mati.

Headword: 
mati.
Principal English Translation: 

to know; be responsible for; to think; to have a certain opinion or feeling, to believe
James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 224.

Orthographic Variants: 
matti, mach-
IPAspelling: 
mɑti
Alonso de Molina: 

mati anic. anicma. vel. amo onicma. ignorar algo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 52v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mati itechnino = itech oninoma
aficionarse a algo, o hallarse bien con alguna cosa
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 52v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mati tetechnino = tetech oninoma. aficionarse a alguna persona, o hallarse bien consu conuersacion.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 52v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mati. nocom. (pret. onocomma.) sentir ogustar algo interiormente.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 52v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mati. nic. (pret. onicma.) saber algo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 52v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mati. nino. (pret. oninoma.) pensar dubdando si sera assi o no o encarnizarse.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 52v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

mati. nitla. (pret. onitlamat.) contrahazer a otros, o dezir gracias y donaires o trazar algo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 52v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

abituar se a algo, o habituar se. ytla itechninomati. ye yuhca noyollo.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1555, part 1, Spanish to Nahuatl, f. 1v.

Frances Karttunen: 

MAT(I) vt; pret: MAH – MAT to know something /saber algo (M) There are many lexicalized constructions built on MAT(I), and in many cases it is difficult to distinguish derivations from MAT(I) and derivations from IHMAT(I) ‘to know how to do things deftly, cleverly.’ In their extensive glossing of this item both M and S intersperse derivations from both of these. MAT(I) used reflexively can mean ‘it seems, it is thought that …,’ and when this is in other than in third person, as in ‘It seems to me,’ the subject prefix is omitted, hence NOMAT(I) rather than NINOMAT(I). ONMAT(I) with the directional particle ON- means ‘to know the way to a place.’ MATĪHUA altern. nonact. MAT(I) MACHŌ nonact. MAT(I)
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 138.

Horacio Carochi / English: 

mati = to know, etc.
Horacio Carochi, S.J., Grammar of the Mexican language with an explanation of its adverbs (1645), translated and edited with commentary by James Lockhart, UCLA Latin American Studies Volume 89 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2001), 506.

aoc quimati = he has lost his mind
Horacio Carochi, S.J., Grammar of the Mexican language with an explanation of its adverbs (1645), translated and edited with commentary by James Lockhart, UCLA Latin American Studies Volume 89 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2001), 506.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

nic. to know, to find out, to feel, taste. Class 2: ōnicmat, ōnicmah. pl. of pret. is always -matqueh, and the same with compounds built on mati. -pan nicmati, to consider someone or something a certain thing. 224
James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 224.

Attestations from sources in English: 

amoqui ma tia Canpahícoyaía = Ahmo:quimatia ca:mpa i:c o:ya:ia = They did not know thereby where they went
Anónimo mexicano, ed. Richley H. Crapo and Bonnie Glass-Coffin (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2005), 41.

ma quimatican: yn quezquitlamantli = let them find out a few things
Fray Alonso de Molina, Nahua Confraternities in Early Colonial Mexico: The 1552 Nahuatl Ordinances of fray Alonso de Molina, OFM, ed. and trans., Barry D. Sell (Berkeley: Academy of American Franciscan History, 2002), 126–127.

Tleh ticmati? = What do you know? [i.e., Pay attention!] (Atenango, between Mexico City and Acapulco, 1629)
Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain, 1629, eds. and transl. J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), 101.

ma quimatican in ixquichtin = "May all know...."
Rebecca Horn and James Lockhart, "Mundane Documents in Nahuatl," in James Lockhart, Lisa Sousa, and Stephanie Wood, eds., Sources and Methods for the Study of Postconquest Mesoamerican Ethnohistory, Preliminary Version (e-book) (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities Project, 2007, 2010), 5.

amo miximati = they do not know or recognize each other (in marriage records, the meaning is: they are not related to one another)
Rebecca Horn and James Lockhart, "Mundane Documents in Nahuatl," in James Lockhart, Lisa Sousa, and Stephanie Wood, eds., Sources and Methods for the Study of Postconquest Mesoamerican Ethnohistory, Preliminary Version (e-book) (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities Project, 2007, 2010), 10.

huel mellahuac quimatia ȳ huehuenenonotzaliztli = indeed rightly understood the ancient ones' accounts;
nican tlami yn intlahtol huehuetque yn achto christianosme catca yn achto momachtianime pipiltin catca = here ends the account of the ancient ones who were the first Christians, the nobleman who were the first neophytes (central Mexico, early seventeenth century)
Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 1, 64–65.

yoqui (yuhqui) machiztitoz = in this way it is to be announced
(Mexico, late seventeenth-century)
Techialoyan manuscript from San Cristóbal Texcalucan and Magdalena Chichicaspa; James Lockhart, personal communication, May 23, 2008.

"machizti is really to be announced, not just to be known"
Personal communication, James Lockhart, May 23, 2008.

moch machiztitoz = everything may be known
Byron McAfee, translation of the Techialoyan manuscript from Santa Mara Zolotepec or Ocelotepec; University of California, Los Angeles, Special Collections

transitive: to know all about, to know
with object: considered to be responsible for something
reflexive: to think; ninomati = I think
ipan (quin) mati =
1) to consider (them) as or like...;
2) to treat (them) as or like....
Robert Haskett and Stephanie Wood's notes from Nahuatl sessions with James Lockhart and subsequent research.

yn o iuh machiztico = as soon as it was known (early seventeenth century, central New Spain)
Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, eds. and transl. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 86–87.

amati is attested for "know how to" do something in modern Eastern Huastecan Nahuatl. See the instructional video from IDIEZ (2012): "amati, tlapohua, tepoztli, nouhquiya, tlachpana, atlacui," http://youtu.be/xLslDBqc4kc.

Na amo nicamati caxtitlantlahtolli. = I do not know Spanish. (modern Nahuatl; translated by Stephanie Wood)
Victoriano de la Cruz Cruz, Facebook posting, June 5, 2014, Nahuatlahtolli page.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

amo nicmati yn quesquich cecen tomines = no lo sé y cuántos cada uno en tomines (Santa Bárbara)
Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos, vol. 1, Testamentos en castellano del siglo XVI y en náhuatl y castellano de Ocotelulco de los siglos XVI y XVII, eds. Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea López, y Constantino Medina Lima (Mexico: CIESAS, 1999), 236-237.

ac nimitznomachitia, nictlatlacauiloa ynmoyollotzin = en mucha estimacion tengo a vr̃a merced. i no merece. v. m. que yo le sea pesado, y le de desasossiego.
Alonso de Molina, 1571, Vocabulario en lengua mexicana y castellana (www.idiez.org.mx), f. 2v.

ahmo ticmattica = tu no piensas
Pedro de Arenas, Vocabulario Manual de las Lenguas Castellana, y Mexicana (Mexico: Henrico Martínez, 1611), 4.

cuix ticmomachtiznequi in tlayecoltiliztli = quieres aprender officio
Pedro de Arenas, Vocabulario Manual de las Lenguas Castellana, y Mexicana, 1611, 11.

i ça iuh macho = según se sabe (Códice Chimalpopoca, 75)
Rafael Tena, Mitos e historias de los antiguos nahuas (México: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2002, 2011), 174–175.

"Mientras que imati se relaciona con un conocimiento empírico dado por la experiencia a través del ojo, mati hace referencia a un saber interno, abstracto, dado por la capacidad de pensar."
Marc Thouvenot, "Imágenes y escritura entre los Nahuas del inicio del XVI," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 41 (2010), 182.

themes: 
Education