9 Understanding Pictography: Interpreting Nahua Semioticsâ286

Isabel Laack

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9 Understanding Pictography: Interpreting Nahua Semioticsâ286

In: Aztec Religion and Art of Writing

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Isabel Laack

Isabel Laack
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 286â341

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004392014_011

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Abstract

This theoretically most important chapter interprets Nahua semiotics by (re)constructing the Indigenous semiotic theory and presenting an interpretation of the modus operandi of Nahua pictography based on contemporary academic theories. First, the history of evaluating and devaluating âAztec writingâ is recapped. Dominant European language and writing theories often rest on the assumption that rationality is the supreme human faculty for understanding reality. Derivatively, phonographic writing is considered as the best expression of ultimate truth because it represents linguistic thought understood as mirroring the rational categories of external reality. To develop a new theory that positively acknowledges Nahua pictography as an elaborate semiotic system, George Lakoff and Mark Johnsonâs approach of embodied meaning is drawn on. Discussing nonlinguistic kinds of meaning and knowledge, it is argued that Nahua Âpictography expressed forms of nonpropositional meaning in complex ways and provided the âreaderâ with the means to interpret and understand several layers of this reality in an embodied wayâincluding abstract, rational thinking but not reduced to it. This chapter also presents an interpretative (re)construction of the Indigenous semiotic theory. Recalling Nahua ontology, aesthetics, and language theory, it is argued that the Nahuas understood their writing not as a secondary, arbitrary sign system. Rather, they experienced the visual sign as part of the reality it expressed because it was seen as the visual materialization of the many distinctive forces or qualities of reality.

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Aztec Religion and Art of Writing

Investigating Embodied Meaning, Indigenous Semiotics, and the Nahua Sense of Reality

Series:Â Numen Book Series, Volume: 161

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004392014

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 02 Jan 2019

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9 Understanding Pictography: Interpreting Nahua Semioticsâ286

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Aztec Religion and Art of Writing

Investigating Embodied Meaning, Indigenous Semiotics, and the Nahua Sense of Reality

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9 Understanding Pictography: Interpreting Nahua Semioticsâ286