Written Language
The language that the Aztecs spoke was called Nahuatl. They used glyphs instead of words to write. By combining a few glyphs, they could make a sentence. In just one picture, they could tell a whole story by putting all of the glyphs together. All glyphs were drawn the same by everybody so all could read it. For example a foot print meant to travel, a scroll meant speech, and a shield and arrows meant war. More important people were drawn larger then people who were less important. If you wanted to write a noun, such as a cat, you would draw a cat. If you wanted to draw an owl, you would draw owl, and so on.
The Aztecs had books, which were called codices (codex for non-plural). These were long pieces of paper folded like an accordion. Both ends would have a piece of wood each. The codices could be read from either top to bottom or left to right. They were usually 50 metres long, and 20 centimetres wide. The materials they were made from was tree bark (amatl) or deer skin. The pages were joined together in a long zigzag.
The language that the Aztecs spoke was called Nahuatl. They used glyphs instead of words to write. By combining a few glyphs, they could make a sentence. In just one picture, they could tell a whole story by putting all of the glyphs together. All glyphs were drawn the same by everybody so all could read it. For example a foot print meant to travel, a scroll meant speech, and a shield and arrows meant war. More important people were drawn larger then people who were less important. If you wanted to write a noun, such as a cat, you would draw a cat. If you wanted to draw an owl, you would draw owl, and so on.
The Aztecs had books, which were called codices (codex for non-plural). These were long pieces of paper folded like an accordion. Both ends would have a piece of wood each. The codices could be read from either top to bottom or left to right. They were usually 50 metres long, and 20 centimetres wide. The materials they were made from was tree bark (amatl) or deer skin. The pages were joined together in a long zigzag.