Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs: A Guide to Nahuatl Writing

by Gordon Whittaker

A portal to the ancient hieroglyphic script of the Aztec Empire.

For more than three millennia the cultures of Mesoamerica flourished, yielding the first cities of the Western Hemisphere and developing writing systems that could rival those of the East in their creativity and efficiency. The Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs reigned over one of the greatest imperial civilizations the Americas had ever seen, and until now their intricate and visually stunning hieroglyphs have been overlooked in the story of writing. In this innovative volume Gordon Whittaker provides the reader with a step-by-step, illustrated guide to reading Aztec glyphs, as well as the historical and linguistic context needed to appreciate and understand this fascinating writing system. He also tells the story of how this enigmatic language has been deciphered and gives a tour through Aztec history as recorded in the richly illustrated hieroglyphic codices. This groundbreaking guide is essential reading for anyone interested in the Aztecs, hieroglyphs, or ancient languages.

Genres: History, Art, Nonfiction, Linguistics, Language

224 pages, Hardcover

Published April 19, 2021

Reviews

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exemplary history-of-language account by a masterful writer. It's tough going at times, and my library loan ran out before I'd quite finished it, let alone digested it. Required reading if you are interested in the history of Mexico, the Conquest, and in languages. A remarkably scholarly book in all the good senses. And a beautiful book. Look to see if your library has a copy, even if you just browse the illustrations and color plates.

I kept notes, but I'm not really ready to write a full review yet. I'll get back on the list to check this out again. Strong 4 stars, and I'll get back to this later. I may kick it up to 5 stars once I actually finish the book.

Here's the review that led me to read the book: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2021...
It's a first-rate review, and I'd be pleased to send you a copy, if it is paywalled. NYRB usually allows a few free accesses to non-subscribers, so try the link first.

[Richard Archambault · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterful, fascinating, insightful, and beautiful. A must-have for anyone interested in the Aztecs, language, and writing systems. This book will have pride of place on my bookshelf!

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, which is set up like a textbook complete with end-of-chapter exercises. It's deep enough for an amateur to appreciate the subtlety of the Mexica writing system and offers a way into the corpus, providing me with a lot of new insights.

[Walter Otto · Rating 2 out of 5]

At first glance, this seems like a very useful book, though after reading it, I cannot recommend it for the following reasons.
First of all, almost all the examples used for analysis are taken from post-Conquest codices, which means that some have considerable Spanish influence (for example Florentine Codex), and as they were painted under the supervision of Spanish they are compromised by their viewpoint, iconography, and description. Almost all the examples used are from codices were interpreted and/or annotated a long time ago. Furthermore, there is much better and more comprehensive analysis available in the actual publication of these codices (examples: Codex Mendoza, Codex Telleriano-Remensis, Matricula de Tributos). Also, these post-conquest codices concern themselves mainly with history and the collection of tributes. Interesting, but covered years ago in much better detail.
Of much more interest are the pre-conquest divinatory codices, some of which are still being deciphered presently. Whittaker does not use these codices at all as examples.
Secondly, the insistence on only using a linguistic analysis may work for the post-conquest codices but does not help us with the interpretation of the iconography of pre-conquest codices. Whittaker states early on in his book, that all analysis so far has been from an art perspective, which is not quite true. Therefore he rejects all work done by non-linguists on the subject. They do not receive mention in his bibliography.
Finally, the book does not contain a single footnote, so we have to take Whittaker's word on how he arrived at his conclusions. The bibliography is rudimentary and does not contain recent work done on the Codex Borgia for example, pre-conquest codex sections of which are only being understood now after over one hundred years of scholarship.
As a collector of books on Mexican Codices, I cannot recommend this book

[Savino Longo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea of the book is very good, indeed excellent: it is really necessary to introduce language lovers to the prospect of studying a writing system that has been preserved so well, even if only in the codes and in a very primitive form. In my opinion, the author has not shown in the text that there were, with certainty, more advanced forms of the writing system from the grammatical point of view. The main problem with the book, however, is that it is very wordy. It reports, in several places and uselessly, aspects relating to languages as distant as Sumerian and Japanese, going unnecessarily into details. Yet the book was written with a font that is too large, making it physically too large as a volume, and printed with unnecessarily heavy and glossy paper. It could be a very nice paperback book if written with a not so large font on matte paper. All this gives the reader the impression that there was not much to say.

[Henry Hildebrandt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This shit rocks