Snakes and monkey

[Leonel Hermida]

Hi,

Please allow me to agree here 100% with Fran that "Nahuatl is a marvelous
language" and to point out it is refreshing and stimulating to the mind to
find out how those people clothe the ordinary human thoughts and feelings
in a completely new garb, light-years away from everything found in
Europe (both ancient and modern).
Thank you for your always welcome, clear and informative notes.

Best wishes always,
Leonel


-----Original Message-----
From: Frances Karttunen <karttu at nantucket.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nahuat-l at server.umt.edu>
Date: Saturday, November 27, 1999 10:44 PM
Subject: Snakes and monkey


>
>I think I have confused Leonel's question with part of Joe's answer.
>
>When L. asked about cocoa, I assumed that he was talking about the
>transitive/reflexive verb 'to hurt someone, to be hurting or sick.'  THAT
>has a saltillo only in the plural.  (To say nothing of an obligatory object
>prefix.)
>
>But since the other part of his question was about ozomahtli 'monkey,'
>probably what L. was asking about was cocoa, the plural of the word for
>'snake.'  Yes, being plural, that always has a final saltillo ("h").  It
>also has a long vowel in the initial, reduplicated syllable:  co:co:ah,
>
>The singular is co:a:tl 'snake.'  Or, as Joe, Mary and I all agree, it could
>be co:hua:tl.  There's no way of telling for sure whether there is a /w/
>between the two internal vowels.
>
>
>Returning to verb morphology, using it reflexively, the verb cocoa: works in
>the following way:
>
>ninococoa 'I am sick, hurting'
>timococoa 'you-sg are sick, hurting'
>mococoa 'he/she/it is sick, hurting'
>
>titicocoah 'we are sick, hurting'
>ammococoah 'y'all are sick, hurting'
>mococoah 'they are sick, hurting'
>
>There is an intransitive verb cocoya that means about the same thing:
>
>nicocoya 'I am sick'
>etc.
>
>ticocoyah 'we are sick'
>etc.
>
>The preterite form of this, as Joe points out, has an "x" where an
>underlying /y/ ends up in word-final position:
>
>o:nicocox 'I was sick'
>
>But this is a weird construction, because it implies an instance of
>sickness.  More likely would be the imperfect:
>
>nicocoyaya 'I was being sick'
>
>Sorry for the confusion.  I hope I have put it right.  Joe may want to add
>his thoughts about the relation of cocoya to cocoa:.
>
>Isn't Nahuatl a marvelous language?
>
>Fran