camatl. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

camatl.

Principal English Translation:

the mouth

James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 212.

IPAspelling:

kɑmɑtɬ

Alonso de Molina:

camatl. boca.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 12r. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

CAM(A)-TL possessed form: -CAN mouth / boca (M) Cf.82v gives –CAMAC as an alternative possessed form. See CAMAC-TLI.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 24.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:

combining form cama-.

James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 212.

Attestations from sources in English:

yn tleyn nocamatica niquitoz = what I shall say with my mouth (San Simón Pochtlan, 1695)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 5, 68–69.

tocamac tlaqua / chichi = Our mouth: it eats, it spits (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 256.

nocamac = in my mouth (colonial Mexico)
Michel Launey, An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, translated and adapted by Christopher MacKay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 9.

camatl; tocama, coionqui, quiquiztic, coiaoac, tlaqualoia, totlaquaia, tlaceliloia, vncã motzaqua, vncan motlalia in tlaqualli, inic moqua, inic mocuechoa = mouth, our mouth, hole, like a passage way, wide, place for eating, our place for eating, place for receiving, there it is closed, there is placed the food in order to eat [it], in order to chew [it] (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 10 -- The People, No. 14, Part 11, 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), 107.

ca oicamac ticalac in tequanj [...] ca ie tequanj icamac = thou hast entered the mouth of a wild beast [...] For already thou art in the mouth of the wild beast (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), 72.

ie iacattiuh in cioatl, in qujqua nauhcamatl: ҫatepan qujqualtia in oqujchtli no nauhcamatl = The woman took the lead in eating four mouthfuls; thereafter she also fed the man four mouthfuls (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), 132.

camatl = mouth, utterance
cencamatl = individual word
Rebecca Horn's notecards from Nahuatl study sessions with James Lockhart, ca. late 1970s and early 1980s.

themes:

Anatomy

Writing, Literacy