Aztec script: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:46, 11 May 2024

Revision as of 10:47, 27 May 2024

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The [[ideographic]] nature of the writing is apparent in abstract concepts, such as death, represented by a corpse wrapped for burial; night, drawn as a black sky and a closed eye; war, by a shield and a club; and speech, illustrated as a little scroll issuing from the mouth of the person who is talking. The concepts of motion and walking were indicated by a trail of footprints.<ref name="Bray, Warwick 1968 93-96">{{cite book |author=Bray, Warwick |year=1968 |title=Everyday Life of The Aztecs |url=https://archive.org/details/everydaylifeofaz00warw |url-access=registration |pages=[https://archive.org/details/everydaylifeofaz00warw/page/93 93]–96|publisher=Dorset Press |isbn=9780880291439 }}</ref>

A glyph could be used as a rebus to represent a different word with the same sound or similar pronunciation. This is especially evident in the glyphs of town names.<ref>{{cite book |author=Spinden, Herbert J. |year=1928 |title=Ancient Civilizations of Mexico and Central America |url=https://archive.org/details/civilizat03spin |pages=[https://archive.org/details/civilizat03spin/page/n228 223]–229|publisher=New York }}</ref> For example, the glyph for Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, was represented by combining two pictograms: stone ''(te-tl)'' and cactus ''(nochtlinoch-tli).''

Aztec Glyphs do not have a set reading order, unlike [[Maya hieroglyphs]]. As such, they may be read in any direction which forms the correct sound values in the context of the glyph. However, there is an internal reading order in that any sign will be followed by the next sign for the following sound in the word being written. They do not jumble up the sounds in a word.