The Language of Teotihuacan Writing

Abstract

The culture that thrived at Teotihuacan in the Classic period has a unique place in Mesoamerican history. Today, it is held as an emblem of the Mexican national past and is one of the most visited archaeological sites in the Americas. Nevertheless, curious visitors are told that the ethnic and linguistic affiliation of the Teotihuacanos remains unknown. Whereas the decipherment of other Mesoamerican writing systems has provided a wealth of information about dynasties and historical events, scholars have not been able to access information about Teotihuacan society from their own written sources. Indeed, the topic of writing at Teotihuacan prompts several contentious questions. Do signs in Teotihuacan imagery constitute writing? If it is writing, how did it work? Was it meant to be read independently of language? If it did represent a specific language, then what language was it? We propose that Teotihuacan writing shared basic principles with other Mesoamerican scribal traditions, including the use of logograms according to the rebus principle, as well as a principle we term “double spelling.” Arguing that it did encode a specific and identifiable language, namely, a Uto-Aztecan language immediately ancestral to Nahuatl, Cora, and Huichol, we offer new readings of several Teotihuacan glyphs.