blue, or something in between, at least in Western estimations. This visual representation of a color is reminiscent of the way yellow has been contained in a geometric shape and painted and turquoise again in texotli. Sometimes the shape that is colored in a glyph is shared by another glyph in a compound, as we see with the huarache colored turquoise (see below, right).

Added 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

Syntax:

adjective

noun(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Color names

Turquoise or Jade

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

blue (turquoise)

Shapes and Perspectives:

circle, circular or rounded

Keywords:

colors, greens, blues, turquoise, colores, azules, verdes, turquesa

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

xoxouh(qui), something green, or blue-green, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/xoxouhqui

Additional Scholars' Interpretations:

blue-green

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

verde

Spanish Translation, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Image Source:

Codex Mendoza, folio 23 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 56 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).