Meaning of Tenochtitlán

Michael Mccafferty mmccaffe at indiana.edu
Tue Mar 2 17:25:23 UTC 1999


-tlan  'near' or 'among'

-ti- is termed a 'ligadura' in Spanish.  It has no meaning.

te- is tetl, 'stone'.

noch- is nochtli, 'prickly pear cactus'

The name means 'among the stone-prickly pear cactus', whatever that means!



On Mon, 1 Mar 1999 Cuauhcoatl at aol.com wrote:

> Noch-tli seems to be the stem of this word, which meens fruit of the prickly
> pear cactus. The suffix -Tlan meens below, next to, among, or at the base of.
>
> ex. Acatlan- Acatl = reed -Tlan = near the abundance of.
>      Coatlan- Coatl = snake, serpeant -Tlan = near abundance of.
>
>
> For some words the suffix -Tlan can also be extended, for pronunciation
> purposes, into Ti -Tlan.
>
> I'm not an expert on the subject but I do know enough, and I hope this is
> right.
>
> Juan
>

**********************
"...if you get confused,
listen to the music play..."
                              -Robert Hunter


Michael McCafferty
C.E.L.T.
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Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
47405
mmccaffe at indiana.edu



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