Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications

Page 129

128
THE ALPHABET
The migrations of the Aztecs, for example, were represented by footsteps (Fig. 64, 1), from place to place; in the tribute-lists, the objects such as shields, garments, mosaic, or strings of beads, were depicted, accompanied by the pictographs of numbers.
In some respects, however, the writing may already be considered as "transitional"; many conventional signs have phonetic value; these are word-signs or syllables. Abstract ideas are represented by signs borrowed from homonyms (words having the same sound but a different meaning), even when such homonyms give only the rough pronunciation of the word in question; the word "widow," for instance, being expressed by a
a
AD
6A
OBOCO
0000
(a)
(6)
Fig. 65
1, The First Article of the Catholic dogma, in Aztecs post-Conquest manuscripts. 2. "Year 1 of the Flint-knife," corresponding to A.D.1168. 3. The place-names Tepeyacac, Tepetitlan, and Qauhnaue; (a) tepe(t), "mountain"+yaca(.tli), "nose" Tepeyacac, "On-the-Mountain-nose." (b) tepe(t), "mountain" tlantli), " 'tooth, denture" Tepetitlan, "Between-the-Mountains." (c) gauti.t), forest" nau(atl),
"mouth"
Qauhnauc, "On-the-Trees
4. A suitor, named One House, brings presents to Nine Wind and Ten Eagle, the parents of princess Six Monkey, living at a place called Cloud-Belching-Mountain; Six Monkey turns her back on the wooer (H. G. Spinden, Indian Manuscripts of Southern Mexico, Washington, 1935. p. 436)
weeping eye accompanied by the name of a woman. A syllable could be expressed by an object whose name began with it. In other words, it was on the same principle as rebus-writing (the other "transitional" scripts, cuneiform, hieroglyphic, Chinese writing, had similar devices), and it was employed mainly to write personal names, place names (Fig. 65, 3 a, b, c) or names of deities.
The transcription of such names was facilitated by the use of the ikonomatic system, as it is called, in names: in men's names, such as