Aztec (Nahuatl)
Detail from Aztec Sun Stone, Mexico City.
Image copyright © 2015 Steven Zucker with license CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. Source: Flickr.
Script details
Section titled “Script details”See all script details: code, region, status and more
| Code | x-aztec-nahuatl |
| Script type | logo-syllabary |
| Region | American |
| Status | Historical |
| Direction | LTR |
| Baseline | unspecified |
| Case | no |
| White space | unspecified |
| Complex behaviors | unknown |
| OpenType code | unspecified |
| ISO 15924 Number | none |
Script description
Section titled “Script description”Aztec (Nahuatl) were used by the Nahua peoples in central Mexico for writing the Nahuatl language.
Read the full description…
This writing system is considered a proto-writing system as opposed to a fully-formed script, partly because it was not able to communicate everything that could be expressed verbally in the language and partly because there were only a few signs whose form and use were constrained by convention. Aside from these, each scribe would decide for himself which signs would best represent the ideas he wished to convey. For this reason there is no set corpus of signs and the number of signs used is unknown.
Signs were largely ideographic in nature; concepts related to movement were represented using trails of footprints, death was represented by a corpse wrapped in burial cloths, and speech was represented by a scroll issuing from the speaker’s mouth. Colour was also used semantically to distinguish between similar-looking signs, such as those for canes, rushes and grass, or to indicate a person’s royal standing.
This script is not currently recognized by the ISO 15924 standard
, but is included in Writing Systems Technical Resources for research purposes. If you have any information on this script, please add the information to this site. Your contributions can be a great help in refining and expanding the ISO 15924 standard. The Script Encoding Initiative is working to support the inclusion of this script in the standard, and contributions here will support their efforts.
Languages that use this script
Section titled “Languages that use this script”There are no known languages that use this script.
Unicode status
Section titled “Unicode status”The Aztec (Nahuatl) Pictograms are not yet in Unicode. At one point the script had a tentative allocation in the Roadmap to the SMP for the Unicode Standard. However, it is no longer in the roadmap.
Resources
Section titled “Resources”Related articles
External links
- Aztec Script (Wikipedia)