[Lexicog] -ish suffixes

[David Tuggy]

An amusing development from this: Jim Watters tells of a translation he
and others worked on, into Tepehua, of the Mexican national anthem,
whose basic theme is, "Mexico, we'll fight for you", and whose first
line goes, more or less, "Mexicans, when the shout of war goes up, get
your horse and gun ready".

Jim and his group had translated this, "Inhabitants of Mexico, when the
shout of war goes up ....". A later group looked at that and said, Hey,
this is supposed to be Tepehua, and here you have put the Spanish loan
word "Mexico" in the text. Besides, we have a word that means
"Mexicans". So they put it in, and their version has been used in
several official publications. The only problem is that now it means
"You Nahuatl-speakers, when the shout of war goes up  ...[you go fight:
we Tepehuas won't!]".

--David Tuggy

Kenneth C. Hill wrote:

> Note that British, while in present day usage is a nationality rather than
> a language, historically does have reference to a language, the Celtic
> language(s) of pre-Germanic England. (The language name survives across
> the water as "Breton".) Much the same can be said of Irish except that the
> Irish language is still spoken by some of the people of Irish nationality.
>
> An interesting parallel, though not with the suffix -ish, is found with
> "Mexican". The earliest (and in some ways the best) serious dictionary of
> an indigenous American language was Fray Alonso de Molina's 1571
> "Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana" ("Vocabulary in [the]
> Castilian and Mexican language[s]") and "Vocabulario en lengua mexicana y
> castellana". Later the term "Mexican" became so associated with the state
> that replaced "New Spain" that linguists changed the name of the language
> to "Nahuatl", even though the word "nahuatl" remains virtually unknown to
> the speakers of "mexicano". In indigenous Mexico, at least as represented
> by individuals I've run into during field work, "mexicano", as a language
> name, continues to refer specifically to Nahuatl, never to any other
> indigenous language. In fact, I've had Nahuatl speakers tell me proudly
> that they're the only "real" Mexicans, unlike the Spanish speakers who
> have expropriated the name.
>
> --Ken Hill
>
> > On 27/03/2005 21:54, John Roberts wrote:
> >
> > >... British and Scottish
> > >describe nationalities but not languages while Flemish and Kurdish
> > >describe languages but not nationalities. ...
> > >
> >
>
>
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