502 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 
value. In all the examples of place names given the different 
syllables of the term have been expressed directly by pictures of 
objects or acts, by position, or by color. Some other method has 
to be employed when one desires to bring out a meaning where it is 
not possible to translate the idea directly by a picture or by any of 
the other means we have noted. 
The town Tollan, ‘the place of the rushes,” is - 
easily represented by a picture of a cluster of reeds, 
tolin. Supposing, however, a town called Toltitlan, 
meaning ‘‘near Tollan,” was the one to be written. 
This would be more difficult to express in picture 
form. The use of the homophone comes in here, 
words of a similar sound but with different mean- 
ings. The word tetlan means “near something” and 
the second syllable, tlan, is also found in dlantli, 
meaning ‘‘teeth.” Thusif the picture of some teeth (fig. 12) is shown, 
the sound tlan would be expressed, suggesting in this case the mean- 
ing, not of teeth, but of nearness. 
There is another word for ‘‘near” or ‘‘near by,’ nauac. A place 
named Quauhnauac has the meaning, ‘‘in or near the forest.”’ Quauh 
is the root of the word quawitl, tree. The termination nauac is 
supplied by the sign of ‘‘clear speech” (fig. 13), which is a second 
meaning of nawac. A variant of this place name is shown in the 
Aubin manuscript (fig. 14). Here there is an 
animal head with the leaves of the tree shown on 
top. Speech is represented as in the preceding 
form. ; 
An interesting class of diminutives is formed in 
the same way by the use of the homophone zinco 
as in Tollanzinco, meaning ‘‘Little Tollan.”’ The 
use of determinatives is not found to express 
the special meaning of the word which is to be C 
used as is the case in the Egyptian writing of the 
same class. 
We find in the place names we have been con- 
sidering the beginning of asyllabary, certain char- 
acters always used for certain combinations of sounds. These signs 
not only express single syllables but in a few cases, as in ¢epec and 
nauac, double syllables, and, a from atl, single sounds. 
The adoption of certain definite signs to express certain combina- 
tions of sounds is a step far in advance of the stage of pure picture 
writing and it is well on its way toward the adoption of an alphabet 
where the signs no longer express combinations of sounds but single 
sounds. It might be possible to go a step farther in the case of the 
Fig. 12. 
? 
Fig. 13. 
