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--></style><title>Re: Etimologia de Texcoco</title></head><body>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>The glyph on the webpage at the url sent
out by Carlos comes from the Mendoza Codex.<br>
Orozco y Berra's explanation doesn't really solve the problem though
either for the<br>
glyph or the word. He differentiates, as we have done in this
discussion, between the<br>
actual meaning of the word and the pictographic morphology of the
glyph. So, if I'm<br>
understanding him correctly, he says that the word actually means
"place of stopping,<br>
detaining, or remaining" (I know, not a very elegant
translation). I'm a little wary<br>
about accepting this interpretation just because Ixtlilxochitl says so
with no<br>
morphological or etymological corroboration. Ixtlilxochitl's
interpretation could<br>
very easily be a folk etymology.<br>
Then Orozco y Berra goes on to say that the glyph is essentially a
rebus (although he<br>
doesn't use this term) not related to the actual meaning of the
toponym and that it<br>
refers to "jarilla de risco" which in English I think would
be "rock rose". And this<br>
rebus is arrived at by identifying the flower in the glyph as
"tlacotl," which<br>
according to him means "jarilla" (rock rose)--although this
word often means<br>
"stick"--, and "texcalli" which corresponds to the
rocky hill. This interpretation of<br>
the phonetics of the glyph is more problematic than the others I
mentioned before. I<br>
give him the benefit of the doubt that term "tlacotl" can
mean rock-rose. But even if<br>
that is true, it seems unlikely to me that a tlacuilo would resort to
"tlacotl" to<br>
produce the syllable "co" when it would be much easier to
use a more transparent<br>
image, especially since a pot (comitl) is so commonly used to
represent this<br>
syllable. And in any case, pictographic glyphs images like this tend
to be stylized.<br>
That is to say that a flower is a flower, not any particular species
of flower, just<br>
a flower. So, having a flower growing out of a rocky hill might invoke
the idea of<br>
"rock rose" and hence its phonetic articulation, but then to
get "texcalli", the<br>
rocky mountain would have to serve the double function of specifying
the type of<br>
flower and signifying its own phonetic articulation. I would be
interested to know if<br>
there any other examples of glyphs serving double functions like
this.<br>
This leads back to one of the interpretations to which I referrred
originally: that<br>
there is a word texcotli or tezcotli or something similar that refers
to some kind of<br>
plant (maybe it is jarilla). The more I look at it, the more I think
maybe this maybe<br>
the best hypothesis, given the limited evidence available. If this
were the case,<br>
then we wouldn't need "texcalli" or "xochitl" to
explain the glyph. In this case, the<br>
glyph wouldn't be a rebus at all. The flower growing out of the rocky
hill would<br>
signify "rock rose", the rocky hill would be there not as a
phonetic element but<br>
merely to identify what kind of flower it was. Finding a word like
texcotli used to<br>
refer to a plant would really help out a lot. Aside from modern
Nahuatl<br>
speakers--which should never be discounted--there are three places
that I can think<br>
of to look. 1) the Florentine Codex, which doesn't seem to contain any
such word; 2)<br>
the Badianus Manuscript, which is an indigenous herbal; I've seen a
facsimile of this<br>
document in the past, but my library doesn't have a copy; the writer
uses Latin, but<br>
the names of the plants are all in Nahuatl; and 3) that 16th-century
text by the<br>
proto-medico Hernandez who compiled volumes of encyclopedic
information on plants<br>
from Mexico and their medicinal uses. I was under the impression that
the original<br>
multi-volume work was destroyed when the Escorial burned, but somebody
recently told<br>
me that part of it or a copy of it or something had survived and was
in some archive<br>
in Madrid. I don't know if this is true and if so if it has been
published.<br>
<br>
Galen<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
"John F. Schwaller" wrote:<br>
<br>
> From: Carlos Santamarina <Carlossn@diploma.com><br>
> To: nahuat-l@mrs.umn.edu<br>
> Subject: ?Etimologia_de_Texcoco?<br>
><br>
> En la página siguiente se ofrece otra etimología (y una
versión del</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>> glifo toponímico)...<br>
><br>
>
http://geography.berkeley.edu:16080/ProjectsResources/Glyphs/Plate29/<span
></span>Texcoco.html<br>
><br>
> In 1885 Don Antonio Peñafiel published his "Nombres
Geográficos de<br>
> México," an annotated listing of all the place name glyphs
included in<br>
> the Matricula de Tributos and the Codex Mendocino...<br>
><br>
> <<Texcoco. -- Texco-co. -- Tezcuco.<br>
><br>
> Diptongo jeroglífico, cuya interpretacion pertenece al Sr.
Orozco y Berra.<br>
><br>
> "Una montaña riscosa, sobre la cual florece la jarilla, y
junto un brazo<br>
> extendido con el símbolo atl." La ciudad de Tezcuco, dice
Ixtlilxochitl,<br>
> fué fundada en tiempo de los toltecas con el nombre de
Catenichco;<br>
> destruida al tiempo que aquella nacion, la embelleció mucho,
puso en<br>
> ella su residencia y la hizo la capital del imperio. A su llegada
los<br>
> chichimecas la llamaron Tezcuco, es decir, lugar de detencion,
porque<br>
> allí pararon todas las naciones que entónces habia en la
Nueva España."<br>
> No dudamos que sea esta la verdadera interpretacion, y entónces
será un<br>
> carácter ideográfico con el valor fónico, Tezcoco; la
escritura no<br>
> obstante, suministra gráficamente otra etimología: Tlacotl,
jarilla,<br>
> vardasca, se retiere á la que brota en los terrenos llanos;
Texcotli, es<br>
> la jarilla de los riscos, tomando la radical de texcalli,
peñasco ó<br>
> risco; de aquí la verdadera ortografía del nombre de
Texco-co, la<br>
> jarilla de los riscos.">><br>
><br>
> Carlos Santamarina <Carlossn@diploma.com></blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div>Now that the Texcoco discussion has turned botanical, I thought I
should point out that the flower depicted in the Mendoza glyph for
"Tezcuco" (folio 3V) looks very much like<i> Dahlia
coccinea</i>, perhaps the most beautiful of all Mesoamerican
ornamentals. The artist confused me at first because he shows
the ray flowers as yellow and the disk flowers as red. However,
a quick check of<i> Dahlia</i> <i> coccinea</i> images via Google
did produce a hybrid which has ray flowers that are red and yellow,
with the central part of the petal red and the outer part yellow.
</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><i>Dahlia coccinea</i> has a wide distribution in Central Mexico
and although Oscar Sanchez doesn't report it specifically for
the Texcoco area in his "La Flora del Valle de Mexico",
he does note that it grows there between 1,000 and 3000
meters.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Possibly also relevant here is that Alexis Wimmer's Classical
Nahuatl Dictionary site lists the Nahuatl name for<i> Dahlia
coccinea</i> as "<font face="Lucida Grande" size="-4"
color="#000000">acocohxôchitl</font>". I will leave the
linguistic analysis to the linguists. </div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Orozco y Berra's "Texcotli, es la jarilla de los
riscos" may be a reference to another member of the
Asteraceae. Sanchez lists "jarilla" as the common name
for 5 different species of Asteraceae in his Flora.<i> Dahlia
coccinea</i> is not one of them.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Roger Byrne</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><tt>-- </tt></div>
<div>Dr. Roger Byrne<br>
Associate Professor<br>
Geography Department<br>
501 Mc Cone Hall<br>
University of California, Berkeley<br>
Berkeley, CA 94720<br>
<br>
Phones: 510 643 9170 (office)<br>
510 643 1834 (lab)<br>
510 642 3903 (secretary)<br>
Fax: 510 642 3370</div>
<div>Email: arbyrne@uclink4.berkeley.edu</div>
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