Etimologia de Texcoco

[Galen Brokaw]

The glyph on the webpage at the url sent out by Carlos comes from the Mendoza Codex.
Orozco y Berra's explanation doesn't really solve the problem though either for the
glyph or the word. He differentiates, as we have done in this discussion, between the
actual meaning of the word and the pictographic morphology of the glyph. So, if I'm
understanding him correctly, he says that the word actually means "place of stopping,
detaining, or remaining" (I know, not a very elegant translation). I'm a little wary
about accepting this interpretation just because Ixtlilxochitl says so with no
morphological or etymological corroboration. Ixtlilxochitl's interpretation could
very easily be a folk etymology.
Then Orozco y Berra goes on to say that the glyph is essentially a rebus (although he
doesn't use this term) not related to the actual meaning of the toponym and that it
refers to "jarilla de risco" which in English I think would be "rock rose". And this
rebus is arrived at by identifying the flower in the glyph as "tlacotl," which
according to him means "jarilla" (rock rose)--although this word often means
"stick"--, and "texcalli" which corresponds to the rocky hill. This interpretation of
the phonetics of the glyph is more problematic than the others I mentioned before. I
give him the benefit of the doubt that term "tlacotl" can mean rock-rose. But even if
that is true, it seems unlikely to me that a tlacuilo would resort to "tlacotl" to
produce the syllable "co" when it would be much easier to use a more transparent
image, especially since a pot (comitl) is so commonly used to represent this
syllable. And in any case, pictographic glyphs images like this tend to be stylized.
That is to say that a flower is a flower, not any particular species of flower, just
a flower. So, having a flower growing out of a rocky hill might invoke the idea of
"rock rose" and hence its phonetic articulation, but then to get "texcalli", the
rocky mountain would have to serve the double function of specifying the type of
flower and signifying its own phonetic articulation. I would be interested to know if
there any other examples of glyphs serving double functions like this.
This leads back to one of the interpretations to which I referrred originally: that
there is a word texcotli or tezcotli or something similar that refers to some kind of
plant (maybe it is jarilla). The more I look at it, the more I think maybe this maybe
the best hypothesis, given the limited evidence available. If this were the case,
then we wouldn't need "texcalli" or "xochitl" to explain the glyph. In this case, the
glyph wouldn't be a rebus at all. The flower growing out of the rocky hill would
signify "rock rose", the rocky hill would be there not as a phonetic element but
merely to identify what kind of flower it was. Finding a word like texcotli used to
refer to a plant would really help out a lot. Aside from modern Nahuatl
speakers--which should never be discounted--there are three places that I can think
of to look. 1) the Florentine Codex, which doesn't seem to contain any such word; 2)
the Badianus Manuscript, which is an indigenous herbal; I've seen a facsimile of this
document in the past, but my library doesn't have a copy; the writer uses Latin, but
the names of the plants are all in Nahuatl; and 3) that 16th-century text by the
proto-medico Hernandez who compiled volumes of encyclopedic information on plants
from Mexico and their medicinal uses. I was under the impression that the original
multi-volume work was destroyed when the Escorial burned, but somebody recently told
me that part of it or a copy of it or something had survived and was in some archive
in Madrid. I don't know if this is true and if so if it has been published.

Galen









"John F. Schwaller" wrote:

> From: Carlos Santamarina <Carlossn at diploma.com>
> To: nahuat-l at mrs.umn.edu
> Subject: ?Etimologia_de_Texcoco?
>
> En la página siguiente se ofrece otra etimología (y una versión del
> glifo toponímico)...
>
> http://geography.berkeley.edu:16080/ProjectsResources/Glyphs/Plate29/Texcoco.html
>
> In 1885 Don Antonio Peñafiel published his "Nombres Geográficos de
> México," an annotated listing of all the place name glyphs included in
> the Matricula de Tributos and the Codex Mendocino...
>
> <<Texcoco. -- Texco-co. -- Tezcuco.
>
> Diptongo jeroglífico, cuya interpretacion pertenece al Sr. Orozco y Berra.
>
> "Una montaña riscosa, sobre la cual florece la jarilla, y junto un brazo
> extendido con el símbolo atl." La ciudad de Tezcuco, dice Ixtlilxochitl,
> fué fundada en tiempo de los toltecas con el nombre de Catenichco;
> destruida al tiempo que aquella nacion, la embelleció mucho, puso en
> ella su residencia y la hizo la capital del imperio. A su llegada los
> chichimecas la llamaron Tezcuco, es decir, lugar de detencion, porque
> allí pararon todas las naciones que entónces habia en la Nueva España."
> No dudamos que sea esta la verdadera interpretacion, y entónces será un
> carácter ideográfico con el valor fónico, Tezcoco; la escritura no
> obstante, suministra gráficamente otra etimología: Tlacotl, jarilla,
> vardasca, se retiere á la que brota en los terrenos llanos; Texcotli, es
> la jarilla de los riscos, tomando la radical de texcalli, peñasco ó
> risco; de aquí la verdadera ortografía del nombre de Texco-co, la
> jarilla de los riscos.">>
>
> Carlos Santamarina <Carlossn at diploma.com>