Talk:Aztecs/Terminology-1

Limited perspective of this entry

I find the Aztec entry very limited in scope, and it would be good to broaden the coverage. Here is what I mean by limited. (1) consideration is limited mostly to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, with little information on the other 2 million Aztec peoples in central Mexico. For example, city-states were far more important to most Aztec people than was the Triple Alliance empire, but the entry ignores city-states. In this and other topics, the coverage follows what the Mexica said about themselves (often biased, self-serving, and even incorrect), and not what scholars have managed to reconstruct of Aztec society and culture. (2) There is almost no archaeology in the entry, but this is where the major advances are being made in understanding Aztec life, the conditions of elites and commoners, cities and urbanization, agriculture, and a wide range of economic and social aspects. (3) Most of the information is from a small number of texts (the chroniclers), with little consideration of administrative documents or codices.

The net result is an entry that only covers a small part of what we know about the Aztecs, and only a small part of what is interesting and important about this culture. I'd like to contribute more, but just don't have much time right now. I did make some additions to the bibliography, and I'll try to add some material as I have time.

Michael E. Smith

Yes, as stated in the entry, this articles centers about the Mexica, the other peoples, could no be extrictly called Aztec. This is a limited term, barely used in prehispanic times. What i think we need, and is an article about the nahua in general, Tlaxclateca, Acolcua, Tepaneca, etc..., where the Mexica were just one of them.

most of the info i have put, is confirmed on archeological findings, but as you say, there is so much to say, that the article has to be broken in sections. I invite you to visit those parts and put from what your perspective is important. I have centered most about the mexica historical sources, since a lot of this info is unknow to most english speaking readers.

there are only four aztec codex, while the info is not referer directly, it has been taken as the basis:

Welcome. Please help us. Any new perspective would be important. Nanahuatzin 23:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

"Spanish" vs. "Spaniard"

I have created an RFC linking to Wikipedia:WikiProject Mexico/Terminology to get some opinions on the use of "Spanish" vs. "Spaniard" in referring to those from Spain who conquered and ruled Latin America during the Spanish colonization of the Americas.

Richard 06:59, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Mexica vs. Aztec (again)

I was editing the History section and realized that we have a problem with think he use of "Mexica" and "Aztec". At the beginning of the History section, the two were being used interchangeably. The most notable point was that the opening paragraph discussed the origin of the Aztecs and their homeland Aztlan. It would seem to make sense that Aztecs came from Aztlan. However, I changed the use of Mexica and Aztecs so that Mexica came from Aztlan and did not become Aztecs until the Triple Alliance created the Aztec Empire.

This represents my best understanding of how the names should be used. Yes, I know that the term Aztec was invented by Humboldt many years after the fall of Tenochtitlan but unless we're just going to change Aztec to Mexica throughout the article, we need some guideline of how to use the terms?

Thoughts?

--Richard 15:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I think is my fault, i have been using more Mexica than Azteca, a least in Mexico, in archeology, few specialist use Azteca and all the museums use Mexica. But i accept taht most of the population uses Azteca. As a compromise, i think you are right and Azteca could be uses as Hundboldt intended. As the people under the Triple Alliance, and kept mexica, for the people of the individual cities of Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlan. Nanahuatzin 05:51, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I just began to read the aubin codex, acording to this, in Aztlan, the nahua live under the rule of a powerfull elit, called the Azteca Chicomostoca. The seven tribes run out of Aztlan, to seek new lands. The Mexica were the last of them, guided by their priest "Huitzil". His god spoke trough the priest and ordered them to never called themselve Azteca, the name of theyr former masters, so they should be called Mexica instead. I will try to write somehitn about this and put so you can review it. Nanahuatzin 05:51, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, I have put most of the above points into the article. As always, you are welcome to correct or expand on what I wrote. --Richard 06:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that inconsistency in the Spanish conquest of Mexico article as well, sometimes within the same paragraph. I would agree that the term Mexica could/should be used prior to the Triple Alliance, with Aztec being the term thereafter. During some copy-editing of Spanish conquest of Mexico, therefore, I replaced Mexica with Aztec. In addition, per recommendation from Rockero, I standardized on "Tlaxaclan". I hope that I have not stepped on anyone's toes. Thanks, User:Madman2001 15:18, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed the change to "Tlaxcalan" and was annoyed by it because I thought we had decided to standardize on "Tlaxcalteca" but I couldn't remember for sure and it wasn't top on my list of priorities. Please consult the discussion in Talk:Aztec/Usage. Then let's come to a resolution. There are valid arguments for "Tlaxcalan" and for "Tlaxcalteca" and even for just "Tlaxcala". The best comment in the whole batch was "Generally there are few hard and fast rules for forming Mesoamerican demonyms, although there are some widely-observed conventions"

As for Mexica/Aztec during the time of the Spanish conquest, I would like to understand from Nanhuatzin whether there is ever any value in distinguishing the Mexica from the Aztec after the formation of the Triple Alliance. If I correctly understand what he has written, the Mexica are the inhabitants of Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlan and all the Nahuatl-speakers outside those two cities are Aztec but not Mexica. But, is this a distinction worth making in Wikipedia? It may be technically correct but only serve to confuse rather than enlighten the reader.

Thus, I would go with User:Madman2001's approach of using Aztec throughout those articles unless Nanahuatzin feels differently.::--Richard 17:53, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

For the time being, there is not necesary to point the diference, but as we have being reminded, the article has not touched anything about the "aztec provinces". But I hope we would be expand later, so to keep this difference in mind. Also, i think it would be interesant to remind that most of the cities under aztec ruling, abandoned the alliance since they did not considered themselves "mexica" although they could be called "azteca". Only the Tlatelolca, who were aslo Mexica, stayed loyal, even if they had a lot of disagrements with the Tenochca, since originally they were independent of them. I want to writte a more about Tlatelolco, the current article says little about their history. Nanahuatzin 22:18, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is the sort of thing that I suspected was lurking behind the Mexica / Aztec distinction. When time permits, we should put this in the article. I think it's kind of like the Roman Empire vs. the Romans. Just because you were part of the Roman Empire didn't mean you were Roman. Nor did it mean that your allegiance was to Rome. It just meant that the Romans had you subjugated for the time being.--Richard 22:43, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Exactly, and another point is that the mexica were just one of the nahuatl groups, a lot of the cultural aspects were common to the other nahuas. A good analogy wold be ancient greece, where several city states had common language, gods, and culture, and from time to time one of the cities would predominate over the others, but each city state could retain some individuality. In this case what i try to remind our readers that the main cultural aspects were not created by the mexicas, but adopted and transformed by them ( mhhh.. i hope i could make it clear.. it´s 2 AM....). Nanahuatzin 07:26, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't aware of the discussion over there (Talk:Aztec/Usage). I added my 2¢ to the conversation. I'm afraid, being Anglo-centric, that I prefer Tlaxacalan, as did 2 others, but I will most certainly follow the consensus and change back to Tlaxcalteca if so desired. Madman -- P.S. In the Spanish conquest of Mexico article, I found 2 or 3 different spellings of "Tlaxcalteca".

Use of Nahuatl words

I think too many nahuatl words are used. I some sections it is difficult to know what is meant. Example: Fathers admonished their daughters to be very clean, but not to use makeup, because they would look like ahuianis. I don't know what ahuianis means and it is not explained in that place. I'm guessing it means prostitute, if so I would use that word or a similar English word. In general, I think we should use English except when it is impossible for lack of a good translation. We should limit the number of Nahuatl words to a set that is small enough to handle for the non-expert reader. Piet 10:34, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry.. My fault, for not explaining.. not all agree that ahuani (bringer of hapiness) were protitute, since there are also references to common prostitues in the streets for the common folks... It seems they were in charge of the "happinnes" of the elite warriors... Of course none of this ocupations were well apreciated by aztec mothers... Sometimes it is translated as a less compromising "coourtisan" (if my enlgish is correct, that is a woman of the court.). Old ahuanis try to keep their beauty with makeup, hence the reference. Ussualy when old they sell themselves as slaves to buy more makeup and try to maintain little more their way of life. Originally the section explaining about ahuani was nearer that text... Nanahuatzin

Strongly agree. In addition, the Nahuatl words should be italicized. Madman 13:57, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

How do you italicize a word? --Richard 11:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

two single quotes around it. Piet 12:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Article name

Has there been a discussion about this article's name? Somehow I'm not very comfortable with it. I would prefer Aztec civilization like for the Mayas. I know we should not go lightly over this, but there's no use postponing the discussion. Piet 12:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it's bothered me forever. I'll try to look to see if there's anything in the archives on this question but I definitely vote for Aztec civilization. We can move this article and then put a redirect from "Aztec" to "Aztec civilization".

--Richard 14:48, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Mixtec-Aztec

User:Madman2001 put a caption on the mask image in Aztec mythology that reads, in part, "of Mixtec-Aztec provenance". I interpret this to mean that archeologists don't know whether this mask is Mixtec or Aztec in provenance. Am I reading this right? (Yes, you are. I was trying to say that in as few words as possible. Madman 16:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC) )

I can imagine a couple different ways to interpret this. Since the Mixtec were conquered by the Aztecs, it could be that we don't know for sure whether the mask is purely pre-conquest Mixtec or a post-conquest Aztec-style mask found in Mixtec territory. It could even be a post-conquest Mixtec-style mask found in Aztec territory outside the Mixtec territory.

My real point, however, is that there is darn little discussion of the Mixtec in the Aztec article or in the History of the Aztecs article. Yet, in the Mixtec article, we are told "In Pre-Columbian times, the Mixtec were one of the major civilizations of Mesoamerica."

I think we need to insert a list of all the "major conquests" of the Aztecs into the History of the Aztecs article and to summarize the most important ones in the Aztec article.

--Richard 15:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I, for one, am still a bit confused/ignorant about the differences and similarities between all these cultural groups (if that the right word) in Mesoamerica at the time of the Spanish conquest, e.g. Aztec, Mixtec, Zapotec, Tolteca-Chichimeca, and probably more. They apparently shared common cultural elements, like dieties and languages, so much so that archaeologists have a hard time determining whether some artifacts (like that mask or like several codices) are Mixtec or Aztec, say.

Which is a long-winded way of saying I would be very interested in reading an essay (and having an essay in Wikipedia) discussing the similarities and differences between these cultural groups (or whatever they should be called). Madman 16:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC) (The work never ends!)

I agree. The Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan would, in the next 100 years, come to dominate the Valley of Mexico and extend its power to both the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacfic shore. Over this period, Tenochtitlan gradually became the dominant power in the alliance, and the Triple Alliance territories became known as the Aztec Empire. This is the only thing about this period while the earliest history receives a lot more attention. We could fix this a bit using information from Aztec Triple Alliance, but without making the history section as a whole longer. The period is not well covered in the other articles either, there's room for expansion there. And we need a map. Piet 07:36, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to change the title of this article to "Aztec civilization"

Piet suggested that we change the article title from "Aztec" to "Aztec civilization" and I agreed with him. The rationale is that the corresponding article about the Maya is called "Maya civilization". The corresponding article about the Inca is "Inca Empire".

I'm just formalizing this proposal so that we can see if there are any objections. --Richard 08:19, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

My concern with this is that, as we discussed, the Aztecs were just one of the various culture groups, tribes, Nahua folks within central Mexico during this time. To say that they were a "civilization" whereas the other groups were just plain Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Toltecs, Tolteca-Chichimecas, is somewhat misleading. That is, the "civilization" there in central Mexico was to a large extent (from my reading) a broad-based Nahua or Nahuatl Civilization. Maybe we should rename it "Aztec Empire" instead of Aztec Civilization? My 2¢, Madman 12:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not saying Aztec civilization is the perfect name, I just don't like "Aztec" as a title because it sounds like an adjective instead of a thing. It's like calling the article about the Roman Empire "Roman". "Aztecs" is another option. I've checked a few similar articles:

• "Mongol" → "Mongols"
• "Hun" → "Huns"
• "Vandal" → "Vandals"
• "Visigoth" → "Visigoth"
• "Arab" → "Arab"

So no consistency. I would prefer "Aztecs" over "Aztec" though.

Madman's remark seems reasonable, but would we then have to split everything in "Aztec Empire" for the Aztecs and "_____ civilization" for things concerning all the different groups? What would _____ be then? Meso-America is too wide? Mexica too narrow?

Anyway, before voting I think we will need some more discussion, and there will probably be more than two options. Or maybe after discussing there will be no need for a vote. Piet 13:34, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Those other Mesoamerican groups mentioned by Madman above would equally merit a description as civilizations in their own right, viz. Zapotec civilization, Mixtec civilization, etc. That they are presently only titled singularly like Aztec is I think no more than a shorthand. IMO it could be better to rename those as well, and make it easier to split them out into separate articles on the pre-Columbian civilizations and their contemporary descendants, as is done for Maya civilization<->Maya peoples. In the present case, I'd be comfortable with a change to either Aztec civilization or Aztec Empire, with a slight preference perhaps for the former.--cjllw | TALK 14:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

While one of my favorite books is called "civilizacion Azteca", i think the azteca are in a strict maner, a subset of the Nahua civilization. Speaking of the Aztec civilization, is like speak of the Chichenitza civilization, versus the maya civilization o the athens civilizations vs the greek civilization. I like "the aztecs", "the aztec empire" is also a good title... Nanahuatzin 17:47, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like you are drawing an analogy to "European civilization vs. French culture" or "Western civilization vs. American culture".

I don't think the lines between "civilization" and "culture" are that clearly defined. In general, a culture is smaller than a civilization but civilizations can be subsets of each other. For instance, there is "Mesoamerica civilizations which covers Maya civilization and Central Mexico Valley including both Nahua civilization and non-Nahua Aztecs".

I get the distinction that you are drawing between "Nahua civilization" and "Aztec (whatever)" but "Aztec culture" is probably a misleading or confusing title. Also, the concept that you elucidate above is not elucidated in the text of the article. It should be brought out more clearly in the text. Finally, while there is an article titled "Nahua", there is no article titled "Nahua civilization". If we are going to follow your line of thinking, we need to start thinking about whether there should be an article titled "Nahua civilization".

--Richard 18:01, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes it should be (sight!!!). Maybe it should be nahua culture, or nahua civilization, and after refering to the comon elements, refer to the specific peoples. Mexica, Huexotzinga, Xochimilca, Tlaxcalteca, Culhuacan, Tepaneca, Texcoco, etc, Some of then are barely knew know, but they were once great cities. Huexotzing was famous for their poets. Culhuacan was considered the most cultived (the aztec tried to marry with woman from Culhuacan, so the may claim they were their ancestor) etc. The mexica became the dominant, but most of the culturale elements not were their own. Like the section on aztec mithology. Most of the gods were common to mesoamerica, they were not just aztec gods. I am trying to write something about it, but i think a should recruit more people, it seems it more than i can cope. Even in Mexico, most of the people knew little of the other nahua people. I think i have became very ambicious...

I think the proper analogy would be greece, it was composed of several city states, each one with their own elements, but all speak greek, share the same gods, and writting, and from time to time, one of the cities became dominant. In the case of the maya, None of the city states became completely dominant, so we called simple Maya  ;) Nanahuatzin 18:35, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Do the mythology, religion, society, and architecture sections of this article describe Aztecs or Nahua? If most of this information deals with the wider Nahua civilization, we could split this article up. It's a bit unfortunate to have such an enormous change after all the work, but it might be a better solution. Using the templates we can probably show the non-expert where to look for the information that would be removed from this article. The amount of work will be very significant though, we have to be very sure.

What is the normal way in literature to group the pre-columbian civilizations? Would Nahua - Maya - Inca - ... make sense? Piet 21:28, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Do the mythology, religion, society, and architecture sections of this article describe Aztecs or Nahua? The answer is basically "yes". For example, as mentioned above, the experts can't decide if many artifacts, like this Aztec mask or the Codex Borgia (no article, yet), are Aztec or perhaps Mixtec or neither. I think the analogy to Ancient Greece is a good one. Madman 22:15, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Ugh. What a can of worms we seem to have opened up. I suggest that we review every article in the Aztec template and in the Project Catalogue (should be more or less the same list) with the following consideration in mind... Is the text in this article about the Mexica, the Aztecs or the Nahua? Once we get the answer to that question wrt each article, we will have a better idea how to go forward.

My guess is that we need to expand the Aztec, Mexica and Nahua articles to make clear the relationships described above. Then we need to look at the results of our article review in light of the following...

1) To the extent that there are any Aztec articles that are 80-90% about Nahua civilization, we should rename those articles from "Aztec X" to "Nahua X". If there are any areas where Aztec culture differed significantly from Nahua culture, we should mention that somewhere, maybe in the Aztec article.

2) To the extent that there are (or should be) any articles specifically about the Mexica rather than about the Aztecs, we should rename those articles from "Aztec X" to "Mexica X". I don't think there are any articles that fall into this category but we should at least ask the question.

Of course, renaming articles isn't enough. We will have to go through each article and make sure that the right name is being used. Hopefully, this will mostly happen in articles like Aztec religion and Aztec mythology.

One final consideration... no matter what happens, we need to have an article like Aztec which has "Aztec" in the title and is about what people understand to be the Aztecs. {Agreed Madman 22:15, 18 May 2006 (UTC)) We can educate the reader along the way but we must not suddenly say "Oh, even though you think Aztec in your head, you're wrong, you should say Mexica or Nahua instead."

I also agree on this... I myself took time to discover the diferences and reevaluate what i have (miss)learned ins school. Nanahuatzin 04:04, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Thus, the Aztec article should talk about Aztec religion and then say something like "The Aztec religion was pretty much the same as the religion for all Nahuas. main article is Nahua religion". Where it's the same, say it's the same. Where it's different, explain the difference.

--Richard 21:49, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Mainly. the aproach to give the aztecs the duty to maintain the world, the overenphasis on wars and human sacrifice. The transformation of their local (Huitzilopochtli, Coatlicue, Coyolxaucli etc) gods into greater gods similar to the old gods. etc. I have tried to write about this, but i still can find the right aproach. And then.. i have a lot of work this days, so i will be of little help for a couple of weeks..  :( Nanahuatzin 04:04, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

In general, I agree with this approach. In my work on Aztec codices, I finally had to break down the ==See also== links into Aztec and non-Aztec, although they all were pretty much the same in terms of outlook, purpose, gods, calendars, glyphs, heroes, culture, etc. That's why I set up a category (the first category I've created, by the way) called Category:Mesoamerican codices. The term "Mesoamerica" would be a nice candidate in addition to "Aztec" and "Nahua", but for the fact that it includes the Maya as well (something you wondered about early in your Wikipedia career, I believe, Richard). Madman 22:15, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes i is really a can of worms... when i started to edit the aztecs article, i was hoping to give just a general impresion, but now with all the work you have done, I thinks it has became an very important source. So i think it will worth the work. I has became a very ambitious work!!!. Now, the best way of diferenciate the groups is by their language. The main languages spoken in Mesoamerica were: Maya (Quiche-tzutujil-cakchiquel), nahuatl, mixteco/zapoteco (originally they were two separate cultures..), Otomi, etc (i am omiting something.. but i don remember the others). Each language contribute to give untity... The problem is when we dont know what language was sopken, like Olemcs , Teotihuacan, or Cuicuilco... ugh...

In the case of Mixteca... the problem is something like happened to the phoenicians. Aztecs like so much Mixtec craft, that they imported artisans to Tenochtitlan and request certain styles. The also like the mixtec codex, so some of them were make by Mixteca, In the later days, Aztec woman (of high society) started to use Mixtec clothing, specifically the quexquemetl. It was wored over their traditional "huipil", and much comented by the women who could not afort such imported goods... In the case of the Phoenician, they imported and duplicate art form other people, so archeologis have trouble idientifiyin the prhoenician productions...

Usually archeologis have not problem identifing mixtec and aztec artifacts.. but other were made for "exportation" and that is when the problems start. Alos, the production of craft was an impaortan part of the Mexioca economy, and they also made pieces for "export"... Nanahuatzin 04:04, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I've put in what Nanahuatzin wrote but it's fragmentary and doesn't tell the full story. I'm thinking that the section on "Aztec society" should be moved up to the top of the article because, when it's done, it's going to tell an important story about the relationship of the Mixteca, the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican cultures.

Here's a question that I still can't get straight in my head: The Mixtecs spoke Mixteca so they are not a Nahua people. Yet, the Aztecs admired them. Are the Mixtecs then non-Nahua members of the Aztec Empire? What other non-Nahua cultures got conquered by the Aztecs and are considered part of the Aztec Empire?

Second question: Who are the Nahua-speaking members of the Aztec empire? The Triple Alliance, right? That is, the Mexica( Tenochtitlan), Texcoco and Tlacopán. The Tlaxcala also spoke Nahua, right? Are there any others?

I think I'm starting to wrap my brain around all this but it's taken me a couple of months and I'm still not sure I've got it straight. The article certainly doesn't tell this story and, IMO, it needs to.

--Richard 04:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I kwnow, and i am starting to fell inadecuate... I have learned all this in fragmentary form, and until now i have never tried to give some cohesion. The Mixtec conquered the zapoteca, and almost absorbed them, so we speack og "mixteco /zapoteca" culture, ( even if zapoteca is a distinct language from mixteca (my grandmother spoked zapoteca, is a beatifull language, i only know a few fragments). Then Ahuízotl, conquered them in 1486, and they had to pay tribute. The Mixtec is between the oldest civilizations of mesoamerica, and the aztec knew it. BUT.... Mixteca is the name the nahua gave them... they called themselves "Nuu Savi" (sounds familiar ?). A lot of names we have are the names given by the nahua to other culture, so this ads to the confusion. The same like many historic names in asia are the names the greek gave to them...

Other people conquered were the "huasteco" (Tajin). They were of maya ancestry, but developed a disctinc culture. The aztec had a cultural clash with them. The huasteco had rituals that included heavy drinking (forbitten in aztec society) and males used to go with exposed genitals (also forbiten by the aztec society...) som of the few erotic nahua tales knonw, involved huastecos. The Spanish inheritage the low opinion of the aztec on huastecos... Nanahuatzin 06:04, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

A most interesting and fruitful discussion, and quite illustrative of the richness and complexity of Mesoamerican history and cultures. There are well over a hundred distinct archaeological and cultural complexes which have flourished in the region at some point in the last 3500 years or more, and many of these share in a common heritage (by descent or cultural diffusion) to some degree, while also maintaining their distinctive characteristics. Over time, each of them deserve their own representation in wikipedia.

This issue of the intermingling of history and tradition found in the region is one of the main prompts behind setting up the proposed WP:MESO Wikiproject (parent to WP:AZTEC and child of WP:PRECOLUMBIAN), from earlier discussions on talk:Maya civilization. It's still being knocked into shape, but I expect that it will define a need for an overarching series of articles at the Mesoamerican regional level (eg Mesoamerican history, Mesoamerican mythology,Mesoamerican technology, Mesoamerican calendars, etc). These can address the commonalities and differences in an overall way. Underneath this structure, similar series of articles for specific civilizations/cultures can give the detailed "local" view, while maintaining links with other related cultures.

Similarly, there is scope for identifying some sort of hierarchy for subsets of Mesoamerica, such as the Central Mexico-Nahua-Mexica-Aztec distinctions, per suggestion of Richard and others. As noted above, a great number of deities (for example) are common to Central Mexico (ie are not exclusively 'Aztec') and also have their counterparts further afield.

As to the question at hand (name of this article), there's a case for it to be Aztec Empire, since the article is mainly concerned with describing the people and accomplishments since the founding of Tenochtitlan. On the other hand, maybe Aztec Empire is best reserved as a synonym for the Triple Alliance (ie description of the state and its apparatus, rather than in general). Aztec civilization might then be more appropriate.--cjllw | TALK 05:19, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

On reflection, Aztec Empire is not quite synonymous with the Triple Alliance, which was a stage in development rather than the whole thing.--cjllw | TALK 05:28, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Shall we

1. move this discussion to one of the projects? (Not Aztec, one of the higher ones)
2. structure the discussion? What decisions have to taken?
3. invite other projects/the community to comment?

I've removed the vote section, we don't need a vote now, we have to get useful opinions before we move on. Piet 08:22, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with removing the vote section. The choices have become obsolete in light of the discussion.

I understand the suggestion to move the discussion to the project. The logical place would be Wikipedia:Wikiproject Aztec/Strategy although experience on another project suggests that people like to talk on the Talk pages rather than on the project pages. Let's hear what Nanahuatzin and Madman2001 think

Regarding other projects (specifically "higher ones"), the problem is that this issue is really about the Central Mexico Valley. The next "higher" project is WP:MESO which is basically all of Mexico (Aztec, Maya, Mixtec, Olmec, etc.). I think this issue is only about Central Mexico Valley cultures, specifically those that were under Aztec domination. If that's true, then WP:AZTEC is where the discussion should stay. We should welcome comments from other projects but I don't know of a "higher" project that would be more appropriate than WP:AZTEC

--Richard 14:31, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I thought it would be a good idea to see things from a wider perspective, to make sure it's a good idea to move all this information to the Nahua civilization or culture. In fact I don't really want us to decide that here, rather we should look how it is done in literature. Piet 15:24, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Fine with continuing discussion at WP:AZTEC, although noting that at its height Aztec civilization/empire influence extended as far south as the Soconosco coast in the Guatemalan piedmont, southeast to the Gulf Coast and to the west as far as present-day Acapulco (ie, beyond the Valley of Mexico homeland and general Central Mexico region).--cjllw | TALK 06:05, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Root meaning

Aztec (ăz'tĕk') adj. 1. Spanish Azteca from Nahuatl Aztecatl, one who comes from the place of cranes. áztatl = crane + tecatl = stuff (Answers.com, http://www.answers.com/topic/aztec#after_ad1 )

[NOTE TO WIKIPEDIA: I am not sure if i referenced my source apropriately, i didn't take the time to look that up, but i provided as much information as reasonable to credit the appropriate source.]

Thank you for your contribution. I'm not sure why it was deleted and I personally feel that people who delete the contributions of others owe the original editor an explanation. I didn't delete your text but here's my guess as to why it was deleted.

The meaning of the word "Aztec" is explained lower in the article so the position you put it in is the wrong place. Moreover, the explanation provided lower in the article is different from yours and your source answers.com is not a great source since much of the content there comes from Wikipedia and thus Wikipedia could wind up referencing itself. Finally, one of the current editors of this article is a speaker of Nahuatl which is the original language of the Aztecs. We feel that his knowledge of the orginal meaning of Aztec is fairly reliable. If you can provide better documentation to prove that your meaning is superior to his, we can debate it. Otherwise, I suggest that you defer to his expertise.

--Richard 18:38, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Well other reasons probably were

1. Don't put notes in the article, put them on the talk page or in a comment
2. Formatting was bad
3. The article should be written in prose

I feel reverting was allowed in this case. Being bold is nice but looking around to see how things are done is better. No offense intended, we all had to learn once, keep it in mind for your future edits. Piet 21:20, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Let's discuss orthography

Let's discuss any wholesale changes to spelling (orthography) beforehand. In particular, the name of the Aztec capital is "Tenochtitlan", which is not only the name of the article in English, but Spanish as well. I have never seen "Tenochtitlān" used by anyone - I will occasionally find "Tenochtitlán" but none of the established sources (e.g. Michael Coe) use that.

I did open a discussion on orthography on the Nahuatl talk page some time ago, but without resolution.

Thanks, Madman 17:08, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I did suppose that those orthography changes wouldnt be accepted without further notice. However there are reasons for applying them, and I did also not apply them "wholesale". I changed the instances that wreent linkns and where the name was passed of as being a classical nahuatl word, normally indicated by "in nahuatl ..." or by using italics. I didnt try to change words where a nahuatl word was used as an english word or placename and an english style orthography would be expected, I also didnt change titles or hyperlinks.

I am of the opinion that when we represent classical nahuatl word we should use a transcription that

• 1. represents all phonemic information about that word when it is known. (That means that it sshould include vowel length and saltillo/glottal stop.)
• 2. represent the phonological reality of the wordsas consistently. (That is that it uses the same symbols for the same sound every time.)
• 3. is close to the transcription style used in classical nahuatl documents. (e.g. doesnt use w and k etc but use the classical, spanish style letter combinations)

The only orthography that satisfies these conditions is the one developed by Michel Launey based on Horacio Carochis conventions. Carochi indicates vowel length with a macron and glottal stop with a grave accent over medial and initial vowels and a circumflex accent over final vowels (so that the ccent m ark can be seen to be different from the stress mark). This orthography makes it possible to immediately recognize word although you have seen it used in an orthography that doesnt mark vowel length or glottal stop, something that would be more difficult if using completely different letters (e.g. <h> for glottal stop which is also misleading because classical nahuatl had a glottal stop and not an h, or double vowels for lentgh or similar). Carochis transcription is in fact the only historically used transcription that shows both vowel length and glottal stop in a consistent manner.

This means that in my opinion Tenochtitlan could be spelled <Tenochtitlan> when used as an english word (and <Tenochtitlán> when used as a spanish word which is pretty unreasonable on this wiki) but it should be <tenochtitlān> with a long a when used as a nahuatl word because not representing the long vowel would simply be passing of something as nahuatl which isnt. And likewise <tlatoani> should be <tlàtoāni>.

Classical Nahuatl is a dead language and nobody is governing the transcription standard but I think we have a responsability to convey its sounds as faithfully as possibly (even though most modern scholars don't).Maunus 22:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

mhhh.. I have a problem with this. How many people know Michel Launey based conventions?. I think for most of the readers the "ā" does not represent a long vowel, unless we put a section explaining how to pronounce it. For me this is the first time i see it. A least one reader has asked for a guide on how to pronounce nahuatl names. Nanahuatzin 23:35, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Not many people know his conventions. Most people do not represent vowel length and saltillo at all. But the good thing about it is that even though they don't they can still read it because it doesnt throw in any additional letters in the words (something that the transcription using <h> for saltillo does). A description of Launeys orthography can be found at Classical Nahuatl grammar.Maunus 04:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

After having thought about this for a while, my major concern is that I know of no other sources which use this orthography. Portilla, Coe, Nigel Davies all use unaccented vowels, as does Encyclopedia Brittanica and Encarta. A review of the first 150 (non-Wikipedia) Internet hits for tlatoani show nothing but unaccented vowels.

This is not to say that the heavily-accented orthography you propose is incorrect, Maunus. In fact, from your remarks, it would seem that it might indeed be preferrable. However, as you noted recently on Nanahuatzin's Talk page, we are consensus driven and should employ the standards that are in use -- and the heavily-accented orthography is too obscure for us to use it as our standard.

How about the other Mesoamerican editors? Your thoughts? Madman 14:25, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

(Coe and Nigel Davies do not know Nahuatl; Leon Portilla is not known for his rigid scientific standards nor his general linguistic mastery [Note from Madman: yes, I agree that Portilla is less than rigourous! : ) ]. Any source that deals with the Aztec language at an reasonable level does somehow explicitly and motivatedly take a standpoint regarding how and whether to show long vowels and saltillo. Wikipedia should do as much and not just accept the lowest common denominator Maunus 21:09, 19 August 2006 (UTC))

Interesting topic. Maunus asked for my opinions, fwtw. My major opinion is that everybody should use an orthography that everybody else will like. Since that is impossible...

It really comes down to a question of what is being written, for whom, for what purpose(s). If your purposes center around historical documentation and the Classical variant I can see why people would want to keep something close to the traditional orthography. But even then I would see little value in perpetuating some of the oddities that have been perpetrated under that orthography (e.g. o for /w/, i for /y/ and y for /i/, cuh for syllable-final /kʷ/ leading Mexicans to pronounce their sons' name Tecuhtli [teˈkutli] instead of [ˈtekʷtɬi], and so forth.

I agree with Maunus' criteria 1 and 2 (represent all the phonemic info, and do it consistently), and am not particularly motivated by criterion 3 (make it look like Classical Nahuatl), partly because that so easily contradicts criteria 1 and 2. Having two different types of accents to mark the saltillo, for instance, or c/qu, hu/uh, cu/uc/uhc/cuh, z/c and so forth, is really unnecessary. Launey's system is not the only one to meet criterion 1 and do pretty well at 2 and 3: Karttunen's in her 1983 Analytical Dictionary or J. Richard Andrews' very similar one in his 1975 Introduction are reasonable and easier, for me at least, to read. (They use the macron for length, h for saltillo, keep cu/uc, hu/uh, c/qu, c/z, etc.) Carochi/Launey's accents for saltillo don't work well typographically with the macron for cases where saltillo and length coincide (they *do* occur.)

My background is not in Classical Nahuatl, and I have little emotional attachment to the traditional orthography; my impression is that it is clunky and gets in the way for a lot of things. I'd just as soon use univalent and simple symbols, such as k, s, w, macron and so forth. I even like using such unitary symbols as č, ¢, ƛ, kʷ, for the (unitary) complex phonemes; you can see the CVC syllable structure so much more clearly. But it's not a great big deal to me; one does get used to different systems and to switching among them. In representing data from modern variants my preference is to follow whatever orthography is currently most used for each of them, but I recognize that for some purposes it is far from ideal to have different orthographic systems mixed.

In any case one must realize that if data from different variants are represented accurately, you won't always see the same word looking the same. The root 'arrive' was [aʔsi] in Classical (and is [ahsi] in Orizaba); it is [asi] (definitely no saltillo) in Tetelcingo. Length is particularly variable and elusive. Doubled consonants are saltillo-consonant in a number of variants. And so forth. If everything must be written uniformly such differences will not be represented.

I don't see any easy answers. If I were the boss I'd probably set up something with w, k, s, h and macrons and shove it down everybody's throats, but (it's probably just as well) I'm not the boss.

--Lavintzin 22:40, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

As an outsider (with interest in but little knowledge of the subject), I see the value of having a consistent orthography that well-represents the language in Classical Nahuatl. I also see the value of consistently using familiar spellings in the other articles, lest someone wonder whether Mexihcah, Mexìcâ, and even Mexiʔcaʔ or Mexi'ca' are the same word (remember who reads encyclopedias). IPA pronunciations can be given in the other articles (and even in Classical Nahuatl).--Curtis Clark 23:54, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Curtis Clark that the reason a "classic style" orthography is necessary is that then words are recognizable both from documents and from the most common everyday uses. However I only propose this orthography for classical nahuatl and for the modern dialects I very much agree with Lavintzins ideas of having a phonemic script. But this sproposal was only for representations of classical nahuatl words, and nahuatl words in historical contexts. Maunus 09:19, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe that we need to use the most familiar spellings in Wikipedia. In the books and encyclopedia articles dealing with the Aztecs, the orthography of Classical Nahuatl words (when they are used at all) is unaccented. Therefore, I believe we need to use the unaccented orthography for Nahuatl words when we use them in Aztec Wikipedia articles.

For the Nahuatl and Classical Nahuatl articles, we may want to use a different orthography. I am not very familiar with the source materials there and so I'll abstain from an opinion on that.

Thanks for listening, Madman 20:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Ideas for splitting

Could we not split the Aztec article into an article on Aztec civilization and another on the Aztec Empire? The Aztec empire article should then comprise some of the aztec article and some of the History of the Aztecs article. I think it would be more easy to structure that way. Maunus 13:48, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Um, there is an article called Aztec society which arguably could be renamed to Aztec civilization (that would be my preference). The Aztec society and History of the Aztecs articles exist to keep the Aztec article relatively short. I don't quite understand how you want to reorganize things and what the improvement would be. --Richard 16:41, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I just think this article with the less than informative name "Aztec" seems to be a mishmash of: 1. Historical information about the aztec empire and its evolution and fall, 2. Aspects of aztec culture, 3. Etymological musings about the different nomenclatures. 3. Rather irrelevant references to New Age philosophers and their (mis)use of aztec mythology and religion. And to top it it is presented in a completely illogical sequence and with almost no internal coherence. I think it could be partly mended by chucking the different sections out in their own articles. and restructuring the present artcile to function more as a disambiguator to point to the different uses and meanings of the word "Aztec". I don't think that it currently comes even close to deserve GA status.

I would make an article called "Aztec Empire" that would deal with the geopolitical evolution of the aztec empire (it might be done by combining material from Aztec Triple Alliance and History of the Aztecs) And I would have another called Aztec culture or Aztec (or maye Nahua)civilization. I may be the only one who thinks so but I do find this article in pretty poor shape right now. Maunus 16:58, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

You may be right that the article's organization needs improvement. I wouldn't go so far as to characterize the article as a "mishmash" but maybe your standards are higher than mine.

Let me explain what I understand to be the rationale for the current structure of the article since I did some heavy reorganizing of the article earlier this year. If you think it is a mess now, it was worse before I started. (Well, I think so anyway)

My sense of it is that there should be a primary article. At the moment, it is called Aztec although I could imagine it being called Aztec civilization instead. There is a subsidiary article called Aztec society although I could imagine it being called Aztec culture. There is another subsidiary article called History of the Aztecs.

This sort of structure is common in many articles about countries. I'm not so sure about articles about ancient civilizations. (Quick aside to Nanahuatzin: In the U.S., anything older than 300 years is a candidate for being called "ancient". We have a very strange sense of historical perspective because we are such a young country.)

The primary article, currently called Aztec should be a comprehensive overview of every Aztec-related topic with references to "main" subsidiary articles that provide additional detail. In other words, the primary article SHOULD be a mishmash of stuff about the Aztecs but the mishmash should be well-organized and the narrative of the article should flow well so that the reader is engaged and never quite reaches the point of boredom. Boring the reader is a task that should be left to the subsidiary articles.  ;^)

If you are proposing to rename History of the Aztecs to Aztec Empire, I understand your motivation but I think that the average person would think that Aztec Empire was the primary article about Aztecs, not an article about the geopolitical evolution of the Aztec Empire. So, I worry that your technically reasonable proposal will serve to confuse the average reader to whom Wikipedia should be targeted.

--Richard 17:24, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

"The primary article, currently called Aztec should be a comprehensive overview of every Aztec-related topic with references to "main" subsidiary articles that provide additional detail. In other words, the primary article SHOULD be a mishmash of stuff about the Aztecs but the mishmash should be well-organized and the narrative of the article should flow well."

- Agreed, lets try to achieve this first then. By your suggestion this article should however be renamed Aztec Empire because it is the main article. I think we might use Inca Empire as a guideline since it is somewhat better organised. It puts historical and geopolitical info first and later the cultural stuff in short sections pointing to a main article. Maunus 17:36, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to rename this article to Aztec Empire

There is a proposal to rename this article to Aztec Empire. Please comment on the proposal in this section. If there appears to be a consensus to do this, we will take a straw vote to confirm the existence of the consensus.

--Richard 07:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

A suggestion to start, I think it would be as well to notify the rename proposal at and as per WP:RM process, since the target Aztec Empire has a non-trivial edit history and will in any case require administrator powers/action to make the move (if that is the outcome of the discussion).--cjllw | TALK 08:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Tenochtitlan vs. Tenochtitlán

Some editors keep changing "Tenochtitlan" to "Tenochtitlán". Can someone explain why we use "Tenochtitlan" instead of "Tenochtitlán"? --Richard 18:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

We spell it that way because that is the standard spelling for the city. There are some towns in Mexico which are spelled "Tenochtitlán", like San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, in which case we use the accent. But the Aztec capital is not spelled that way in neither Spanish (see es:w:México-Tenochtitlan) nor in Nahuatl (see na:w:Mēxihco Tenōchtitlān). I believe we need to resist the temptation to spell it with the accent just because it seems right. Madman 01:59, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

In the general case, the rationale goes something like this: if a placename comes directly from a Mesoamerican language which does not ordinarily mark accented stress, then there'd be no need to mark it with an accent when using it in english prose (which also does not mark stress this way, other than in some fossilised terms). The accent in such placenames is a requirement/practice of spanish orthographical conventions. On the other hand, in cases where the placename comes from spanish, or from a Mesoamerican language originally but with some 'hispanicised' modification, then (depending to a degree on whether or not the familiarity of the place to english-speakers has led to a spelling convention for it) the placename may be written with the accent if it occurs.

The above is not consistently applied,at least at present.--cjllw | TALK 03:39, 27 September 2006 (UTC)