Lacadena, Alfonso a Regional scribal traditions: Methodological implications for the decipherment of Nahuatl writing.
The syllabary became so popular that sizable numbers of the population were able to read and write it in a short space of time. Chavero, Alfredo ed.
Thus, we should be careful with speculation on matters for which evidence — which might well have existed — is sorely lacking. The Nahuatl language is polysynthetic, which means that compound words and long phrases are constructed from roots and affixes.
There are a number of reasons for this state of affairs. The vast bulk of information was provided in pictorial and iconographic form, accompanied by hieroglyphs when further precision was needed. When they arrived at the fertile Valley of Mexico at 14th century CE, they found the land already settled and divided by city states.
Aztec and other Nahua archives were destroyed on a vast scale in and after the Spanish Conquest.