Writing System
At the time of the Spanish conquest, Aztec writing used mostly pictographs supplemented with a few ideograms. When needed it also used syllabic equivalences; Father Durán recorded how the tlacuilos could render a prayer in Latin using this system, but it was difficult to use. This writing system was adequate for keeping such records as genealogies, astronomical information, and tribute lists, but could not represent a full vocabulary of spoken language in the way that the writing systems of the Old World or of the Maya civilization's script could.
The Spanish introduced the Roman script, which was then utilized to record a large body of Aztec prose and poetry, a fact which somewhat diminished the devastating loss caused by the burning of thousands of Aztec manuscripts by the Catholic priests (see Nahuatl transcription).
On the Nahuatl edition of Wikipedia, the language is written in a Latin alphabet, including four letters with macrons or long vowels: ā, ē, ī, ō. Many other foreign letters such as "b" or "k" are used only in foreign names such as in "Francitlān" (France).
The 25-letter alphabet is:
Notes:¨
- "cu" and "hu" are inverted to "uc" and "uh" when occurring at the end of a syllable.
- These (*) letters have no capital form except in foreign names.
- "h" is used as saltillo.
Read more about this topic: Classical Nahuatl Language
Famous quotes containing the words writing and/or system:
“A man who publishes his letters becomes a nudist—nothing shields him from the world’s gaze except his bare skin. A writer, writing away, can always fix himself up to make himself more presentable, but a man who has written a letter is stuck with it for all time.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“Loving feels lonely in a violent world,
irrelevant to people burning like last year’s weed
with bellies distended, with fish throats agape
and flesh melting down to glue.
We can no longer shut out the screaming
That leaks through the ventilation system ...”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)