Tlaltizapan (Mdz52r)
This compound glyph for the place name Tlaltizapan contains two principal features, a mound of dots representing chalk (tizatl) and, above that, a footprint providing the phonetic value of the locative suffix (-pan), meaning in or on, which derives here from the verb pano. The foot is facing the direction of the viewer's right. Humorously, the footprint has six toes. The mound has a bell shape somewhat reminiscent of tepetl (hill, mountain) or altepetl (town).
Stephanie Wood
The hill is a landscape feature and may provide a semantic complement that could point to the earth (tlalli). If not, the starting Tlal- of this place name is not shown visually or accounted for phonetically.
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, tetepotztoca, totoco, -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
tlaltiçapā.puo
Tlaltizapan, pueblo
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest
Stephanie Wood
tiza, cruzar, paisaje, huella, huellas, footprint, footprints
tlal(li), land, earth, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/tlalli
tiza(tl), chalk, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/tizatl
pano, to cross over, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pano
-pan (locative suffix, in or on, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/pan
Codex Mendoza, folio 52 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 114 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).