Cuauhnahuac (Mdz23r)

Cuauhnahuac (Mdz23r)
Compound Glyph

Glyph or Iconographic Image Description:

This compound glyph for the place name Cuauhnahuac (Cuernavaca, today) shows a vertical tree (cuahuitl) with a leader and two branches, each with green foliage. The trunk is a terracotta color, and the visible roots are red. The trunk has an open, toothless mouth and a turquoise-colored speech (nahuatl) scroll emerges from it, as though the tree is speaking to someone to the viewer's right.

Description, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Added Analysis:

The visual for speech has nothing to do with speaking but, rather, provides the phonetic element for -nahuac, a locative suffix meaning near.

Added Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Gloss Image:

Gloss Diplomatic Transcription:

quauhnahuac. pu^o

Gloss Normalization:

Cuauhnahuac, pueblo

Gloss Analysis, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Source Manuscript:

Mendoza/Mendocino, Codex (Mdz)

Date of Manuscript:

c. 1541, or by 1553 at the latest

Creator's Location (and place coverage):

Mexico City

Semantic Categories:

phonetic dimensions

place name

Syntax:

noun(s)

visible sound

Writing Features:

compound of phonogram(s) & logogram(s)

Cultural Content & Iconography:

Anatomy, human body parts

Mouth/Beak Open

Names (places)

Plants, Flora

Socio-Political Units, Cities, Towns, Neighborhoods

Speech, Speaking, Oral Tradition

Cultural Content, Credit:

Stephanie Wood

Colors:

Shapes and Perspectives:

roots are visible

spiraling, swirling, coiling, curling

tripartite

vertical, upright

volute(s)

Parts (compounds or simplex + notation):

Reading Order (Compounds or Simplex + Notation):

inherent/internal/merged

Keywords:

trees, roots, speech, árboles, raíces, palabras, volutas

Glyph or Iconographic Image:

Relevant Nahuatl Dictionary Word(s):

cuahui(tl), tree, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cuahuitl
nahua(tl), speech, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/nahuatl
-nahuac (locative suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/nahuac
-c (locative suffix), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/c

Additional Scholars' Interpretations:

"Near the Trees" (Whittaker, Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs, 2021, 103); "Beside the Trees" (Berdan and Anawalt, 1992, vol. 1, 201)

Whittaker's Transliteration:

CUAUH•nahua or CUAUH•NAHUAC

Glyph/Icon Name, Spanish Translation:

"Cerca de los Árboles"

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).