As I have observed, the native genius had not arrived at a complete analysis of the phonetic elements of the language; but it was distinctly progressing in that direction. Of the five vowels and fourteen consonants which make up the Nahuatl alphabet, three vowels certainly, and probably three consonants, had reached the stage where they were often expressed as simple letters by the method above described. The vowels were a, for which the sign was atl, water; e represented by a bean, etl; and o by a footprint, or path, otli; the consonants were p, represented either by a flag, pan, or a mat, petl; t, by a stone, tetl, or lips, tentli; and z, by a lancet, zo. These are, however, exceptions. Most of the Nahuatl phonetics were syllabic, sometimes one, sometimes two syllables of the name of the object being employed. When the whole name of an object or most of it was used as a phonetic value, the script remains truly phonetic, but becomes of the nature of a rebus, and this is the character of most of the phonetic Mexican writing.
Every one is familiar with the principle of the rebus. It is where a phrase is represented by pictures of objects whose names bear some resemblance in sound to the words employed. A stock example is that of the gallant who to testify his devotion to the lady of his heart, whose name was Rose Hill, had embroidered on his gown the pictures of a rose, a hill, an eye, a loaf of bread, and a well, which was to be interpreted, “Rose Hill I love well.”
In medieval heraldry this system was in extensive use. Armorial bearings were selected, the names of the elements of which expressed that of the family who bore them. Thus Pope Adrian IV, whose name was Nicolas Breakespeare, carried the device of a spear with a broken shaft; the Boltons of England wear arms representing a cask or tun pierced by a cross-bow shaft or bolt; etc. Such arms were called canting arms, the term being derived from the Latin cantare, to sing or chant, the arms themselves chanting or announcing the family surname.
We have, so far as I am aware, no scientific term to express this manner of phonetic writing, and I propose for it therefore the adjective ikonomatic, from the Greek eikon, a figure or image, and onoma (genitive, onomatos) name,—a writing by means of the names of the figures or images represented. The corresponding noun would be ikonomatography. It differs radically from picture-writing (Bilderschrift,) for although it is composed of pictures, these were used solely with reference to the sound of their names, not their objective significance.
Fig. 6.—Mexican Phonetic Hieroglyphics of the name of Montezuma.
The Mexicans, in their phonetic writing, were never far removed from this ikonomatic stage of development. They combined, however, with it certain clearly defined monosyllabic signs, and the separate alphabetic elements which I have already noted. An examination of the MSS. proves that there was no special disposition of the parts of a word. In other words, they might be arranged from right to left or from left to right, from below upwards or from above downwards; or the one may be placed within the other. It will easily be seen that this greatly increases the difficulty of deciphering these figures.
As illustrations of the phoneticism of Mexican writing I show two compounds, quoted by M. Aubin in his well-known essay on the subject. The first is a proper noun, that of the emperor Montezuma (Fig. 6). It should be read from right to left. The picture at the right represents a mouse trap, in Nahuatl, montli, with the phonetic value mo, or mon; the head of the eagle has the value quauh, from quauhtli; it is transfixed with a lancet, zo; and surmounted with a hand, maitl, whose phonetic value is ma; and these values combined give mo-quauh-zo-ma.
Fig. 7.—Mexican Phonetic Hieroglyphics of the name of a Serpent.