Tlamatini
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Tlamatini (plural tlamatinime) is a Nahuatl language word meaning "someone who knows something", generally translated as "wise man". The word is analyzable as derived from the transitive verb mati "to know" with the prefix tla- indicating an unspecified inanimate object translateable by "something" and the derivational suffix -ni meaning "a person who are characterized by ...": hence tla-mati-ni "a person who is characterized by knowing something" or more to the point "a knower".
The word was particularly in use during the Aztec period. The famous Nahuatl language translator and interpreter Miguel León-Portilla refers to the tlamatini as philosophers and they are the subject of his book Aztec Thought and Culture.
Alternate spellings include tlamatime.[1]
[edit] Notes
- ^ See Boone, p. 155.
[edit] References
- Boone, Elizabeth Hill. "Pictorial Documents and Visual Thinking in Postconquest Mexico", in Native Traditions in the Postconquest World, Elizabeth Hill Boone and Tom Cummins, ed., Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D. C., 1998.
- León-Portilla, Miguel; Aztec Thought and Culture: A Study of the Ancient Nahuatl Mind; University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.
