The Aztec or Nahuatl script is a pre-Columbian writing system used by the Nahua people in central Mexico. It blends ideographic writing with Nahuatl distinctive phonetic logograms and syllabic signs. The Aztec writing system is based on Central Mexican writing systems such as Zapotec script. Zapotec writing is also claimed to have influenced Mixtec writing. Because of the Zapotec languages' numerical prefixes, the early Oaxacan inscriptions are assumed to have encoded Zapotec.
Aztec Mythology was a mix of pictographic and ideographic proto-writing, with phonetic rebuses thrown in for good measure. There were also syllabic signs and logograms in it. Although there was no alphabet, puns helped to record the sounds of the Aztec language. While some scholars believe the system is not a complete writing system, this is a topic that is evolving. Even though many of the syllabic letters have been documented since at least 1888 by Nuttall, the existence of logograms and syllabic signs is being established, and a phonetic feature of the writing system has arisen. There are standard symbols for syllables and logograms that serve as word signs or rebus material. The Tizoc Stone, for example, has logosyllabic writing on both painted and carved items. Phonetic characters, on the other hand, frequently appear in significant creative and graphic contexts. A line of footprints extending from one place or scene to another indicates the succession of historical events in local manuscripts.
The ideographic nature of the writing can be seen in abstract concepts like death, which is depicted as a corpse wrapped for burial; night, which is depicted as a black sky and a closed eye; war, which is depicted as a shield and a club; and speech, which is depicted as a small scroll emerging from the mouth of the person speaking. A trail of footprints represented the concepts of mobility and walking.
A glyph can be used as a rebus to represent another word with a similar sound or pronunciation. This is particularly noticeable in the glyphs of place names. Representing example, the symbol for Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, was created by merging two pictograms: stone (te-tl) and cactus (nochtli).
Unlike Maya hieroglyphs, Aztec glyphs do not have a predetermined reading order. As a result, they can be read in either direction and still provide the correct sound values within the context of the glyph. There is an internal reading order, however, in which any sign is followed by the next sign for the next sound in the word being written. They don't mix up the letters of a word.
The Aztecs used a vigesimal numeral system. They used the required amount of dots to signify quantities up to twenty. Twenty was denoted by a flag, which was repeated for values up to four hundred, while four hundred was denoted by a sign resembling a fir tree, which meant numerous as hairs. An incense bag represented the next unit, eight thousand, which related to the practically infinite contents of a sack of cacao beans.
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