tlayacanqui.

Headword: 
tlayacanqui.
Principal English Translation: 

leader, guide

James Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 43–4.

Orthographic Variants: 
tlayecanqui, teyacanqui
IPAspelling: 
tɬɑyɑkɑːnki
Frances Karttunen: 

TLAYACĀNQUI pl: TLĀTLAYACĀNQUIH person in authority, leader, boss / autoridad, mayor, jefe, patrón, superior, gobernador (Z) [(1)Tp.238, (2)Zp.63,218]. M has synonymous teyacanqui. T gives a reduplicated plural rather than the regular –QUEH plural for this type of derived noun. The final glottal stop is given here by analogy with other reduplicated plurals. Because of T’s general loss of glottal stops in word-final position, it is not directly attested. See YACĀN(A).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 304.

Attestations from sources in English: 

ioan tianqujzpan tlaiacanque, in tlaixquetzalli oqujchti, ioan çioa in tequjtlatoque catca = and the market place directors, the men and women thus appointed, were charged with assigning the tribute (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 8 -- Kings and Lords, no. 14, Part IX, 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), 69.

qujmjxquetzaia, in tianqujzpan tlaiacanque = Market place directors were appointed to office (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 8 -- Kings and Lords, no. 14, Part IX, 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), 67.

Inic navi iehoatl in cuitlalpitoc, çan tetlan nenqui tlaiacanqui = fourth, Cuitlalpitoc, who was only a dependent, a subordinate leader
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), 56.

tianquizpan tlayacanqui = marketplace administrator or judge
Susan Kellogg, Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture, 1500–1700 (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 227.

plural: tianquizpan tlaiacanque
Susan Kellogg, Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture, 1500–1700 (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 227.

tlayacanque (pl; also seen as tlayecanque) = heads, leaders, those who go first
James Lockhart, personal communication, May 23, 2008.

tlayacanqui = foreman
Byron McAfee translation of the Tepotzotlan Techialoyan, published in Donald Robertson, The Techialoyan Codex of Tepotztotlan: Codex X (Rylands Mexican Ms. 1), Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 43:1 (Sept. 1960), 128.

tlayacanqui = guides, leaders
plural = tlaiacanque
Susan Kellogg, Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture, 1500–1700 (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 227.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

"...visitó el dicho Juez [de congregaciones]...llevando por delante el tlayacanque de cada barrio y entrando en muchas casas para ver si tenian necesidad de reparos ma[n]dallas [a] reparar y aderezar...." (Yecapixtla, Morelos, 1605–1606)
Federico Fernández Christlieb, citando un documento en el Ramo Hospital de Jesús, vo. 49, exp. 8, f. 5v. Ver Federico Fernández Christleib y Angel Julián García Zambrano, coordinadores, Territorialidad y paisaje en el altepetl del siglo XVI, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica y Instituto de Geografía de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, p. 434 y nota 37.

tlayacanqui = administrador
Anneliese Monnich, "El Altepeamatl de Ocoyacac, México," Indiana 2 (1974), 172.

Tlempanoc: Ipan ni 21 tonatiuh zan tlen 1920 ipan México quimictihqueh Venustiano Carranza (Tlayecanquetl tlen Revolución mexicanah ipan 1910). = Pasado: El día 21 pero de 1920 en México asesinan a Venustiano Carranza (líder de la Revolución mexicana de 1910).
Victoriano Cruz de la Cruz, Nahuatlahtolli, 21 Mayo 2013. Náhuatl moderno de la Huasteca del Este.