cuauh=bosque?

Galen Brokaw brokaw at BUFFALO.EDU
Wed Sep 29 13:25:48 UTC 2004


Susan,
I'm not sure I understand your question, and I have no idea how that
image of the painting relates to what you are talking about. But as you
probably know the word for eagle is cua:uhtli and the word for wood or
tree is cuahuitl. So "cuauh" can mean "bosque." When you use the roots
of these words in combination with something else they become "cua:uh"
and "cuauh". So if you don't distinguish orthographically between vowel
length, there is no difference between the two. There is a glyph used to
represent "tree" or "forest," which consists of a tree.
The very well known place glpyh for Cuauhnahuac ("place near trees or
forest"), for example, is a tree with a mouth out of which issues a
speech volute. The "cuauh" of course is for cuahuitl and the mouth and
speech volute is a rebus element that puns on the relationship between
"nahuac" which means "near" and "nahuatl" meaning "clear speech."
And the name glyph of the eagle facing down refers to the meaning of
Cuauhtemoc as "descending eagle" from the combination of "cua:uhtli" and
the verb "temo" which means to descend.
So, anyway, the wood glyph would theoretically be available as a rebus
pun on "cua:uhtli", but there wouldn't really seem to be a need to use
it that way, because it would be just as easy to draw an eagle.
I'm not aware of any glyphs that use the wood glyph in this way, and I
wouldn't expect to find any. But I haven't studied such glyphs in any
kind of extensively systematic way, so I can't say for sure.
Hope this helps.
Galen


sfargo at earthlink.net wrote:
> Still trying to untangle how the name Hieronymus Bosch turned
> into Geronimo Bosco and El Bosco in Spain.
>
> According to my interpretation of El Jardín de las Delicias (which
> I'm calling La Bariedad del Mundo following an old inventory), a
> person in the center is Cuauhtémoc, since the mini-scene
> represents the year 7-Calli (ld 7-house.jpg). The 7 is shown by
> someone (I suppose Cortes) poking 7 fingers at him, and the
> jar is a house by analogy to pictures of Diogenes who lived in
> a barrel. The bird with human feet underneath is an eccentric
> version of the name glyph (cuauhtemoc.jpg).
>
> But there seem to be all kinds of contexts where cuauh has
> something to do with trees or wood or a forest. Is there any
> connection to the name Cuauhtémoc? Is there another glyph
> besides the eagle that could represent cuauh in the sense of
> wood or trees?
>
> In other words I wonder if there's any sign in the detail from the
> painting (ld 7-house.jpg) that the artist knew that cuauh could
> also mean wood or trees. It would imply that someone was
> explaining more than just glyphs for 1-acatl to 10-tecpatl, a
> personal name, and a couple of place names, maybe showing
> how picture writing can distinguish between words that sound
> the same?
> Susan Gilchrist
>
>
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