Principal English Translation:
maize tassel flower; can also refer to other things with a similar appearance 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), 225.
Orthographic Variants:
miyaoatl, miahuatl, miaoatl
Frances Karttunen:
MIYĀHUA-TL inalienably possessed form: -MIYĀHUAYŌ the tassel and flower of maize / la espiga y la flor de la caña de maíz (M) B attests this once with the vowel of the second syllable specifically marked short. Because the sequence is stem-internal and unalternating, it is impossible to determine whether this is MIYĀ or MIĀ.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 149.
Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:
possessed form seems usually to add -yō. 225
Attestations from sources in English:
miyaoaxoch = Maize tassel flower, a name for girls; tomiyauh = Our maize tassel, a name for girls (Central Mexico, sixteenth century) Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 255. Ma amo ixiloiocan taci: ma amo imjiaoaiocan taci = Thou hast not reached the season of the green maize ear; thou hast not reached the season of the maize tassel (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), 235. Ҫaҫan tleino, cemanaoac topapancololtzitzin. Miiaoatl = What is it that bends over us all over the world? The maize tassel (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), 238.
Attestations from sources in Spanish:
Ma amo ixiloiocan taci: ma amo imjiaoaiocan taci = Nunca te logres o nunca vengas a colmo (centro de México, s. XVI) 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), 235. Ҫaҫan tleino, cemanaoac topapancololtzitzin. Miiaoatl = Que cosa y cosa, que en todo el mũdo encima de nosotros se encorba. Son los penachos del mahiz q̃do se uã secãdo y encoruando (centro de Mexico, s. XVI) 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), 238.