Michael Everson wrote:
> Marco said:
>
> >MC> However, the Aztec script uses color has a structural element:
> >MC> signs with the same design can mean different things if
> painted in
> >MC> different colors.
>
> Has it? Reference?
The best I can come up with from my private library is a single paragraph on
a book about the history of writing in general ("Storia universale della
scrittura" by Giorgio R. Cardona, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milano 1986,
chapter XII "Le scritture del continente americano", 2 "Le scritture
mesoamericane", "Area azteca e olmeca", page 257):
"Gli Aztechi attribuivano una grande importanza all'opposizione tra
i vari colori: i colori avevano per loro un significato simbolico ben
preciso e, come si � accertato solo in tempi molto recenti, erano usati
normalmente nelle rappresentazioni tridimensionali; era per esempio colorato
il tante volte riprodotto disco del calendario messicano, ora nel Museo
Nazionale di Antropologia di Citt� del Messico. Coerentemente, anche nei
logogrammi aztechi il colore costituiva un tratto significativo."
(my translation: "Aztecs assigned great importance to color
oppositions: colors had for them a well defined symbolic meaning and, as was
proved very recently, colors were normally employed in three-dimensional
representations; for instance, color was used in the often-reproduced
Mexican calendar disc, now at the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico
City. Consistently, color was a meaningful feature also in Aztec
logographs.")
I also found a mention about this on the web ("Aztec Writing"
<http://www.azteca.net/aztec/nahuatl/writing.html>), although I don't know
how reliable the site is:
"Color was also important. The signs for grass, canes, and rushes
look very much the same in black and white, but in color there could be no
mistake: in the Codex Mendoza grass is yellow, canes are blue, rushes green.
A ruler could be recognized at once from the shape of his diadem and from
its color, turquoise, which was reserved for royal use."
_ Marco
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