Aztec calendar glyphs series#
Aztec calendar glyphs tv#

The Aztecs counted by 20s (as we usually count by 10s). The glyph actually means Ahuacatlan, a place name.

The teeth are read as tlan, and ahuacatl is the avacado tree. It means, literally, place with lots of avacados. Next is a combined symbol, tree and teeth. But it was also a calendar symbol, representing a specific day. If it just means flint, that's an pictogram. The glyphs would be used to remind you of various aspects of the story, and you would have to fill in the blanks.

It was kind of like looking at a scene in a story, a photograph of one moment. When telling a story, there wouldn't usually be a long line of glyphs, but rather a page with a few, positioned in such a way as to tell a story. Even on this page colour is used to split up various parts of the text to make it easier to read.

Aztec calendar glyphs tv#

Of course, with modern technology and the availability of colour in computer screens and TV sets, colour is becoming more important in all languages around the world. When symbols looked very similar, they could easily be told apart by their colours. In addition to the importance of the picture itself, colours were also important. If you say the word the picture represents, and put it together with others, you can get words and sentences totally unrelated to the objects the pictures look like. Sometimes we do this just for fun in English - for example, you could use the picture of a bee to represent the word 'be' (as in 'to be'). In this case, the picture actually represents a sound. Phonogram A phonogram is the closest we get to an Aztec alphabet. So maybe a snake would represent a ruler (such as Itzcoatl - Obsidian Snake), or maybe footprints would represent a trip or the passage of time in a certain direction. Ideograms These would represent the idea behind the symbol. But to have a meaningful language hundreds and thousands of pictures would be needed (and there were a lot!). For example, this picture of a snake would simply mean 'snake'. Pictograms This means basically that the symbol meant exactly what it looked like. How were these used? There were actually three different ways.

Aztec calendar glyphs series#

The Aztec alphabet before the Spanish was not actually an alphabet but a series of pictures. That way you can narrow down the alphabet based on a certain type of Nahuatl. The Aztec alphabet has 4 basic vowels: i, e, a, o Consonants are usually written include: p, t, l, r, n, k, m, ch, x, c, s, z, ç, cu (qu), y, hu, p (these vary) Confused? Read more about the Nahuatl or Aztec alphabet here, or the Various versions of the language. As the renewed Nahuatl is being taught, a new way of writing it is coming into use, in an attempt to unite the various dialects with a common writing system. It's estimated that there are over 1.5 million Nahuatl speakers in Mexico today! There are regional dialects, so there are many different ways to say simple words. Still, the language is still alive in many parts of Mexico. Since then, there's been a great deal of debate over how many Nahuatl words should be spelled and written. The Spanish introduced an Aztec alphabet based on Latin, basically the Roman alphabet many western languages use today. Nahuatl is also known as Nahua, Nahuat, and Nahual. The original Aztec language was not really written in an alphabet but a series of glyphs, as we will see in a moment. Classical Nahuatl is the name of the language that was spoken by the people of the Aztec empire. The Aztec alphabet, in the sense of each symbol representing only a sound, was an introduction by the Spanish.