Search Issues: Update 2026-09-16 - Repairs to some of our search pages are ongoing. Thank you for your continued patience!

Meanwhile, elements of the Advanced Search are working and the Alphabetical Listings are working, too.

cel.

Headword: 
cel.
Principal English Translation: 

fresh, green (see Karttunen)

IPAspelling: 
sel
Frances Karttunen: 

*CEL This is an element meaning ‘fresh, green’. It can also refer to heat, since Nahuatl’s use of ‘green’ as an intensifier for heat is analogous to the use of ‘blue’ and ‘white’ in English. It is only attested bound, but Z has the form CELTZIN, which implies a free form. Z has the vowel /K028/ marked long, but in related forms it is consistently short.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 28.

themes: