To Russell

[Michael Mccafferty]

Re: Frances Kartunnen's note below:

> I think the reason you are not getting responses to your speculations is
> that people are tired out by your postings.

I disagree. I believe the reason has more to do with the absolutely
speculative nature of Russell's place-name.


  As one of the listeros has
> already said to you, placenames (in ALL languages, not just English) are
> very given to exceptions.  Often they are morphologically opaque. This is
> sometimes because the name has passed through a couple of languages and
> been reinterpreted or "folk-etymologized."
>
Quite true.


> Preoccupation with individual words in Nahuatl and with place names in
> particular is not likely to get continual reinforcement from the linguists
> who look in on Nahuat-L.

Again, I disagree.  Moreover, it's not as if this list is over-heating
with messages.


 As I said to you long ago, one cannot learn a
> language word-by-word, and you do not have the right to demand that anyone
> teach you a language that way or any other way by email.

I don't think this is what Russell has been asking.  As far as I can tell
from his messages to the list and our personal communication, he has had a
legitimate desire to understand the place-name "Teotihuacan."

  You say you are
> now trying to understand processes, but you are still trying to approach
> these processes one word at a time.


He seems to be only interested in *one word*.

>
> You drove me completely off Nahuat-L for a long time soon after you came
> on, and now you are at it again, feeling that you have the perfect right to
> publicly and privately demand attention.
>

I shall not respond to this.



> Please lay off the relentless pursuit of threads that are not eliciting the
> responses you want.  Joe is very generous with his expertise, but he has a
> life and work of his own, you know.
>

I responded personally to Russell concerning Joe and I believe he got the
message (at least, it was returned to me as "undeliverable.  :)




Michael