502 



ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 



Fig. 12. 



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, 

 tollin. Supposing, however, a town called Toltitlan, 

 meaning "near ToUan" 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 ilantli, 

 meaning "teeth." Thus if 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 quauiil, tree. The termination nauac is 

 supplied by the sign of "clear speech" (fig. 13), which is a second 

 meaning of nauac. 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 winch is to be 

 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 a syllabary, certain char- 

 acters always used for certain combinations of sounds. These signs 

 not only express single syllables but in a few cases, as in tepee and 

 naua£, 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 stej) farther in the case of the 



Fig. 13. 



