acaxilqui

[Frances Karttunen]

I would hazard a guess that it literally refers to reed shavings, i.e.,
when you shave or peel a thin strip off a reed, it curls up.

Aca-tl 'reed and xi- (a variant of xip- 'to flay, peel')

Can't say for sure, however.


On Apr 7, 2005, at 7:35 PM, pthajovs at UCHICAGO.EDU wrote:

> This word, acaxilqui, appears several times in Book II of the
> Florentine Codex (see esp. p. 71).  Dibble and Anderson
> translate it as "scroll design".  I've tried looking this word
> up, and parsing it in several ways, but to no avail.  Does
> anyone have some insight into its etymology and/or how Dibble
> and Anderson came up with this translation?
>