The Aztec did not have a written language, but spoke Nahuatl. They did have written records, however. They chiefly used the method of direct representation and varieties of hieroglyphic paintings. Studies of language have shown that the Aztec language Nahuatl and that of the Pueblo Indian are related. The Aztec spoke a language called Nahuatl (pronounced NAH waht l). It belongs to a large group of Indian languages which also include the languages spoken by the Comanche, Pima, Shoshone and other tribes of western North America. The Aztec used pictographs to communicate through writing.
Some of the pictures symbolized ideas and other represented the sounds of the syllables. Variations of this language are still spoken in some of the more remote areas of Mexico in which the indigenous cultures are still alive. Nahuatl is a variation of a larger language group known as Uto-Aztecan. Other variations on this language group are still spoken in some of the regions spanning from central Mexico through northern Mexico on into the southwestern United States including the Pima, Tohono O'ohdam of Arizona. Aztec writing may have been derived from the Mixtec writing system and is similarly logographic. This may have been an advantage since people who spoke many different languages could then read the glyphs. Similarly it is not written in an alphabetic script but uses pictures and symbols to communicate information.
The Aztecs used colorfully painted screen fold books like the Maya and Mixtec and carved and painted glyphs on walls and monuments, and carved stelae. The word Aztec was invented by a 19th century writer; perhaps the word was used to sanitize or distance the historical people from their progeny. The people encountered by Cortez were known as the Mexica, leaders of the Triple Alliance. They were the most powerful of many ethnic groups that made the valley of Mexico their home. The Aztec wrote using symbols similar to the characteristics used by the Chinese and Japanese. All symbols were pictures of one kind or another. Many different types of books and documents were in use in Mexico on the eve of the Spanish conquest.
In cosmopolitan Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), all sorts of handbooks, bureaucratic documents, and official papers were actively produced and used. The Aztecs also kept religious and historical books, books closely related with poetry. They were generally produced by making long strips of animal skin or fig bark paper and rolling them into scrolls or folding them into screen fold format. The writing system used was iconographic, based on highly stylized pictures representing ideas that could be orally formulated in different ways. This was not a system for recording specific words. There are instances of rebus notation, but the books chiefly presented concrete images rather than abstract symbols that shaped vocalization. The word Aztec was invented by a 19th century writer; perhaps the word was used to sanitize or distance the historical people from their progeny.
The Aztecs did not use written words to stand for their sounds of speech. Instead, they used pictures, or glyphs, for their writing system. Some glyphs were drawings of the objects themselves and some were symbols for ideas � for example, a shield and a club meant war. Writing was not meant to serve as a complete record. Priests or trained scribes would usually memorize a story, and they would look at the glyphs to remember the details. Aztec glyphs were carved on objects like stone monuments and tiny jade beads, painted on walls and vases, and painted in a book called a codex. Father Bernadino de Sahagun arrived in Mexico in 1529. He studied Nahuatl, the Aztec language, and learned about Aztec history by interviewing Aztec leaders. He was able to encourage his Aztec assistants to draw glyphs about their history, religion, and culture