chantli. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

chantli.

Principal English Translation:

a person's home; a chapel (the "home" of a saint's image); an enclosure for animals; a Spaniard's estate; this term rarely appears unpossessed, i.e., with the absolutive (-tli); exceptions are when this is a personal name, Chantli, as is found, for example, in the Matrícula de Huexotzinco (see an example on folio 833 recto)

IPAspelling:

tʃɑːntɬi

Frances Karttunen:

CHĀN-TLI pl: -MEH home, residence / la casa (C) casa, habitación, residencia, país, patria, etc. (S) This contrasts with house. CAL-LI as English home contrasts with house. CAL-LI refers to the physical structure, while CHĀN-TLI implies a human, social connection with a location. See –CHĀN. Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 46.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:

chān-(tli). home, residence, almost always seen possessed, locative; without any other suffix it means "at one's home." acts like a relational word in every respect, including taking a reverential in -tzīnco, even when a noun is compounded to it, as in īteōpanchāntzīnco, "in his/her churchly home." 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), 214.

Attestations from sources in English:

See an image that represents chantli in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).

chantli (noun) = a dwelling, a residence
Daniel Garrison Brinton, Ancient Nahuatl Poetry: Containing the Nahuatl Text of XXVII Ancient Mexican Poems (1887), 152.

Yn nahuachuic chicnahuy tlamantlí, tlaca, mochintín cetlacatilíz-pan quizque, omoxexeloque Ynizquícan chachanecayotl = Nine parties of people, all from the same lineage, left with them. They separated themselves into an equal number of residential groups.
Anónimo mexicano, ed. Richley H. Crapo and Bonnie Glass-Coffin (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2005), 21.

cacalactinemj in techachan = they kept going from house to house (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 2 -- The Ceremonies, no. 14, Part III, 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, 1951), 79.

quimoselilis yn noyolia y nanimantzin ynic quimohuiquilis yn itlatocachantzinco ynic onpa quimoyectenehuilis en nonbre gesus maria y gose = accept my spirit and soul to take it to his royal home so that there it will praise him. In the name of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. (Santa María Nativitas, Toluca Valley, 1737)
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 234.

macuilti acticate yn icha = Five are included in his home. (Cuernavaca region, ca. 1540s) The Book of Tributes: Early Sixteenth-Century Nahuatl Censuses from Morelos, ed. and transl. S. L. Cline, (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1993), 162–163.

Acamique campa oanvallque, can amochan? = Who are you? Where have you come from? Where is your homeland?
James Lockhart, We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico, Repertorium Columbianum v. 1 (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1993), 58.

For extended discussions of the possibility of chantli (with the absolutive), see a posting by Joe Campbell and one by Alan King (about Nawat of El Salvador) both in May 2008 on the Nahuat-L listserv.

Chantli = house; but: "It can only be said by one owning property." (Florentine Codex, Book 11, folio 244v). So, it is used to refer to one's personal home, the house one lives in. (SW)
Sahagún, Bernardino de, Antonio Valeriano, Alonso Vegerano, Martín Jacobita, Pedro de San Buenaventura, Diego de Grado, Bonifacio Maximiliano, Mateo Severino, et al. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Florentine Codex), Ms. Mediceo Palatino 218–20, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, MiBACT, 1577. Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter, Alicia Maria Houtrouw, Kevin Terraciano, Jeanette Peterson, Diana Magaloni, and Lisa Sousa, bk. 11, fol. 244v. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/244v . Accessed 3 February 2026.

yhuan niquitohua yehuatzin San miḡl de apariçio nicnonemactilia çe pedaso tlali oniccouh onpa moquetzaz ychantzin = And I say that I donate to San Miguel de Aparicio a piece of land that I bought; there his home [chapel] is to be erected. (San Miguel Aticpac, Toluca Valley, 1711) Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 70–71.

yha has been seen in the Valley of Toluca for ychan (his/her home) (San Pablo Tepemaxalco, Toluca Valley, 1759)
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 57, note 2.

itlatoCachatzintzinCon ylhuiCac = his royal home in heaven
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 160.

vmpevaya inetotiloya in jchã diablo = there began the dancing in the temple of the devil. (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 57.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

nican nitocoz ychatzinco Santa Ysabel = he de ser enterrada en Santa Isavel (San Damián, 1590)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 1, Testamentos en castellano del siglo XVI y en náhuatl y castellano de Ocotelulco de los siglos XVI y XVII, eds. Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, y Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: CIESAS, 1999), 224-225.

ynica nochayo = aquí en mi casa (Ocotelulco, 1619)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 1, Testamentos en castellano del siglo XVI y en náhuatl y castellano de Ocotelulco de los siglos XVI y XVII, eds. Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, y Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: CIESAS, 1999), 188-189.

Yvan noyan milpan çan tapic tequiti ytic castillan taoli ytic ychan españoles çan ipampa ymilpan nemi quimaca y yçacatl caballo çatepan çepa quitotoca ytic ytal vel quintolinia = En todo el campo [los macehuales] sólo trabajan el trigo en las fincas de los españoles, nada más porque viven en sus tierras. Entregan rastrojo [a los españoles]. Sólo después siembran sus proprios terrenos. Se afligen mucho.
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, 18-19.

chane, chaneque = el posfijo es indicación de ser poseedor de un hogar; vecino, vecinos ompa chaneque San Pablo Teocaltitlan = vecinos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan (Ciudad de México, 1564)
Luis Reyes García, Eustaquio Celestino Solís, Armando Valencia Ríos, et al, Documentos nauas de la Ciudad de México del siglo XVI (México: Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social y Archivo General de la Nación, 1996), 110.

Nezahualcoyotzin ichan = en la casa de Nezahualcoyotl
Miguel León-Portilla, "Los nombres de lugar en náhuatl," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 15 (1982), 39.

tochan Mexico = en nuestra tierra (i.e.) en nuestra casa, México
Miguel León-Portilla, "Los nombres de lugar en náhuatl," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 15 (1982), 39.

IDIEZ morfema:

chāntli.

IDIEZ traduc. inglés:

1. s.o.ʻs house or home. 2. In or at s.o.ʻs house or home.

IDIEZ def. náhuatl:

Ni tlahtolli quemmantica motequihuia quence tlatocaxtiliztli huan quemmantica quence tlapantiliztli. 1. no. Calli tlen macehualli pan itztoc huanya iconehuan. "Ne nochan quipiya miac xihuitl huan zan queipan eltoc. ” 2. no. Pan calli tlen macehualli pan itztoc huanya iconehuan. “Quemman niitztoya nochan noceltitzin, nechmahmauhtih ce miccatzin. ” “Zan quen niquizteuhqui nochan peuhqui tlaahuetzi chicahuac. ”

themes:

Architecture, Construction, Buildings

Family, Kinship, Descent

Land Tenure