ixayotl. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

ixayotl.

Principal English Translation:

a tear (from the eye), or tears (see Molina and Karttunen)

Orthographic Variants:

īxāyō, ixaio, ixaiotl

IPAspelling:

iːʃɑːyoːtɬ

Alonso de Molina:

ixayotl. lagrimas. Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 44v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

ĪXĀYŌ-TL tears / lágrimas (M) There is also nearly synonymous ĪXXĀYŌ-TL derived from ĪX-TLI ‘eye’ and XĀYŌ-TL ‘discharge, excrement.’ It is possible that the frequently attested ĪXĀYŌ-TL, is a reduction or reanalysis of ĪXXĀYŌ-TL, which is attested just once. The simplification of XX to X is common in the modern sources and may extend to B and C too in this case. On the other hand, ĀYŌ-TL ‘watery substance’ is as plausible for a second element here as XĀYŌ-TL ‘discharge.’ See ĪX-TLI, ĀYŌ-TL. Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 110.

Attestations from sources in English:

at amo icnjuhiotica: at choqujztli, at ixaiotl in qujҫa = not by way of friendship; perhaps it is of weeping, of tears (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), 137. ixxayoc = a place of tears (central Mexico, sixteenth century) Personal communication, James Lockhart, in sessions analyzing Huehuetlatolli.auh in pipilzitzinti, intla chocatiuj, intla imixaio totocatiuh, intla imixaio pipilcatiuh, mitoaia, moteneoaia, ca quijiauiz: yn imixaio qujnezçaiotiaia, in qujiaujtl = And if the children went crying, their tears coursing down and bathing their faces, it was said and understood that indeed it would rain. [For] their tears signified rain. (16th century, Mexico City)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 2—The Ceremonies, No. 14, Part III, 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), 43-44.

themes:

Emotions