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atle.

Headword: 
atle.
Principal English Translation: 

nothing (see Molina)

Orthographic Variants: 
ahtle, ahtleh
IPAspelling: 
ɑhtɬeh
Alonso de Molina: 

atle. nada, o ninguna cosa.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 8v. col. 1. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

AHTLE(H) nothing / nada o ninguna cosa (M) The final glottal stop drops when followed by a word beginning with a vowel. See AH-, TLE(H).
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 7.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

nothing, a negated quantifier. ah negative, tle(h).
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), 211.

Attestations from sources in English: 

Ahtleh īpan nitlamati = I consider things as nothing [i.e., I am afraid of nothing or I respect nothing]. (Atenango, between Mexico City and Acapulco, 1629)
Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain, 1629, eds. and transl. J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), 75.

atle omochiuh = nothing happened
Here in This Year: Seventeenth-Century Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Valley, ed. and transl. Camilla Townsend, with an essay by James Lockhart (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 192–193.

atle ma ytla yva ça ya yo = nothing else whatever. That is all. (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), 146–147.

atle y quinanamiqui ça quixcavia = the only thing he does is guarding things (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), 132–133.

"omomoquillique yn atle quichiuhtiaque testamento" = "When they died, they left no testament."
Rebecca Horn's notecards from Nahuatl study sessions with James Lockhart in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

atle misa ça peuh temachtili = No hubo misa, sólo empezó el sermón (Tlaxcala, 1662–1692)
Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza, Historia cronológica de la Noble Ciudad de Tlaxcala, transcripción paleográfica, traducción, presentación y notas por Luis Reyes García y Andrea Martínez Baracs (Tlaxcala y México: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria y Difusión Cultural, y Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1995), 388–389.

atle yhtlacauhtica = nada está distorsionado (Tlaxcala, 1609)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 64–65.

ca ahtletiz = que no sera nada
Pedro de Arenas, Vocabulario Manual de las Lenguas Castellana, y Mexicana (Mexico: Henrico Martínez, 1611), 3.

auh y tehuatin atle totequiuh don Juan Buenaventura Çapata Y Mendoza don Francisco Ruiz don Josep de Celi don Pedro de Sant Francisco yhuan hoccequitin pipiltin nahui cabicera = Y nosotros no tuvimos ningún cargo: don Juan Buenaventura Zapata Y Mendoza, don Francisco Ruiz, don Josep de Celis, don Pedro de San Francisco y otros muchos pipiltin de las cuatro cabeceras. (Tlaxcala, 1662–1692)
Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza, Historia cronológica de la Noble Ciudad de Tlaxcala, transcripción paleográfica, traducción, presentación y notas por Luis Reyes García y Andrea Martínez Baracs (Tlaxcala y México: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria y Difusión Cultural, y Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1995), 322–323.