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axcan.

Headword: 
axcan.
Principal English Translation: 

now, today, current (adverb)

Orthographic Variants: 
āxcān, ascan, asca
IPAspelling: 
ɑːʃkɑːn
Alonso de Molina: 

Axcan. agora. Aduerbio.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua mexicana y castellana, 1571, (www.idiez.org.mx), f. 10r.

Frances Karttunen: 

ĀXCĀN now, today / ahora (M)
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 15.

Horacio Carochi / English: 

āxcān = now, today
Horacio Carochi, S.J., Grammar of the Mexican language with an explanation of its adverbs (1645), translated and edited with commentary by James Lockhart, UCLA Latin American Studies Volume 89 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2001), 350–51, 498.

Andrés de Olmos: 

oy, o agora
Andrés de Olmos, Arte para aprender la lengua Mexicana, ed. Rémi Siméon, facsimile edition ed. Miguel León-Portilla (Guadalajara: Edmundo Aviña Levy, 1972), 189.

Attestations from sources in English: 

"A great many of Chimalpahin's entries begin with the word axcan, meaning in this context 'today.' It gradually becomes clear that many entries so beginning were not written on the actual day of the events narrated; surely not those in the early part of the work, occurring when Chimalphain was still a child (though these entries may have been copied from others which in fact were written closer to the events). Not infrequently we see evidence that some or even the bulk of an entry was written years after the fact. In view of its use in the original one might be justified in rendering this kind of axcan as 'at this point,' or leaving it out altogether, as Rafael Tena quite justifiably does at time in his 2001 Spanish edition of these texts. But since the word is an important item in the stylistics of Chimalpahin and of Nahuatl annals in general, and it is lacking in many entries, we have felt it best to give the reader the full information, putting 'today' every time that this sort of axcan appears."
Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, eds. and transl. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 17.

axcan motene hua, Totolâ xinticatca = a:xca:n motenehua To:tolan xinticatca = now called Totolan, where it is flat
Anónimo mexicano, ed. Richley H. Crapo and Bonnie Glass-Coffin (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2005), 61.

Ascan jueves = Today Thursday (Coyoacan, 1573)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 16, 98–99.

In axcan: at ie nellaxcan = Now, already at this very time (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1961), 17.

asca ic 8 ilhuitl mani de Junios 1586 años = today, the 8th of June, 1586 (Tlatelolco, 1586)
Translation by Stephanie Wood. Nahuatl baptismal records, Caja 21, Archivo Histórico de la Provincia del Santo Evangelio de México, Convento Franciscano de San Gabriel, San Pedro Cholula, Puebla.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

in axcan tlatoani = el actual señor (centro de México, s. XVI)
Víctor M. Castillo F., "Relación Tepepulca de los señores de México Tenochtitlan y de Acolhuacan," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 11 (1974), 183–225, y ver la pág. 204—205.

çenca choca tlaocoyatlacat ascan = Ahora lloran mucho por tristeza.
Nuestro pesar, nuestra aflicción / tunetuliniliz, tucucuca; Memorias en lengua náhuatl enviadas a Felipe II por indígenas del Valle de Guatemala hacia 1572, introduction by Cristopher H. Lutz, paleography and translation by Karen Dakin (México: UNAM and Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica, 1996, 64–65.

a:xan = axcan
A:xan naja niquiga ne a:mat ga:tan at. = Ahora yo llevo la carta debajo del aqua. (Sonsonate, El Salvador, Nahuat or Pipil, s. XX)
Tirso Canales, Nahuat (San Salvador: Universidad de El Salvador Editorial Universitaria, 1996), 7–8.

themes: 
Time, Calendar, Frequency