Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!

Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.

ilhuia.

Headword: 
ilhuia.
Principal English Translation: 

to take counsel with oneself, to make a complaint; to say something to someone; to reveal something to someone (see Karttunen); to tell someone something (Lockhart); to share a secret, to complain before the law; to consult with oneself or with another (see Molina)

IPAspelling: 
ilwiɑː
Alonso de Molina: 

ilhuia. nicte. (pret. onicteilhui.) dezir algo a otro, o descubrirle el secreto.
ilhuia. ninote. (pret. oninoteilhui.) quexarse ala justicia.
ilhuia. nicno. (pret. onicnolhui.) consultar algo consigo mismo.
ilhuia. noconno. (pret. onoconnolhui.) consultar algo consigo mismo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 37r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

(I)LHUIĀ vrefl,vt to take counsel with oneself, to make a complaint; to say something to someone, to reveal something to someone / quejarse a la justicia (M), consultar algo consigo mismo (M), decir algo a otro o descubrir el secreto (M) Because this is an inherently applicative verb, it takes both a direct and indirect object prefix. NITĒTLALHUIĀ ‘I say something to someone,’ NINOTLALHUIĀ ‘I consult myself about something.’ (I)LHUILIĀ applic (I)LHUIĀ
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 103.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

(i)lhuia, niqu. tell someone something. Class 3: ōniquilhuih. functions as applicative of ihtoa, but not genetically related. 220
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), 220.

Attestations from sources in English: 

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

molhuya = called
Byron McAfee, translation of the Techialoyan manuscript from Santa Mara Zolotepec or Ocelotepec; University of California, Los Angeles, Special Collections

amo aqui quilhuitinemis quemania = no one is ever to go about saying anything to her (San Pablo Tepemaxalco, Toluca Valley, 1710)
Caterina Pizzigoni, ed., Testaments of Toluca (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2007), 134.

This is the applicative form of itoa, to speak.
molhuia, mo + iluia = reverential form of itoa.
Robert Haskett and Stephanie Wood's notes from Nahuatl sessions with James Lockhart and subsequent research.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

xiquilhui = dezilde [sic -- i.e. decidle, decirle]
Pedro de Arenas, Vocabulario Manual de las Lenguas Castellana, y Mexicana (Mexico: Henrico Martínez, 1611), 5.

quimolhuilli cuis monouanyolqui yn Martin Olin = Fuele preguntado si hera pariente de Martin Olin (Tlatelolco, 1557)
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), 72.

ylhuiloc yn testico = le fue dicho al testigo (Ciudad de México, 1558)
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), 97.

themes: 
Protest, Resistance