Pictographs were used for recording important events, tracing genealogies of the ruling class, recording court processing, and for other details. These schools also took some common children who displayed exceptional talent for pictography. There was a separate profession of codex painting in Aztec society and the painters received proper training at schools for the nobility called calmecas. The Pictographic system was central to Aztec writing and this was the main way of transferring knowledge and information in Aztec society. For instance, the basic military training was a practical aspect of education and did not need any help from Aztec writing. A good part of their education did not require Aztec writing. These drawings were used to disseminate information and knowledge which was passed in the oral and pictographic form from previous generations to the next ones. Since the Aztec writing did not exist in the form of modern writing containing alphabets, education in Aztec schools was given from the codices containing pictograms. With the establishment of Tenochtitlan, Nahuatl speakers were attracted from many different areas and added traits to the language. The Nahual language, with the passage of time, became dominant in the Aztec Empire even though there were various other languages and dialects spoken in the region. The language of the Aztecs was called the Nahuatl language and it had influences of other language families from the Mesoamerican linguistic area such as Mayan, Oto-Manguean, and Mixe-Zoquean families. The Aztecs, however, developed the technique of pictograms and wrote a variety of codices to transfer oral knowledge. It was an adapted form of the previous writing systems that existed in Central Mexico, in particular the Zapotec writing whose influence can be seen in the first Oaxacan inscriptions. Just like various elements of Aztec art and culture, Aztec writing was also heavily influenced by the previous Mesoamerican cultures. Thus Aztec writing, before the advent of the Spaniards, did not have the system of a written script and almost exclusively depended on drawings and pictographs. However, the Aztec language did not have a fully developed system of writing since it lacked alphabets and instead messages were conveyed through pictographs and various drawings. Aztec society was rich in arts, literature and culture that flourished over several centuries even after the conquest of the empire by the Spaniards.
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