patla. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

patla.

Principal English Translation:

to change something, exchange, trade, represent (when transitive)

IPAspelling:

pɑtɬɑ

Alonso de Molina:

patla. nitla. (pret. onitlapatlac.) cambiar, o trocar algo, o desleir, o deshazer algo, asi como azucar, sal, nieue, carambano. &c.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 80r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

patla. nino. (pret. oninopatlac.) enhadarse, o cansarse de esperar, o desconfiar.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 80r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

patla. nite. (pret. onitepatlac.) sustituir a alguno en lugar de otro.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 80r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

PATLA vt to change, exchange something / cambiar o trocar algo (M) M combines the glosses of this and PATLA 'to dissolve, melt something' in a single entry. C contrasts the two. PATLALŌ nonact. PATLA.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 189.

Horacio Carochi / English:

Vowel length is important for contrasting words that might look similar but that mean very different things, dilute, exchange and cure. He notes: Xicmopātili = Dilute it! Xicmopatili = Exchange it! and Xicmopàtili = Cure it!
Horacio Carochi, S.J., Grammar of the Mexican Language with an Explanation of its Adverbs (1645), translated and edited with commentary by James Lockhart, UCLA Latin American Studies Volume 89 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2001), 27.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:

nic. to trade, exchange, replace. Class 1: ōnicpatlac. 229
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), 229.

Attestations from sources in English:

yc mopatlac yn huaxacac = it was exchanged for Oaxaca (early seventeenth century, central New Spain)
Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, eds. and transl. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 114–115.

In ixquich in imixiptlavan, in impatilloan in diablome, ie no ceppa quincecencauhque, quintlaquentique = Again they ornamented and clothed all the images and representations of the devils. (Mexico City, sixteenth century)
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), 178.

çan mopapatla yn ontetlacualtia yn cuavhnavac = They just take turns going to feed people in Cuernavaca. (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), 240–241.

çan oquixcavhya y tequipa nemi mopapatla y ce oya tequipa y cequiti comotemolia y quimoqualtia ça mocepatlayecoltia = All they do is take turns going on tribute labor. One went on tribute labor; some are looking for a way to get fed. They just all try to make a living together. (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), 208–209.

ōpantli ŷ notlal nicpatilti = I exchanged two strips of my land (Coyoacan region, 1575)
Beyond the Codices, eds. Arthur J.O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1976), Doc. 20, 112–113.

quipatla = "to exchange a human being"
David Tavárez, The Invisible War: Indigenous Devotions, Discipline, and Dissent in Colonial Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 51.

themes:

Markets, Commerce, Economy