From elazteca at collegeclub.com Thu May 4 20:36:05 2000 From: elazteca at collegeclub.com (Ivan Ochoa) Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 13:36:05 -0700 Subject: Nahuatl Practico: Lecciones Y Ejercicios Para El Principiante Message-ID: I want to learn nahuatl and recently found the book titled: "Nahuatl Practico: Lecciones Y Ejercicios Para El Principiante" by Fernando Horcasitas (ISBN: 9683617980). I was woundering if anyone knows how good/bad this book may be, do you recomend it, any other thoughts... replies are thanked in advanced... Ivan Ochoa -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why is College Club the largest and fastest growing college student site? Find out for yourself at http://www.collegeclub.com From Amapohuani at aol.com Thu May 4 21:26:31 2000 From: Amapohuani at aol.com (Amapohuani at aol.com) Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 17:26:31 EDT Subject: Nahuatl Practico: Lecciones Y Ejercicios Para El Principiante Message-ID: In a message dated 5/4/00 12:46:06 PM, elazteca at collegeclub.com writes: << I want to learn nahuatl and recently found the book titled: "Nahuatl Practico: Lecciones Y Ejercicios Para El Principiante" by Fernando Horcasitas (ISBN: 9683617980). I was woundering if anyone knows how good/bad this book may be, do you recomend it, any other thoughts... replies are thanked in advanced... Ivan Ochoa >> The very first Nahuatl grammar I used was the same! I found it useful but limited. Campbell and Karttunen are more thorough and up-to-date. Perhaps I am alone in this, but the single best guide to Nahuatl I found, read, and constantly refer to, is Carochi's ARTE (1645), available in photoreproduction (Mexico, UNAM). Strangely, right now Louise Burkhart and I are working on a Nahuatl Theater Series. Its precursor and inspiration are, of course, Horcasitas' EL TEATRO NAHUATL. Best of luck in your study of Nahuatl. Ye ixquich. Barry D. Sell From fjgs at servidor.unam.mx Fri May 5 08:26:20 2000 From: fjgs at servidor.unam.mx (Ehecatecolotl) Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 02:26:20 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl statistics Message-ID: Anmomahuizotzitzintin: Xinechmotlapohpolhuili, ninequizquia nanmotlahtlaniliz canin huel nitemoz in Nahuatlahtolamoxcalli ahnozo in Nahutlahtoltemachtiloyan. Cuix ahmo quiza cehquin amatl ica intocatzin in yuhquin in directorio? Tla, xinechmomaquili anommahuizzotlahtolli nican: ehecatecolotl at yahoo.com ahnozo ehecatecolotl at hotmail.com Dear and knowledgeable listeros, Please forgive my clumsiness, I�d like to ask where I can find places where Nahuatl books are sold/kept or schools for Nahuatl. Is there some sort of a rooster, rolodex or the like. I am trying to locate and later create a map or similar device portraying all available resources for Nahuatl (yeah, I know, easier...) If you have any input, I will be in your debt ( I already am for what I�ve learned from the list). ehecatecolotl at yahoo.com ahnozo ehecatecolotl at hotmail.com Apreciables listeros: Les ruego que disculpen la molestia, si tienen una escuela de Nahuatl o saben de algun lugar donde haya recursos (libros, etc.) les ruego me escriban una nota. Quiero hacer un listado o mapa, tan extenso como Tezcatlipoca lo permita y Huitzilopochtli me ayude, de escuelas y centros en general donde nuestra amada lengua madre se ense�a como segundo idioma o coyotlahtolli (lengua extranjera). No importa si es en Mexico o en el extranjero. Quedo agradecido por cualquier ayuda que tengan la gentileza de hacerme llegar a: ehecatecolotl at yahoo.com ahnozo ehecatecolotl at hotmail.com Nanmech Tlazohcamachililia Thanks a lot Gracias. From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Fri May 5 10:04:59 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 10:04:59 GMT Subject: Natuatl textbooks Message-ID: Please can someone recommend a good textbook and a good dictionary for Nahuatl, for English-speakers? Preferably including ISBN number and price and publisher and year of publication, to make life easier for the bookshop. Where is a good English / Nahuatl and vice-versa dictionary for things that came since the Spanish came and therefore will not have words in classical Tenochtitlanian Nahuatl? From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Fri May 5 14:37:06 2000 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 08:37:06 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl textbooks In-Reply-To: <3A46EB840C7@fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 10:04 AM 5/5/2000 GMT, you wrote: >Please can someone recommend a good textbook and a good dictionary for >Nahuatl, for English-speakers? Please look at the Nahuatl web site. There are links to all kinds of materials: http://www.umt.edu/history/Nahuatl John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From mdmorris at indiana.edu Mon May 8 03:13:22 2000 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Sun, 7 May 2000 22:13:22 -0500 Subject: Nahuatl statistics In-Reply-To: <003901bfb66b$98a884c0$ca6ff884@aspire> Message-ID: Disculpe el disparate, aqui en Tlaxcala estamos poca a poca haciendo un catalogo de los documentos que hay en el idioma nahuatl que seguramente en su total conste de ser un tesoro para la herencia global. Solo en los archivos del gobierno hay casi mil fojas en el idioma y en los archovs de algunos pueblos hay mucho mas. Invito todoas quienes tienen interes en este idioma de pasar por aqui para saber la riqueza de la tradicion mesoamericana que hay aqui. De estudiar el idioma, sin embargo, estoy en acuedro que hay algo magico del Arte de Horacio Carochi 1645 que no sobrepasa ninguno otro gramatica para dar a entender el idioma nahuatl. Aunque no basta una gramatica de entender todos los documnetos y discursos que uno va a enfrentar, como por ejemplo en Tlaxcala "nian" quiere decir "ni" y "nen" no es negativo sino un ampliativo como "huel" que indica el exceso da su conotacion negativa. Atentamente, Mark D. Morris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. Eccl 1:18 To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, this is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental sickness. Only when we are sick of our sickness, shall we cease to be sick. The Sage is not sick, being sick of sickness; This is the secret of health. TTC 71 MDM, PhD Candidate Dept. of History, Indiana Univ. From karttu at nantucket.net Mon May 8 10:08:43 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 06:08:43 -0400 Subject: Nahuatl statistics Message-ID: The reason that "nian" (not restricted by any means to the Tlaxcala area) has the nonnegative sense that Mark describes here is because it is derived from Spanish aun. Aun functions as an intensifier in Spanish ('still, even, further') and caries that sense into Nahautl. Fran Karttunen ---------- >From: Mark David Morris >To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >Subject: Re: Nahuatl statistics >Date: Sun, May 7, 2000, 11:13 PM > > Disculpe el disparate, aqui en Tlaxcala estamos poca a poca haciendo un > catalogo de los documentos que hay en el idioma nahuatl que seguramente en > su total conste de ser un tesoro para la herencia global. Solo en los > archivos del gobierno hay casi mil fojas en el idioma y en los archovs de > algunos pueblos hay mucho mas. Invito todoas quienes tienen interes en > este idioma de pasar por aqui para saber la riqueza de la tradicion > mesoamericana que hay aqui. De estudiar el idioma, sin embargo, estoy en > acuedro que hay algo magico del Arte de Horacio Carochi 1645 que no > sobrepasa ninguno otro gramatica para dar a entender el idioma nahuatl. > Aunque no basta una gramatica de entender todos los documnetos y discursos > que uno va a enfrentar, como por ejemplo en Tlaxcala "nian" quiere decir > "ni" y "nen" no es negativo sino un ampliativo como "huel" que indica el > exceso da su conotacion negativa. > > Atentamente, > > Mark D. Morris > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more > grief. Eccl 1:18 > > To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, this is a noble insight. To > regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental sickness. Only when we > are sick of our sickness, shall we cease to be sick. The Sage is not > sick, being sick of sickness; This is the secret of health. TTC 71 > > MDM, PhD Candidate > Dept. of History, Indiana Univ. > > From fjgs at servidor.unam.mx Wed May 10 04:26:42 2000 From: fjgs at servidor.unam.mx (Ehecatecolotl) Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 22:26:42 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl statistics Message-ID: Quemah, tlazohcamati, yeceh, canin huel nimitztemohua ompa Tlaxcallah? Campa moquixtilia motequitzin? > Disculpe el disparate, aqui en Tlaxcala estamos poca a poca haciendo un > catalogo de los documentos... From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Wed May 10 15:17:18 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 15:17:18 GMT Subject: How similar are Nahuath dialects? Message-ID: With apologies for asking a novice question, but: how mutually comprehensible are the various dialects of Nahuatl? If someone went to a modern Nahuatl speaking area, knowing only classical Tenochtitlanian Nahuatl learned from a textbook, how much would he and the local people understand each other? From dcwright at prodigy.net.mx Thu May 11 03:17:13 2000 From: dcwright at prodigy.net.mx (David Wright) Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 21:17:13 -0600 Subject: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Message-ID: Regarding Anthony Appleyard's query: ************************************** "With apologies for asking a novice question, but: how mutually comprehensible are the various dialects of Nahuatl? If someone went to a modern Nahuatl speaking area, knowing only classical Tenochtitlanian Nahuatl learned from a textbook, how much would he and the local people understand each other?" ************************************** It's hardly a novice question! The people who have looked hardest at the question of intelligibility between dialects of languages in Mexico are the researchers associated with the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Since one of their goals is to translate the Bible and other educational materials into as many languages as possible on a world-wide level, they are very focused on whether or not people from a given town would understand material written for those from another town or region. They devised a method of testing this question, which consists of recording a text in each of the two places to be compared, then formulating ten questions in each place, concerning the content of the recording. The recording is played for ten individuals in each of the two places (as well as playing each recording in the place it was recorded, as a control); then each of the participants is asked the ten questions. The results are averaged, giving the percentage of intelligibility between the two places. The critical percentage to guarantee adequate comprehension is set at 80%, although this can vary, depending on social factors and other considerations. (See Jorge A. Suárez, The Mesoamerican Indian Languages, Cambridge University Press, 1983, section 2.2, and the "Introduction" in Ethnologue, Languages of the World, 13th ed., Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1996.) Ethnologue has the results of these studies. Twenty-seven varieties of náhuatl, most with internal divisions or "dialects", are listed. Intelligibility ranges from 94% (Pajapan, Ver./Oteapan, Ver.) to 0% (Morelos/Mecayapan, Ver.), with everything in between. The Epiclassic and Postclassic expansion of the Nahua speakers is responsible for a rather chaotic linguistic panorama, with some varieties showing high intelligibility in spite of a large geographic separation, and others showing low intelligibility in spite of being quite close. (Compare this situation to the Otomi languages, which have much deeper roots in Central Mexico than Nahuatl, and thus a greater correspondence between linguistic and geographic proximity.) Ethnologue can be consulted in its entirety on-line at http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/. Classical Nahuatl is listed, but it wasn't compared with any other, being an extinct language. I would guess that intelligibility between Classical Nahuatl and any modern variety would be fairly low. I'm sorry this is so long; I was just looking at this question and I have a pile of note cards with pertinent information on my desk. Un saludo, David Wright -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jfa14 at columbia.edu Fri May 12 16:59:05 2000 From: jfa14 at columbia.edu (Jennifer Frances Ahlfeldt (by way of "John F. Schwaller" )) Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 10:59:05 -0600 Subject: upcoming conference Message-ID: Greetings! I am pleased to announce an upcoming conference on Pre-Columbian Art, titled West by Nonwest to be held November 10-12, 2000 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It is organized by Professor Esther Pasztory of Columbia University's Department of Art History and Archaeology. For more information on the conference and registration please see our website: http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/westnon/ We hope you can make it. Sincerely, Jennifer F. Ahlfeldt Department of Art History and Archaeology Columbia University From mdmorris at indiana.edu Mon May 15 06:32:37 2000 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 01:32:37 -0500 Subject: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects In-Reply-To: <002601bfbaf7$d7faf5a0$11bee994@prodigy.net.mx> Message-ID: I've found my studies of classical Nahuatl with R. Joe Campbell, with its focus on morphology, a very good background for trying to chat with Nahuatl speakers from the La Malinche belt of Tlaxcala (Contla-San Isidro) and people from some parts of Puebla. The gravest problem I have faced, which is very grave indeed, is the social stigma attached to the language. My most productive conversations have either been facillitated by very, very good local contacts or a couple of shots of tequila. Learning classical Nahuatl will never be an impediment; however, stumbling into a Nahua speaking community with good ears and an open mind is still the best way to go - or to state that negatively, people who come into an isolated community (where Nahuatl is spoken) with an agenda will probably be mistaken for the worst. I'd be very interested in hearing how other people get around the social stigma of indigenous languages in their field work, specifically such things as breaking the ice with Nahuatl speaking strangers. best, Mark Morris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. Eccl 1:18 To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, this is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental sickness. Only when we are sick of our sickness, shall we cease to be sick. The Sage is not sick, being sick of sickness; This is the secret of health. TTC 71 MDM, PhD Candidate Dept. of History, Indiana Univ. From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Tue May 16 08:58:21 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 08:58:21 GMT Subject: we, you, y'all Message-ID: J.Richard Andrews's textbook seems to say that:- nipatla:ni = I fly tipatla:ni = you(sg) fly tipatla:nih = we fly ampatla:nih = y'all fly Are there any Nahuatl dialects where the equivalent of **{nipatla:nih} is valid? If so, what does it mean there? Are there any Nahuatl dialects that have a separate form for "we, not including you"? From campbel at indiana.edu Tue May 16 17:36:23 2000 From: campbel at indiana.edu (r. joe campbell) Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 12:36:23 -0500 Subject: we, you, y'all In-Reply-To: <10500DA18DB@fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk> Message-ID: Anthonihtzin, The answer to both of questions is "yes". In Mecayapan, Veracruz, the first person prefix 'ni-' is combined with the plural suffix '-h' to yield a first person plural exclusive (i.e., 'we, excluding you') which contrasts with their first person plural inclusive (i.e., the """normal""" 'we', shared with all other dialects). So: nipata:ni I fly nipata:nih we (not incl. you) fly tipata:nih we (general) fly tipata:ni you fly [[Note that it is a 't' dialect -- that is, where other dialects have the "expected" /tl/, Mecayapan, like some other eastern dialects, has /t/]] The dialect of Mecayapan is described in: Carl Wolgemuth, _Grama'tica Nahuatl del Municipio de Mecayapan, Veracruz. Instituto Lingui'stico de Verano: Serie grama'ticas de lenguas indi'genas de Me'xico, no. 5 (1981). Hopefully someone on Nahuat-l has had some direct contact with one of the 'we-excl.' dialects. Best regards, Joe On Tue, 16 May 2000, Anthony Appleyard wrote: > J.Richard Andrews's textbook seems to say that:- > nipatla:ni = I fly > tipatla:ni = you(sg) fly > tipatla:nih = we fly > ampatla:nih = y'all fly > > Are there any Nahuatl dialects where the equivalent of **{nipatla:nih} is > valid? If so, what does it mean there? > > Are there any Nahuatl dialects that have a separate form for "we, not > including you"? > > From Yaoxochitl at aol.com Tue May 16 21:14:04 2000 From: Yaoxochitl at aol.com (Yaoxochitl at aol.com) Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 17:14:04 EDT Subject: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Message-ID: Mark, Another factor could be that you are an outsider and for that reason, the majority of people would not strike up a conversation with you regardless of how casual it is. First, you have to establish trust among your informants. Second, it could also have something to do with your ethnic background, in the sense that you are regarded as a "Westerner" in their eyes. Last, given the so-called social stigma attached to Nahuatl, could it be that they just do not care to talk to you? From karttu at nantucket.net Tue May 16 23:27:27 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 19:27:27 -0400 Subject: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Message-ID: To Yaoxochitl, It's been my experience that Nahuas have been particularly hospitable and outgoing to me and to my North American colleagues, while being quite stand-offish to Mexicans. You can see why. Once one of my colleagues (who has many ahijadas in a Nahua area) and I were waiting for a bus in a miserable dust storm. A couple of women who were also taking shelter against the church atrio wall while waiting for the bus asked us if we were out in the country looking for maids to work for us. We explained that we were carrying suitcases and bultos of presents for the godchildren, and these women helped us on the bus, chatted with us, reminded the bus driver where to let us off and hoped to meet us again. After all, we were traveling by second class bus just like they were. By contrast, one day when I came back late in the afternoon, my landlady told me how lucky I was to have been out all afternoon, because a carload of anthropologists had come looking for me. She had told them nothing and sent them on their way. It took me two days of asking around to figure out who those anthropologists had been. I don't know anyone who welcomes people who arrive with the intention of studying them. Who likes being an object of study, after all? But if one makes oneself useful and also reveals a genuine interest and some ability with the language, someone usually reciprocates that interest. Fran ---------- >From: Yaoxochitl at aol.com >To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >Subject: Re: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects >Date: Tue, May 16, 2000, 5:14 PM > > Mark, > Another factor could be that you are an outsider and for that reason, > the majority of people would not strike up a conversation with you > regardless of how casual it is. First, you have to establish trust among > your informants. Second, it could also have something to do with your > ethnic background, in the sense that you are regarded as a "Westerner" in > their eyes. Last, given the so-called social stigma attached to Nahuatl, > could it be that they just do not care to talk to you? > From Yaoxochitl at aol.com Wed May 17 00:12:23 2000 From: Yaoxochitl at aol.com (Yaoxochitl at aol.com) Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 20:12:23 EDT Subject: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Message-ID: Frances, I agree with you and thank you for reinforcing my views on the matter of what Mark labels, "a grave situation." From andreamb at infosel.net.mx Wed May 17 05:47:24 2000 From: andreamb at infosel.net.mx (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Andrea_Mart=EDnez?=) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 00:47:24 -0500 Subject: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Message-ID: To Frances Karttunen and all: I am very sorry for the arrogant and incorrect view of "Mexicans" your last letter shows. I remind you that "Nahuas" are Mexican, yes, as Mexican as the ones who hire them as maids, for the matter. It is a nationality, most Nahuas belong to it and, as nearly all Mexicans, are proud of being so. I don' t know of a single Mexican who doesn't consider himself as such. I would appreciate a little humbleness: neither "Mexicans"are all as bad, nor all Americans as good as you so confidently think you are. Andrea Martinez -----Mensaje original----- De: Frances Karttunen Para: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu Fecha: Martes 16 de Mayo de 2000 06:35 PM Asunto: Re: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects >To Yaoxochitl, > >It's been my experience that Nahuas have been particularly hospitable and >outgoing to me and to my North American colleagues, while being quite >stand-offish to Mexicans. You can see why. Once one of my colleagues (who >has many ahijadas in a Nahua area) and I were waiting for a bus in a >miserable dust storm. A couple of women who were also taking shelter >against the church atrio wall while waiting for the bus asked us if we were >out in the country looking for maids to work for us. We explained that we >were carrying suitcases and bultos of presents for the godchildren, and >these women helped us on the bus, chatted with us, reminded the bus driver >where to let us off and hoped to meet us again. After all, we were >traveling by second class bus just like they were. > >By contrast, one day when I came back late in the afternoon, my landlady >told me how lucky I was to have been out all afternoon, because a carload of >anthropologists had come looking for me. She had told them nothing and sent >them on their way. It took me two days of asking around to figure out who >those anthropologists had been. > >I don't know anyone who welcomes people who arrive with the intention of >studying them. Who likes being an object of study, after all? But if one >makes oneself useful and also reveals a genuine interest and some ability >with the language, someone usually reciprocates that interest. > >Fran > >---------- >>From: Yaoxochitl at aol.com >>To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >>Subject: Re: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects >>Date: Tue, May 16, 2000, 5:14 PM >> > >> Mark, >> Another factor could be that you are an outsider and for that reason, >> the majority of people would not strike up a conversation with you >> regardless of how casual it is. First, you have to establish trust among >> your informants. Second, it could also have something to do with your >> ethnic background, in the sense that you are regarded as a "Westerner" in >> their eyes. Last, given the so-called social stigma attached to Nahuatl, >> could it be that they just do not care to talk to you? >> From karttu at nantucket.net Wed May 17 11:39:38 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 07:39:38 -0400 Subject: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Message-ID: Dear Andrea and all, I was responding to Yaoxochitl's suggestion that Mark found Nahuatl speakers less than forthcoming because "it could also have something to do with your ethnic background, in the sense that you are regarded as a "Westerner" in their eyes." My point is that being North American is not necessarily a disadvantage in such situations. My experience in rural Mexico is that many people are most aware of a profound distinction between people (urban Mexicans, North Americans, Europeans, whatever) who lead relatively comfortable lives and those who engage in a daily struggle for enough to eat, access to medicine, safe drinking water, and minimally adequate housing. Commonly people resent anthropologists, who are perceived as comfortable people who have actually managed to make their careers out of information extracted from people who do NOT lead comfortable lives. Willingly sharing people's uncomfortable lives (albeit temporarily) and being a resource to make people's day-to-day lives a little better (as in sponsoring godchildren) is more appreciated than ethnic or national background. (And yes, most Nahuatl speakers call their language "mexicano," but they tend to call themselves "macehualtin" as contrasted with the mestizo population of Mexico.) People who are struggling just to live find the issue that Mark considers grave--that of maintaining indigenous languages and letting them be studied--of little urgency by comparison with making sure their children survive and have some sort of future. That route is generally perceived as through making children monolingual in the dominant culture's language, even though that means losing their own language heritage. Linguists find this hard to take, but it's really not our business to preach to people weighing physical survival against language survival. (This is true worldwide. At least half the languages of the world will probably no longer be spoken by anyone after another generation or two.) At the time of Mexican independence in the 19th century, the indigenous peoples of Mexico had their "Indian courts" abolished. The professional notaries who had recorded their deeds, testaments, bills of sale, petitions, and verbatim testimony in their own languages were put out of business. The indigenous peoples (Nahuas, Mayas, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and scores more) were told that "we are all Mexicans now." But it was a disaster for the indigenous peoples. They lost their last bulwark of legal protection, and they lost the one practical reason for maintaining their own languages. Yes, maybe the indigenous peoples of Mexico are now "Mexicans," even patriotic Mexicans, but they are painfully aware that they are at the bottom of a society where the power is reserved for the top. That is what the on-going events of Chiapas are fundamentally about. The book "Speaking Mexicano" provides a sense of what it has been like in the recent past to be a Nahua in modern Mexico. The book represents Jane and Kenneth Hill's cooperative work with Alberto Zepeda (under the alias "Alfredo Zapata" in the book), his community, and neighboring communities and is an example of how such a project can be undertaken by people working together. The Hills made themselves welcome in his community, but it was a very young Albertohtzin who did the interviews, worked with the Hills in transcribing them, and provided commentary about what was going on in the interviews. His priest and family saw this work as a paid apprenticeship that could lead to a better life for Alberto, and as an adult (husband, father, teacher, and our esteemed colleague) he has a profession without having given up his community's language. This is a significant personal accomplishment for someone of his generation, and perhaps it benefits his community too. As for "Speaking Mexicano," it is the product of something that would not have been accomplished by non-Nahuas through casual conversations, structured interviews, or questionnaires. A similar productive partnership is between the linguists Jose Antonio Flores Farfan and Cleofas Ramirez Celestino. Cleofas Ramirez C. is a native speaker of Nahuatl and a traditional painter as well as a linguist. Together she and Jose Antonio Flores F. have produced all sorts of beautiful child-oriented material for Nahuatl language retention and revitalization. The ultimate ethical responsibility of linguists is to help people study their own languages, but in this time of critical language endangerment, we all need to work together. Fran Karttunen ---------- >From: "Andrea Martínez" >To: >Subject: RE: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects >Date: Wed, May 17, 2000, 1:47 AM > > To Frances Karttunen and all: > > I am very sorry for the arrogant and incorrect view of "Mexicans" your last > letter shows. I remind you that "Nahuas" are Mexican, yes, as Mexican as the > ones who hire them as maids, for the matter. It is a nationality, most > Nahuas belong to it and, as nearly all Mexicans, are proud of being so. I > don' t know of a single Mexican who doesn't consider himself as such. I > would appreciate a little humbleness: neither "Mexicans"are all as bad, nor > all Americans as good as you so confidently think you are. > > Andrea Martinez > > > -----Mensaje original----- > De: Frances Karttunen > Para: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu > Fecha: Martes 16 de Mayo de 2000 06:35 PM > Asunto: Re: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects > > >>To Yaoxochitl, >> >>It's been my experience that Nahuas have been particularly hospitable and >>outgoing to me and to my North American colleagues, while being quite >>stand-offish to Mexicans. You can see why. Once one of my colleagues (who >>has many ahijadas in a Nahua area) and I were waiting for a bus in a >>miserable dust storm. A couple of women who were also taking shelter >>against the church atrio wall while waiting for the bus asked us if we were >>out in the country looking for maids to work for us. We explained that we >>were carrying suitcases and bultos of presents for the godchildren, and >>these women helped us on the bus, chatted with us, reminded the bus driver >>where to let us off and hoped to meet us again. After all, we were >>traveling by second class bus just like they were. >> >>By contrast, one day when I came back late in the afternoon, my landlady >>told me how lucky I was to have been out all afternoon, because a carload > of >>anthropologists had come looking for me. She had told them nothing and > sent >>them on their way. It took me two days of asking around to figure out who >>those anthropologists had been. >> >>I don't know anyone who welcomes people who arrive with the intention of >>studying them. Who likes being an object of study, after all? But if one >>makes oneself useful and also reveals a genuine interest and some ability >>with the language, someone usually reciprocates that interest. >> >>Fran >> >>---------- >>>From: Yaoxochitl at aol.com >>>To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >>>Subject: Re: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects >>>Date: Tue, May 16, 2000, 5:14 PM >>> >> >>> Mark, >>> Another factor could be that you are an outsider and for that > reason, >>> the majority of people would not strike up a conversation with you >>> regardless of how casual it is. First, you have to establish trust among >>> your informants. Second, it could also have something to do with your >>> ethnic background, in the sense that you are regarded as a "Westerner" in >>> their eyes. Last, given the so-called social stigma attached to Nahuatl, >>> could it be that they just do not care to talk to you? >>> > From dcwright at prodigy.net.mx Wed May 17 15:02:44 2000 From: dcwright at prodigy.net.mx (David Wright) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 09:02:44 -0600 Subject: Linguistic rights Message-ID: Frances Karttunen recently posted an interesting message containing the following paragraph: "People who are struggling just to live find the issue that Mark considers grave--that of maintaining indigenous languages and letting them be studied--of little urgency by comparison with making sure their children survive and have some sort of future. That route is generally perceived as through making children monolingual in the dominant culture's language, even though that means losing their own language heritage. Linguists find this hard to take, but it's really not our business to preach to people weighing physical survival against language survival. (This is true worldwide. At least half the languages of the world will probably no longer be spoken by anyone after another generation or two.)" Linguistic extinction can be avoided by guaranteeing linguistic rights. The process involves reeducating societies, on local, regional, national and international levels, much as the environmental and feminist movements have done since around 1970. A few years ago a serious attempt was made to define the linguistic rights of peoples: the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights. The project was initiated in 1994 by International PEN's Translations and Linguistic Rights Committee, with the collaboration of the Escarré International Centre for Ethnic Minorities and Nations. A large international interdisciplinary team, including writers, linguists, specialists in international law and representatives of ethnic minorities from several continents, produced twelve drafts, culminating in the declaration which was presented in Barcelona in 1996. This document is now under consideration in a UNESCO committee for adoption by the UN as an international convention. Meanwhile, this document has inspired legislative initiatives in Guatemala and Mexico. Those interested may visit the Web site at: http://www.troc.es/mercator/dudl-gb.htm Perhaps one of the most important points is that, by insuring a linguistic community's rights to use its language within its territory, one of the benefits would be the creation of relatively well-paid and high-prestige jobs for those who are fluent and literate in their mother tongue, thus addressing the problem that Frances Karttunen accurately described in the paragraph quoted above. Peace, David Wright Follow-Up Scientific Council Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mdmorris at indiana.edu Thu May 18 02:01:29 2000 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 21:01:29 -0500 Subject: Linguistic rights In-Reply-To: <001c01bfc010$f7bf91c0$41bee994@prodigy.net.mx> Message-ID: Dear Nahuat-'ers, In the last communications, I see two major problems. First, I would like to doubt that poor indigenous people in the Americas do not also feel cultural poverty, or psychological poverty in consequence of social discrimination, or being poor in consequence of being indigenous. It's a possibility. Second, that the creation of universal language decrees and several high paid government posts will be of any sufficient help. I believe that until democractic access to resources is made availabe to indigenous people within their own culture and their own language there will not be a fair place for indigenous cultures. I may be trying to make a point to defend my earlier statement, but I really disagree with the assumption that I fundamentally misunderstand the issues at stake. sincerely, Mark Morris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. Eccl 1:18 To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, this is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental sickness. Only when we are sick of our sickness, shall we cease to be sick. The Sage is not sick, being sick of sickness; This is the secret of health. TTC 71 MDM, PhD Candidate Dept. of History, Indiana Univ. From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Thu May 18 09:51:56 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 09:51:56 GMT Subject: Linguistic rights Message-ID: Mark David Morris wrote:- > ... I believe that until democractic access to resources is made > ... available to indigenous people within their own culture and their > ... own language there will not be a fair place for indigenous cultures. ... Similarly in Britain, the fortunes of the Welsh language turned much for the better when Griffiths translated the Bible into Welsh and so made unnecessary one big way that Welsh-speakers were routinely exposed to the English language, and this codified the language and astablished a standard form and tried to stem the inflow of English loanwords. Similarly in the 19th century the Sokol movement saved Czech from becoming merely a patois domimated by German. But that was before the modern public media and its mass exposure to dominant languages came. How big are the various Nahuatl (and Maya and Zapotec etc) speaking communities compared to the "critical mass" where it becomes practical to translate newspapers and books into Nahuatl/etc, and dub popular films and videos into Nahuatl/etc, and so on, to cut down as far as possible the routine exposure to Spanish? Where "one community" means any group of dialects that are similar enough to each other for their speakers to understand each other. From dcwright at prodigy.net.mx Thu May 18 16:31:54 2000 From: dcwright at prodigy.net.mx (David Wright) Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 10:31:54 -0600 Subject: Linguistic rights Message-ID: Dear Mark: Just a quick clarification to the slight misunderstanding evident in your statement: "Second, that the creation of universal language decrees and several high paid government posts will be of any sufficient help." The Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, evidently, is not a solution in its own right, but an attempt to define these rights, to raise public consciousness as to their importance; as such it is a potential tool for their defense and implementation. As for employment, I was thinking more of "middle-class" jobs in education, media, commerce and bureaucracy, which would tend to appear if the rights of native speakers to use their mother tongues in a wider variety of social contexts were to be effectively supported. My words "relatively well-paid and high-prestige jobs" were chosen with the native speaker's perspective in mind; the word "relatively" was apparently not sufficient to make this clear. As for the statement: "I believe that until democractic access to resources is made availabe to indigenous people within their own culture and their own language there will not be a fair place for indigenous cultures", I think you've hit the nail on the head! Thanks for the feedback and for giving me the opportunity to clarify my earlier post. Peace, David Wright -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From CHMuths at aol.com Sun May 21 10:34:09 2000 From: CHMuths at aol.com (CHMuths at aol.com) Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 06:34:09 EDT Subject: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs Message-ID: Listeros, I am new to the list and I am also a novice in speaking nahuat-l and therefore I hope this is the right place to ask my questions: 1. The material I got speak of Nahuat-l as aglutinant language. What does it mean? 2. In which category fall the germanic languages such as English and German? 3. Do Spanish, French and Italian for example fall in the same category as English and German because they are indo-germanic languages? 4. Is there a connection between Nahuat-l and Finnish for example? Those languages seem to have a similar grammar construction. 5. Which dimensions are recognised in Nahuat-l or by the Aztecs? (we have 4: length, width, height and depth; space-time continuum as fifth dimension has only been recently recognised). 6. How is space understood and described in Nahuat-l? 7. As I am not a linguist but a sociologist/social psychiatrist I like to understand the language from the spatial point of view: as we have a linear language in which everything is referred to by separating all references to a person, the position, ownership etc. in different words, Nahuat-l seems to work in images. The Finnish add all references to a person, position etc. to a stem word; in Nahuat-l there is also a stem word but by changing the pre-fixes and suffices the language became imaginary. Am I right? Does this mean that they have a different understand of themselves in space and therefore a different spatial understanding? 8. I have worked with dyslexic people and I know that they have a spatial understanding of the world. 85 % of Apple software engineers are dyslexic, which was the basic for Apple’s development of new technology. Some American architectural office only employ dyslexic architects because it save them month of tedious calculation work, especially in the design of highscrapers and the heating system, as dyslexic architects think spatially. 9. Some linguistics (Charles William Johnson for example) detected the close similarity between the old Egyptian language and Nahuat-l and speak of a Kemi-Mesoamerican mother tongue. They assume that there must be a common language before the development of those two language, something like indo-germanic for example. This seem to make sense as Archaeologists and Egyptologists found traces of South-American drugs in Egyptian mummies. The scientific community believed so far that there was no connection whatsoever between the “Old” and the “New” world. Does anybody on the list has researched this subject or has any ideas on that? 10. Colours: how are the colours depicted? Are there many colours, or many hues and shades of colours described or depicted? Any comments are greatly appreciated. Thanks Christa From anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk Sun May 21 21:41:50 2000 From: anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk (anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk) Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 22:41:50 +0100 Subject: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs Message-ID: CHMuths at aol.com wrote:- > 1. The material I got speak of Nahuat-l as aglutinant language. What > does it mean? That words can have a miscellaneous assortment of suffixes and prefixes, more so than in an inflected language. This email group is NAHUAT-L; but the language is `Nahuatl', without the hyphen. > 2. In which category fall the germanic languages such as English and German? Inflecting; but English has largely become a word-order language (Off-topic PS : please what is an "ergative language"? Everybody uses the word and nobody says what it means.) > 3. Do Spanish, French and Italian for example fall in the same category as English and German because they are indo-germanic languages? They are all Indo-European languages. They are all inflecting. > 4. Is there a connection between Nahuat-l and Finnish for example? No. Their common ancestor was so long ago that by now any remaining cognate words very long ago vanished "behind the noise" of accidental resemblances. There have been long threads about that sort of thing on NOSTRATIC group and elsewhere, where people have talked about a Proto- World language and suchlike. Beware also of look-alike words imitated from the same natural noise, e.g. Nahuatl "papalotl" = Latin "papilio" = "butterfly", both perhaps imitated from the sound of a butterfly flapping against a hard surface. > Those languages seem to have a similar grammar construction. That is a coincidence. > 5. Which dimensions are recognised in Nahuat-l or by the Aztecs? (we have 4: length, width, height and depth; Erh??? I see 3. In any one set-up, two of those four words for dimensions of space are synonyms. > 6. How is space understood and described in Nahuat-l? If you mean space-travel space, perhaps try some compound such as "star- realm". > 7. As I am not a linguist but a sociologist/social psychiatrist ... Does this mean that they have a different understand of themselves in space and therefore a different spatial understanding? Probably merely that their language tends to work in affixes rather than in separate words. In e.g. {nicoatl} = "I am a snake", perhaps the ni- was once a separate word which has become affixed. > 9. Some linguistics (Charles William Johnson for example) detected the close similarity between the old Egyptian language and Nahuat-l ... See (4). > This seem to make sense as Archaeologists and Egyptologists found traces of South-American drugs in Egyptian mummies. Perhaps there was once a cocaine-producing plant in reach of Egypt, but over-collection and/or the land turning to desert drove it to extinction. From CHMuths at aol.com Mon May 22 08:32:35 2000 From: CHMuths at aol.com (CHMuths at aol.com) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 04:32:35 EDT Subject: Nahuatl textbooks Message-ID: The books arrived today. Great Material! Thanks Christa Muths From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Mon May 22 09:54:28 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 09:54:28 GMT Subject: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs (PS); (ti)tlan Message-ID: CHMuths at aol.com wrote:- > 4. Is there a connection between Nahuat-l and Finnish for example? Those > languages seem to have a similar grammar construction. There are only so many sensible ways to organize the various parts of a language, and these ways may recur in unrelated languages as they evolve. E,g, French "Moi, Pierre, je chante" = Nahuatl "NiPetoloh nicuia" = "I, Peter", sing", and those two constructions arose completely independently. > 5. Which dimensions are recognised in Nahuat-l or by the Aztecs? (we have 4: > length, width, height and depth; space-time continuum as fifth dimension has > only been recently recognised). > 6. How is space understood and described in Nahuat-l? > 7. ... I like to understand the language from the spatial point of view ... > Does this mean that they have a different understand of themselves in space > and therefore a different spatial understanding? The Nahua are as likely as anyone else to see that objects and their environment can be long / wide / deep / high / occupy volume, and thus to have words for "high" and "wide" etc, and and such usual behavior of objects when they stack them up. And to realize that time elapses. > 8. ... Apple’s ... 9. ... the “Old” and the “New” world. ... Please check what your email editor / word processor does with single and double quotes. Here, what started as an apostrophe and single quotes reached me each as three nonsense high-order characters ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When a Nahuatl placename means "among the X", it seems to be sometimes {X-tlan} and sometimes {X-titlan), e.g. {Tula} < {Tollan} = "among the reeds", {Tenochtitlan} = "among the rock prickly-pears". And I found a mixed-language placename {Hidalgotitlan}. What decides whether to insert the "-ti-"? Re names, is {Ci:tlalya:ni} acceptable for "star traveller"? From budelberger.richard at free.fr Mon May 22 09:38:08 2000 From: budelberger.richard at free.fr (Budelberger Richard) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 11:38:08 +0200 Subject: What is an "ergative language"? [Re: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs] Message-ID: 3 Prairial an CCVIII (le 22 mai 2000 d.c.-d.c.g.), 11h33 ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2000 11:41 PM > > (Off-topic PS : please what is an "ergative language"? Everybody uses > the word and nobody says what it means.) I don't know, and I don't use the word... Here something in French : § On sait que le type *ergatif* est défini par une attribution des propriétés au moins morphologiques du sujet intransitif au terme qui, dans les constructions transitives, réfère au non-agent, tandis que l'agent apparaît avec des propriétés nouvelles, absentes de la construction intransitive. Je ne développerai pas les problèmes posés par ce type³², qui n'implique pas nécessairement la casualité (p. ex. plusieurs langues mayas, non casuelles et indiciantes comme le nahuatl, présentent une structure ergative aux niveau des affixes personnels). ³². Qui recouvre en fait des sous-types différents, puisque les propriétés partagées par le sujet intransitif et le non-agent peuvent être nombreuses [p. ex. en dyirbal, avec la coordination, Dixon (1972)], ou restreintes à des jeux d'affixes [basque, Rebuschi (1978)]. Il y a d'autre part des types mixtes, en particulier selon l'aspect, la marque (indicielle ou nominale), ou la personne cf. un exposé général dans Lazard (1985). § Michel Launey, « une grammaire omniprédicative - Essai sur la morphosyntaxe du nahuatl classsique », CNRS Éditions, 1994, page 39. notes de l.n.AmX : ° dyirbal : langue Aborigène du « North Queensland ». ° la phrase « p. ex. plusieurs langues mayas, non casuelles et indiciantes comme le nahuatl, présentent... » serait plus claire en "esperanto" : « p. ex. plusieurs langues mayas, malcasuelles et indiciantes comme le nahuatl, présentent... ». § Well!... What is an ergative language?... From J.Kremers at let.kun.nl Mon May 22 10:23:48 2000 From: J.Kremers at let.kun.nl (Joost Kremers) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 12:23:48 +0200 Subject: What is an "ergative language"? [Re: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs] In-Reply-To: <001801bfc3d1$f5791e80$98291bd4@ostatny> Message-ID: basically, an ergative language is a language with the following property: the subject of an intransitive verb takes the same case (called the absolutive) as the _object_ of a transitive verb, whereas the subject of a transitive verb has a different case (called the ergative). to see how this works, first look at the pattern in a 'nominative/accusative' language (e.g., english, french, latin, etc.): i a the man-P sees the dog-Q b the man-P is running take P and Q to be case endings: the subject of the transitive (ia) has the same ending as the subject of the intransitve (ib), namely P. the object of the transitive (ia) has a different ending, namely Q. in an ergative language, the pattern is thus: ii a the man-P sees the dog-Q b the man-Q is running as you can see, the subject of the intransitive (ib) has the same ending as the _object_ of the transitive (ia). you could say that every sentence in an ergative language has a passive form. cf. the (semantic) object of a passive verb in a nom/acc language such as latin takes nominative case, whereas the (semantic) subject has ablative: iv canis homine videtur the-dog(NOM) the-man(ABL) is-seen This comparison is not a bad one, as ergative languages usually have a so-called 'antipassive' formation, which creates a sentence structure similar to a nom/acc structure. one remark: R. Dixon (in his book _Ergativity_, Cambrigde UP, 1994) claims that there is not a language on earth that is completely ergative. languages generally only show ergativity in some aspects of their structure, whereas they are nom/acc in others. e.g., a language can be ergative in past tense but nom/acc in present tense. or it can be ergative in its pronominal system, but nom/acc with full nouns, etc. (this of course contrasts with nom/acc languages: there are many languages that are purely nom/acc without any ergative feature.) HTH joost kremers ---------------------------------------- Joost Kremers Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen Talen en Culturen van het Midden-Oosten Postbus 9103 6500 HD Nijmegen tel: 024-3612996 fax: 024-3611972 From J.Kremers at let.kun.nl Mon May 22 11:45:17 2000 From: J.Kremers at let.kun.nl (Joost Kremers) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 13:45:17 +0200 Subject: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: a few comments about some of the ten questions asked earlier: >> 5. Which dimensions are recognised in Nahuat-l or by the Aztecs? (we >have 4: length, width, height and depth; > >Erh??? I see 3. In any one set-up, two of those four words for >dimensions of space are synonyms. indeed there are only three: imagine a cube: it is extended in three spatial directions. modern physics has tought us that space should be considered as the fourth dimension. from a physical point of view, space and time are similar, but we, of course, _perceive_ them very differently. and therefore we express them differently in language. >> 6. How is space understood and described in Nahuat-l? >> 7. As I am not a linguist but a sociologist/social psychiatrist ... >Does this mean that they have a different understand of themselves in >space and therefore a different spatial understanding? these are actually interesting questions, but AFAIK the answer should be: not very differently from us. linguists have found that languages employ one of two ways to describe space. in most languages, including all european languages, space is described relative to some salient object, often the speaker. so you get such terms as 'in front of', 'behind', 'to the left/right of', 'under' and 'above/over'. in the other system, which is quite rare, space is described relative to the earth. such systems speak in term of (e.g.) 'to the north/south/west/east of'. this system creates some peculiar effects, such as that speakers of these languages _always_ know to an extreme measure of accuracy where the north is, no matter what time of day or night. (another odd example is the footage i once saw of a man telling a story. they had filmed him telling the same story on two different occasions. in one, he was sitting facing north, in the other facing west. in the story there was a boat that toppled over. he accompanied the words at this point with a toppling-over motion of his hands. oddly enough, on the first occasion he indicated the toppling-over from left to right, but on the other occasion, when he was himself turned 90 degrees relative to the former position, he made the toppling-over motion from back to front! he kept the imaginary boat in the same postion relative to the earth. since he was himself in a different position, he had to change the direction of his hand-gestures!) but as far as i know, nahuatl has a spatial reference system similar to ours: that is, relative to the speaker or a salient object. note, by the way, that even though languages may use different methods to talk about something, that does _not_ mean that the speakers of those languages are forever condemned to see the world in a specific way: the system of earth-relative spatial orientation is easily explained in english, and is even _used_ in that language as a secondary system. please do not make the mistake of Sapir who thought that because the Hopi indians do not express tense in their language (which, if i'm not mistaken, was a wrong assessment in itself...) they have no notion of time! >> 9. Some linguistics (Charles William Johnson for example) detected the >close similarity between the old Egyptian language and Nahuat-l ... cf. the ever-popular Discovery Channel documentaries about this man (Bauval his name was?) who finds indications all around the world for a lost civilization, Atlantis, that he believes was located on Antarctica, before the last ice-age. although he points out some fascinating questions, his 'theory' consists mostly of speculation upon speculation. as for similarities between ancient egyptian an nahuatl: ancient egyptian died out centuries before classical nahuatl as we know it developed. ergo: there can be no links. furthermore, egyptian has a fundamentally different structure from nahuatl, so again, it seems quite unlikely that any links exist. there may be similarities in writing systems, but these are accidental: a case of two peoples stumbling upon the same solutions for the same problems, independent of each other. again, the temporal dislocation excludes any links. well, my appologies for turning those few comments into a small lecture... joost kremers -------------------------------------------------------- Joost Kremers (Mr.) University of Nijmegen - The Netherlands Department of Languages and Cultures of the Middle-East PO Box 9103 6500 HD Nijmegen - The Netherlands phone: +31 24 3612996 fax: +31 24 3611972 From SPoole8257 at aol.com Mon May 22 15:33:46 2000 From: SPoole8257 at aol.com (SPoole8257 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 11:33:46 EDT Subject: What is an "ergative language"? [Re: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs] Message-ID: For a good summary of what an ergative language is, see Michael Coe, Breaking the Maya Code (Thames and Hudson, 1995), 51-52. Stafford Poole SPoole8257 at aol.com From cberry at cinenet.net Mon May 22 16:29:05 2000 From: cberry at cinenet.net (Craig Berry) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 09:29:05 -0700 Subject: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20000522134517.008022f0@hooft.let.kun.nl> Message-ID: On Mon, 22 May 2000, Joost Kremers wrote: > note, by the way, that even though languages may use different methods > to talk about something, that does _not_ mean that the speakers of those > languages are forever condemned to see the world in a specific way: the > system of earth-relative spatial orientation is easily explained in > english, and is even _used_ in that language as a secondary system. > please do not make the mistake of Sapir who thought that because the > Hopi indians do not express tense in their language (which, if i'm not > mistaken, was a wrong assessment in itself...) they have no notion of > time! The Sapir assertion definitely does go too far. But I find it indisputable that language *influences* how we think about the world, making some thoughts easier, some harder to grasp. > cf. the ever-popular Discovery Channel documentaries about this man > (Bauval his name was?) who finds indications all around the world for a > lost civilization, Atlantis, that he believes was located on Antarctica, > before the last ice-age. although he points out some fascinating > questions, his 'theory' consists mostly of speculation upon speculation. Given the inevitable gaps, coincidences, and (currently) unexplainable evidence which litters archaeology, forming grand theories like this is remarkably easy. > as for similarities between ancient egyptian an nahuatl: ancient egyptian > died out centuries before classical nahuatl as we know it developed. ergo: > there can be no links. No, no; you're neglecting to take into account the steam-driven tape recorders the Egyptians built and used under the guidance of Von Daniken's "gods from the sky". :) -- | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net --*-- http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html | "The road of Excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom" - William Blake From info at abbateconsulting.com Mon May 22 17:01:20 2000 From: info at abbateconsulting.com (Abbate Consulting) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 19:01:20 +0200 Subject: Address Change Message-ID: Could you please pass my new address to all members of nahuatl recipient list? The old address aleabb at tin.it has been changed into info at abbateconsulting.com The old address has been definitely deactivated. Best regards A.ABBATE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk Mon May 22 21:00:02 2000 From: anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk (anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 22:00:02 +0100 Subject: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs Message-ID: Craig Berry wrote:- > No, no; you're neglecting to take into account the steam-driven tape > recorders the Egyptians built and used under the guidance of Von > Daniken's "gods from the sky". :) Or where Kukulcan came from, as discovered at a site in Yucatan in an X- Files text story (not TV episode) called "Ruins" by Kevin J Anderson, publ. Harper Collins 1996, ISBN 0 00 648253 8 :-) :-) From anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk Tue May 23 19:24:46 2000 From: anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk (anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk) Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 20:24:46 +0100 Subject: Mexican wild cats Message-ID: Andrews's textbook translates {ocelotl} as "ocelot" (Felis pardalis). But another Nahuatl textbook translates {ocelotl} as "jaguar" (Panthera onca). What is current opinion on this? A / English bilingual example in Andrews's textbook describes a big Mexican wild cat called the {}, and seems to say that is was remarkable because it could eat a whole deer at a meal. Does this correspond to any known species? -- Anthony Appleyard From anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk Tue May 23 19:35:09 2000 From: anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk (anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk) Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 20:35:09 +0100 Subject: Mexican wild cats :: erratum Message-ID: Sorry, erratum: my emailer's spelling checker suddenly decided to act silly. I wrote:- ... A Nahuatl / English bilingual example in Andrews's textbook describes a big Mexican wild cat called the {cuitlamiztli}, ... Anthony Appleyard From Mexika71 at aol.com Tue May 23 22:20:27 2000 From: Mexika71 at aol.com (Mexika71 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 18:20:27 EDT Subject: Fwd: Re: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Message-ID: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Yaoxochitl at aol.com Subject: Fwd: Re: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 18:17:20 EDT Size: 1495 URL: From jsullivan at prodigy.net.mx Wed May 24 12:27:05 2000 From: jsullivan at prodigy.net.mx (John Sullivan) Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 07:27:05 -0500 Subject: nahuas and outsiders Message-ID: Mark, Based on my very limited experience with nahuatl speakers, I have the following things to say regarding the discussion on field work. First of all, the nahuas I work with divide the world into two groups of people: macelhualme, or Indians, which are characterized by language, skin color, poverty, lack of education, rural residence, etc.; and coyome, a category transcending national boundaries which includes people with the opposite characteristics. I'm not defending the logical integrity of this system from a Western point of view (For example there are non-Indians who are poor and non-white). Rather I believe this is the system used within nahua culture, and its internal logic needs to be researched. All coyome, be they Mexican or from other countries, are potential exploiters and racial discriminators of Indians, and are treated as such on initial contact. I have never met a nahua who upon initial acquaintance has admitted to knowing how to speak nahuatl. Racial discrimination of Indians in Mexico is terrible (as it is in the U.S., and most other New World countries), and this denial is a logical response based on the need to function within a larger society which penalizes difference. An outsider who wants to interact with nahuas needs to slowly demonstrate (with deeds, not words) their interest in integrating themself into the community/family and taking on permanent responsabilities which contribute materially to its wellbeing. The worst thing a researcher can do (and I know of a few who have done this) is get into the system, and then after publishing their book, abandon all responsability to the community. John Sullivan Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Wed May 24 12:53:03 2000 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 07:53:03 -0500 Subject: Mexican wild cats :: erratum In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I can't be sure, Anthony, but I believe this is another term for mountain lion. Someone else will chime in, I'm sure, to affirm this or offer something else. A salient feature of this cat is its tail, cuitlatl. The same idea shows up elsewhere in native American languages, as for example in Algonquian. On Tue, 23 May 2000 anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk wrote: > Sorry, erratum: my emailer's spelling checker suddenly decided to act > silly. I wrote:- > > ... A Nahuatl / English bilingual example in Andrews's textbook > describes a big Mexican wild cat called the {cuitlamiztli}, ... > Anthony Appleyard > > Michael McCafferty 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "So, who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" -Chico Marx ******************************************************************************* From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Wed May 24 16:11:51 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 16:11:51 GMT Subject: Mexican wild cats; matrix/embed Message-ID: anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk wrote: > ... A Nahuatl / English bilingual example in Andrews's textbook > describes a big Mexican wild cat called the {cuitlamiztli}, ... Michael Mccafferty wrote:- > ... I believe this is another term for mountain lion. ...A salient feature > of this cat is its tail, cuitlatl. ... Thanks. As the ".uk" at the end of my email address may point at, I am not the best knowledgeable about American deer and wild cats. What threw me off the track was Andrews's textbook translating {cuitlamiztli} as "excrement lion"! Is Andrews's textbook's terminology of "matrixes" and "embeds" generally known among Nahuatl scholars, or should I avoid using those terms? As a Nahuatl name, is {Ci:tlalya:ni} = "star traveller, traveller among the stars" valid and accaptable? Would the -ly- become -ll-? From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Wed May 24 16:59:52 2000 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 11:59:52 -0500 Subject: Mexican wild cats; matrix/embed In-Reply-To: <1CC419504E1@fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk> Message-ID: Of course, there is a problem with referring to 'tail' since cuitlapilli is the word for 'tail'. But, I guess, if this is truly "excrement-cat," then, again, it might be the mountain lion--for sheer volume. Michael On Wed, 24 May 2000, Anthony Appleyard wrote: > anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk wrote: > > ... A Nahuatl / English bilingual example in Andrews's textbook > > describes a big Mexican wild cat called the {cuitlamiztli}, ... > > Michael Mccafferty wrote:- > > ... I believe this is another term for mountain lion. ...A salient feature > > of this cat is its tail, cuitlatl. ... > > Thanks. As the ".uk" at the end of my email address may point at, I am not the > best knowledgeable about American deer and wild cats. What threw me off the > track was Andrews's textbook translating {cuitlamiztli} as "excrement lion"! > > Is Andrews's textbook's terminology of "matrixes" and "embeds" generally known > among Nahuatl scholars, or should I avoid using those terms? > > As a Nahuatl name, is {Ci:tlalya:ni} = "star traveller, traveller among the > stars" valid and accaptable? Would the -ly- become -ll-? > > Michael McCafferty 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "So, who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" -Chico Marx ******************************************************************************* From MishaGMCLA at aol.com Fri May 26 06:40:26 2000 From: MishaGMCLA at aol.com (MishaGMCLA at aol.com) Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 02:40:26 EDT Subject: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs Message-ID: CHMuths at aol.com writes: 1. The material I got speak of Nahuat-l as aglutinant language. What does it mean? Agglutinating languages generally have large numbers of suffixes, less often prefixes, which can be used to pile meanings and relationships into a single word. I know Hungarian better than its relative Finnish; I've made a Hungarian speaker laugh with my concoction "zongorazhatatlanak" "unplayable on the piano" zongora- "piano" -az- verb-forming suffix, hence zongoraz "to play piano" -hat- potential form "-able" -atlan- "without", but following -hat- has the meaning of "un-do-able" -ak plural ending (nouns and adjectives) anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk writes: >(Off-topic PS : please what is an "ergative language"? Everybody uses >the word and nobody says what it means.) A favorite subject --or should I say topic-- of mine. Ergativity has to do with subject, object and agent cases, where "case" is the relationship of nouns to the verb of the sentence, in many languages indicated by endings, pre positions or postpositions on the nouns. In most actions there are an Agent and a Patient: the Agent is the actor, the one providing the impetus to make the action happen. the Patient is generally the direct object, the thing undergoing or feeling the direct effects of the action. The opposite of "ergative" and the more common construction among languages is called "nominative-accusative." In these languages, the Subject is generally the Patient in intransitive sentences ("John died"), while in transitive sentences ("Bill killed John"), the Subject is the Agent and the Object the Patient. Ergative languages (for example Basque, Georgian, some Polynesian) use the Subject case for the Patient in both kinds of sentences, with the Agent marked differently in transitive sentences ("John died at-the-hands-of Bill"). These constructions could be analyzed as passive forms, especially if the normal word order is Patient before Agent ("John was-killed by-Bill"), resulting in such exaggerations as saying Basque uses only the passive voice. I don't know how clear that explanation was, or how relevant this discussion is to a language without overt case markings. I'm always pleased to run across ergativity in an unexpected place like Tonga. Misha Schutt M.A. Linguistics, Indiana University now a librarian and amateur linguist From notoca at hotmail.com Sun May 28 12:49:03 2000 From: notoca at hotmail.com (Chichiltic Coyotl) Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 12:49:03 WST Subject: Long or Short Vowel Message-ID: In the Annalytical Dictionary of Nahuatl does the small line above a vowel imply that the vowel is long? EZR ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From karttu at nantucket.net Sun May 28 10:51:53 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 06:51:53 -0400 Subject: Long or Short Vowel Message-ID: > In the Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl does the small line above a vowel > imply that the vowel is long? Yes, that is what the macron (small line) means. The verbs that end in long vowels in their dictionary forms (mostly -ia: and -oa: verbs; I'm using a: here for long a:, because email messes up macrons) have short vowels in inflected forms if the vowel is at the end of the word or followed by saltillo/glottal stop, which is written as "h" in the dictionary. For example, -ia: and -oa: verbs have a short vowel in both the singular and plural simple present tense form. It is short in the singular because there is no suffix added to the singular form, and that puts the -a at the end of the word. The vowel is also short in the plural, because the plural suffix is -h. But the vowel shows up long in the customary present, where the suffix is -ni and in the imperfect, where the suffix is -ya. There are some nouns where a long vowel does end up in word-final position. For instance, the word for 'hand/arm' is ma:itl. In the possessed form, a possessive prefix is added, and the -tl is absent. So you can think of it as something like no-ma:i 'my hand/arm,' but the short final -i also disappears, leaving noma: with a long vowel at the end of the word, and this vowel stays long. Likewise there are some uninflected words that have long vowels in word-final position: ma: 'let it be that', za: 'only', no: 'also', ahmo: 'no, not', ce: 'one' The number of particles that end in a long vowel is small, and they can just be learned. The nouns that end up with long vowels at the end of possessed forms can be recognized, because that have the vowel "i" between the long vowel and the -tl of the dictionary form. Then the general rule that long vowels turn up short at the end of words and before -h applies across the board. Fran Karttunen From notoca at hotmail.com Tue May 30 19:09:41 2000 From: notoca at hotmail.com (Chichiltic Coyotl) Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 19:09:41 WST Subject: -tla:n and -tlan Message-ID: The short answer to your query is that there are two locative suffixes and both are spelt the same. The only difference is the vowel length: -tla:n (long vowel length) and -tlan. Unfortunately, this is where it gets a little confusing. I located two sources to explain the meanings, however, both sources contradict each other when referring to the vowel length. The sources with their explanations are: 1) "An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl - 1983 Edition" ======================================================== -tla:n (long vowel) meaning "place of / place at". In the dictionary the "a" has a small line above (a macron, I believe) and this marks the vowel as long. This suffix connects directly to a noun stem when creating place names. e.g. Tepoztla:n i.e tepoztli + -tla:n -tlan meaning "below, next to (the base of), among". This suffix can only affix to a noun stem to form a place name via -ti- (a thing called a ligature or a connector). e.g. Cuauhtitlan i.e. cuahuitl + ti + tlan 2) "A Posting By F Karttunen - May 1999" ======================================== "There are two locative suffixes that are spelled '-tlan'. One is actually -tlan with a short vowel and means 'place of/at'. The other is -tla:n and means 'below, next to the base of'. You can tell these two apart even if vowel length is not marked, because the second one, -tla:n, attaches to the noun with -ti-." These are the two sources. As you can see they are very similar except for the contradiction in which suffix has a long vowel. Which one is correct - I do not know. Maybe someone on the list can clarify. > >When a Nahuatl placename means "among the X", it seems to be sometimes >{X-tlan} and sometimes {X-titlan), e.g. {Tula} < {Tollan} = "among the >reeds", >{Tenochtitlan} = "among the rock prickly-pears". And I found a >mixed-language >placename {Hidalgotitlan}. What decides whether to insert the "-ti-"? > >Re names, is {Ci:tlalya:ni} acceptable for "star traveller"? ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Tue May 30 15:00:36 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 15:00:36 GMT Subject: -tla:n and -tlan; high-order chars in email; 1st person honorifi Message-ID: Chichiltic Coyotl wrote that:- 1) "An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl - 1983 Edition" and 2) "A Posting By F Karttunen - May 1999" both say that (a) {-tlan} = "below, next to the base of" prefixes {-ti-}, and (b) {-tlan} = "place of/at" does not. (1) says that (a) has long wowel and (b) has short vowel; (2) says vice-versa. I read that Nahuatl stresses words on the last syllable but one. Sometimes in history books I have seen the name "Tenochtitla'n" with the last vowel marked stressed. Spanish does not have vowel length distinction. For a Spaniard to hear "teno:chTItla(:)n" (uppercase = stress) and pronounce it with the stress moved to the end, likeliest the last vowel was long. Re use of high-order characters (accented vowels, etc) in this email group, the next line should contain accented and circumflexed vowels and n-tilde:- áéíóú âêîôû ñ Are there any members who see something else there? I am sorry to seem silly, but I have seen too much down the years of high-order characters (= with ascii codes more than 127) getting distorted in email transmission. The books say that using honorifics of oneself in Nahuatl is not done because it would seem too pompous. But are there any examples of it found in the literature. perhaps to achieve a special effect? (Chinese has an example: a pronoun pronounced "ching", written by a special character, which could be fairly translated as {nehhua:tzin}; only the Emperor was allowed to use it!) From karttu at nantucket.net Tue May 30 20:28:44 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 16:28:44 -0400 Subject: -tla:n and -tlan; high-order chars in email; 1st person honorifi Message-ID: I'm sorry if through carelessness on my part there has been some miscommunication about -tlan and -tla:n. Please rely on the dictionary. -tla:n with a long vowel is a locative meaning 'place of, at.' It doesn't take the ligature -ti-. The short-vowel postposition -tlan 'at the base of, below, next to' takes -ti- when bound to nouns to form place names but not in ordinary postpositional constructions. It can go either way with body parts. Spanish places final stress on uninflected words that end in -n in any case, right? It's not tied to Nahuatl vowel length. The only use of first-person honorifics that I have seen in Nahuatl writing is where a person refers to her corpse after her death. She says that she (as corpse)-Honorific is to lie before the main altar before burial. Fran ---------- >From: "Anthony Appleyard" >To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >Subject: -tla:n and -tlan; high-order chars in email; 1st person honorifi >Date: Tue, May 30, 2000, 11:00 AM > > Chichiltic Coyotl wrote that:- > 1) "An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl - 1983 Edition" and > 2) "A Posting By F Karttunen - May 1999" > both say that (a) {-tlan} = "below, next to the base of" prefixes {-ti-}, and > (b) {-tlan} = "place of/at" does not. > (1) says that (a) has long wowel and (b) has short vowel; (2) says vice-versa. > > I read that Nahuatl stresses words on the last syllable but one. Sometimes in > history books I have seen the name "Tenochtitla'n" with the last vowel marked > stressed. Spanish does not have vowel length distinction. For a Spaniard to > hear "teno:chTItla(:)n" (uppercase = stress) and pronounce it with the stress > moved to the end, likeliest the last vowel was long. > > Re use of high-order characters (accented vowels, etc) in this email group, > the next line should contain accented and circumflexed vowels and n-tilde:- > áéíóú âêîôû ñ > Are there any members who see something else there? I am sorry to seem > silly, but I have seen too much down the years of high-order characters > (= with ascii codes more than 127) getting distorted in email transmission. > > The books say that using honorifics of oneself in Nahuatl is not done because > it would seem too pompous. But are there any examples of it found in the > literature. perhaps to achieve a special effect? (Chinese has an example: a > pronoun pronounced "ching", written by a special character, which could be > fairly translated as {nehhua:tzin}; only the Emperor was allowed to use it!) > From elazteca at collegeclub.com Thu May 4 20:36:05 2000 From: elazteca at collegeclub.com (Ivan Ochoa) Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 13:36:05 -0700 Subject: Nahuatl Practico: Lecciones Y Ejercicios Para El Principiante Message-ID: I want to learn nahuatl and recently found the book titled: "Nahuatl Practico: Lecciones Y Ejercicios Para El Principiante" by Fernando Horcasitas (ISBN: 9683617980). I was woundering if anyone knows how good/bad this book may be, do you recomend it, any other thoughts... replies are thanked in advanced... Ivan Ochoa -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why is College Club the largest and fastest growing college student site? Find out for yourself at http://www.collegeclub.com From Amapohuani at aol.com Thu May 4 21:26:31 2000 From: Amapohuani at aol.com (Amapohuani at aol.com) Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 17:26:31 EDT Subject: Nahuatl Practico: Lecciones Y Ejercicios Para El Principiante Message-ID: In a message dated 5/4/00 12:46:06 PM, elazteca at collegeclub.com writes: << I want to learn nahuatl and recently found the book titled: "Nahuatl Practico: Lecciones Y Ejercicios Para El Principiante" by Fernando Horcasitas (ISBN: 9683617980). I was woundering if anyone knows how good/bad this book may be, do you recomend it, any other thoughts... replies are thanked in advanced... Ivan Ochoa >> The very first Nahuatl grammar I used was the same! I found it useful but limited. Campbell and Karttunen are more thorough and up-to-date. Perhaps I am alone in this, but the single best guide to Nahuatl I found, read, and constantly refer to, is Carochi's ARTE (1645), available in photoreproduction (Mexico, UNAM). Strangely, right now Louise Burkhart and I are working on a Nahuatl Theater Series. Its precursor and inspiration are, of course, Horcasitas' EL TEATRO NAHUATL. Best of luck in your study of Nahuatl. Ye ixquich. Barry D. Sell From fjgs at servidor.unam.mx Fri May 5 08:26:20 2000 From: fjgs at servidor.unam.mx (Ehecatecolotl) Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 02:26:20 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl statistics Message-ID: Anmomahuizotzitzintin: Xinechmotlapohpolhuili, ninequizquia nanmotlahtlaniliz canin huel nitemoz in Nahuatlahtolamoxcalli ahnozo in Nahutlahtoltemachtiloyan. Cuix ahmo quiza cehquin amatl ica intocatzin in yuhquin in directorio? Tla, xinechmomaquili anommahuizzotlahtolli nican: ehecatecolotl at yahoo.com ahnozo ehecatecolotl at hotmail.com Dear and knowledgeable listeros, Please forgive my clumsiness, I?d like to ask where I can find places where Nahuatl books are sold/kept or schools for Nahuatl. Is there some sort of a rooster, rolodex or the like. I am trying to locate and later create a map or similar device portraying all available resources for Nahuatl (yeah, I know, easier...) If you have any input, I will be in your debt ( I already am for what I?ve learned from the list). ehecatecolotl at yahoo.com ahnozo ehecatecolotl at hotmail.com Apreciables listeros: Les ruego que disculpen la molestia, si tienen una escuela de Nahuatl o saben de algun lugar donde haya recursos (libros, etc.) les ruego me escriban una nota. Quiero hacer un listado o mapa, tan extenso como Tezcatlipoca lo permita y Huitzilopochtli me ayude, de escuelas y centros en general donde nuestra amada lengua madre se ense?a como segundo idioma o coyotlahtolli (lengua extranjera). No importa si es en Mexico o en el extranjero. Quedo agradecido por cualquier ayuda que tengan la gentileza de hacerme llegar a: ehecatecolotl at yahoo.com ahnozo ehecatecolotl at hotmail.com Nanmech Tlazohcamachililia Thanks a lot Gracias. From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Fri May 5 10:04:59 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 10:04:59 GMT Subject: Natuatl textbooks Message-ID: Please can someone recommend a good textbook and a good dictionary for Nahuatl, for English-speakers? Preferably including ISBN number and price and publisher and year of publication, to make life easier for the bookshop. Where is a good English / Nahuatl and vice-versa dictionary for things that came since the Spanish came and therefore will not have words in classical Tenochtitlanian Nahuatl? From schwallr at selway.umt.edu Fri May 5 14:37:06 2000 From: schwallr at selway.umt.edu (John F. Schwaller) Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 08:37:06 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl textbooks In-Reply-To: <3A46EB840C7@fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk> Message-ID: At 10:04 AM 5/5/2000 GMT, you wrote: >Please can someone recommend a good textbook and a good dictionary for >Nahuatl, for English-speakers? Please look at the Nahuatl web site. There are links to all kinds of materials: http://www.umt.edu/history/Nahuatl John Frederick Schwaller schwallr at selway.umt.edu Associate Provost 406-243-4722 The University of Montana FAX 406-243-5937 http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/ From mdmorris at indiana.edu Mon May 8 03:13:22 2000 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Sun, 7 May 2000 22:13:22 -0500 Subject: Nahuatl statistics In-Reply-To: <003901bfb66b$98a884c0$ca6ff884@aspire> Message-ID: Disculpe el disparate, aqui en Tlaxcala estamos poca a poca haciendo un catalogo de los documentos que hay en el idioma nahuatl que seguramente en su total conste de ser un tesoro para la herencia global. Solo en los archivos del gobierno hay casi mil fojas en el idioma y en los archovs de algunos pueblos hay mucho mas. Invito todoas quienes tienen interes en este idioma de pasar por aqui para saber la riqueza de la tradicion mesoamericana que hay aqui. De estudiar el idioma, sin embargo, estoy en acuedro que hay algo magico del Arte de Horacio Carochi 1645 que no sobrepasa ninguno otro gramatica para dar a entender el idioma nahuatl. Aunque no basta una gramatica de entender todos los documnetos y discursos que uno va a enfrentar, como por ejemplo en Tlaxcala "nian" quiere decir "ni" y "nen" no es negativo sino un ampliativo como "huel" que indica el exceso da su conotacion negativa. Atentamente, Mark D. Morris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. Eccl 1:18 To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, this is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental sickness. Only when we are sick of our sickness, shall we cease to be sick. The Sage is not sick, being sick of sickness; This is the secret of health. TTC 71 MDM, PhD Candidate Dept. of History, Indiana Univ. From karttu at nantucket.net Mon May 8 10:08:43 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 06:08:43 -0400 Subject: Nahuatl statistics Message-ID: The reason that "nian" (not restricted by any means to the Tlaxcala area) has the nonnegative sense that Mark describes here is because it is derived from Spanish aun. Aun functions as an intensifier in Spanish ('still, even, further') and caries that sense into Nahautl. Fran Karttunen ---------- >From: Mark David Morris >To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >Subject: Re: Nahuatl statistics >Date: Sun, May 7, 2000, 11:13 PM > > Disculpe el disparate, aqui en Tlaxcala estamos poca a poca haciendo un > catalogo de los documentos que hay en el idioma nahuatl que seguramente en > su total conste de ser un tesoro para la herencia global. Solo en los > archivos del gobierno hay casi mil fojas en el idioma y en los archovs de > algunos pueblos hay mucho mas. Invito todoas quienes tienen interes en > este idioma de pasar por aqui para saber la riqueza de la tradicion > mesoamericana que hay aqui. De estudiar el idioma, sin embargo, estoy en > acuedro que hay algo magico del Arte de Horacio Carochi 1645 que no > sobrepasa ninguno otro gramatica para dar a entender el idioma nahuatl. > Aunque no basta una gramatica de entender todos los documnetos y discursos > que uno va a enfrentar, como por ejemplo en Tlaxcala "nian" quiere decir > "ni" y "nen" no es negativo sino un ampliativo como "huel" que indica el > exceso da su conotacion negativa. > > Atentamente, > > Mark D. Morris > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more > grief. Eccl 1:18 > > To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, this is a noble insight. To > regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental sickness. Only when we > are sick of our sickness, shall we cease to be sick. The Sage is not > sick, being sick of sickness; This is the secret of health. TTC 71 > > MDM, PhD Candidate > Dept. of History, Indiana Univ. > > From fjgs at servidor.unam.mx Wed May 10 04:26:42 2000 From: fjgs at servidor.unam.mx (Ehecatecolotl) Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 22:26:42 -0600 Subject: Nahuatl statistics Message-ID: Quemah, tlazohcamati, yeceh, canin huel nimitztemohua ompa Tlaxcallah? Campa moquixtilia motequitzin? > Disculpe el disparate, aqui en Tlaxcala estamos poca a poca haciendo un > catalogo de los documentos... From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Wed May 10 15:17:18 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 15:17:18 GMT Subject: How similar are Nahuath dialects? Message-ID: With apologies for asking a novice question, but: how mutually comprehensible are the various dialects of Nahuatl? If someone went to a modern Nahuatl speaking area, knowing only classical Tenochtitlanian Nahuatl learned from a textbook, how much would he and the local people understand each other? From dcwright at prodigy.net.mx Thu May 11 03:17:13 2000 From: dcwright at prodigy.net.mx (David Wright) Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 21:17:13 -0600 Subject: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Message-ID: Regarding Anthony Appleyard's query: ************************************** "With apologies for asking a novice question, but: how mutually comprehensible are the various dialects of Nahuatl? If someone went to a modern Nahuatl speaking area, knowing only classical Tenochtitlanian Nahuatl learned from a textbook, how much would he and the local people understand each other?" ************************************** It's hardly a novice question! The people who have looked hardest at the question of intelligibility between dialects of languages in Mexico are the researchers associated with the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Since one of their goals is to translate the Bible and other educational materials into as many languages as possible on a world-wide level, they are very focused on whether or not people from a given town would understand material written for those from another town or region. They devised a method of testing this question, which consists of recording a text in each of the two places to be compared, then formulating ten questions in each place, concerning the content of the recording. The recording is played for ten individuals in each of the two places (as well as playing each recording in the place it was recorded, as a control); then each of the participants is asked the ten questions. The results are averaged, giving the percentage of intelligibility between the two places. The critical percentage to guarantee adequate comprehension is set at 80%, although this can vary, depending on social factors and other considerations. (See Jorge A. Su?rez, The Mesoamerican Indian Languages, Cambridge University Press, 1983, section 2.2, and the "Introduction" in Ethnologue, Languages of the World, 13th ed., Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1996.) Ethnologue has the results of these studies. Twenty-seven varieties of n?huatl, most with internal divisions or "dialects", are listed. Intelligibility ranges from 94% (Pajapan, Ver./Oteapan, Ver.) to 0% (Morelos/Mecayapan, Ver.), with everything in between. The Epiclassic and Postclassic expansion of the Nahua speakers is responsible for a rather chaotic linguistic panorama, with some varieties showing high intelligibility in spite of a large geographic separation, and others showing low intelligibility in spite of being quite close. (Compare this situation to the Otomi languages, which have much deeper roots in Central Mexico than Nahuatl, and thus a greater correspondence between linguistic and geographic proximity.) Ethnologue can be consulted in its entirety on-line at http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/. Classical Nahuatl is listed, but it wasn't compared with any other, being an extinct language. I would guess that intelligibility between Classical Nahuatl and any modern variety would be fairly low. I'm sorry this is so long; I was just looking at this question and I have a pile of note cards with pertinent information on my desk. Un saludo, David Wright -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jfa14 at columbia.edu Fri May 12 16:59:05 2000 From: jfa14 at columbia.edu (Jennifer Frances Ahlfeldt (by way of "John F. Schwaller" )) Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 10:59:05 -0600 Subject: upcoming conference Message-ID: Greetings! I am pleased to announce an upcoming conference on Pre-Columbian Art, titled West by Nonwest to be held November 10-12, 2000 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It is organized by Professor Esther Pasztory of Columbia University's Department of Art History and Archaeology. For more information on the conference and registration please see our website: http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/westnon/ We hope you can make it. Sincerely, Jennifer F. Ahlfeldt Department of Art History and Archaeology Columbia University From mdmorris at indiana.edu Mon May 15 06:32:37 2000 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 01:32:37 -0500 Subject: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects In-Reply-To: <002601bfbaf7$d7faf5a0$11bee994@prodigy.net.mx> Message-ID: I've found my studies of classical Nahuatl with R. Joe Campbell, with its focus on morphology, a very good background for trying to chat with Nahuatl speakers from the La Malinche belt of Tlaxcala (Contla-San Isidro) and people from some parts of Puebla. The gravest problem I have faced, which is very grave indeed, is the social stigma attached to the language. My most productive conversations have either been facillitated by very, very good local contacts or a couple of shots of tequila. Learning classical Nahuatl will never be an impediment; however, stumbling into a Nahua speaking community with good ears and an open mind is still the best way to go - or to state that negatively, people who come into an isolated community (where Nahuatl is spoken) with an agenda will probably be mistaken for the worst. I'd be very interested in hearing how other people get around the social stigma of indigenous languages in their field work, specifically such things as breaking the ice with Nahuatl speaking strangers. best, Mark Morris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. Eccl 1:18 To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, this is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental sickness. Only when we are sick of our sickness, shall we cease to be sick. The Sage is not sick, being sick of sickness; This is the secret of health. TTC 71 MDM, PhD Candidate Dept. of History, Indiana Univ. From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Tue May 16 08:58:21 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 08:58:21 GMT Subject: we, you, y'all Message-ID: J.Richard Andrews's textbook seems to say that:- nipatla:ni = I fly tipatla:ni = you(sg) fly tipatla:nih = we fly ampatla:nih = y'all fly Are there any Nahuatl dialects where the equivalent of **{nipatla:nih} is valid? If so, what does it mean there? Are there any Nahuatl dialects that have a separate form for "we, not including you"? From campbel at indiana.edu Tue May 16 17:36:23 2000 From: campbel at indiana.edu (r. joe campbell) Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 12:36:23 -0500 Subject: we, you, y'all In-Reply-To: <10500DA18DB@fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk> Message-ID: Anthonihtzin, The answer to both of questions is "yes". In Mecayapan, Veracruz, the first person prefix 'ni-' is combined with the plural suffix '-h' to yield a first person plural exclusive (i.e., 'we, excluding you') which contrasts with their first person plural inclusive (i.e., the """normal""" 'we', shared with all other dialects). So: nipata:ni I fly nipata:nih we (not incl. you) fly tipata:nih we (general) fly tipata:ni you fly [[Note that it is a 't' dialect -- that is, where other dialects have the "expected" /tl/, Mecayapan, like some other eastern dialects, has /t/]] The dialect of Mecayapan is described in: Carl Wolgemuth, _Grama'tica Nahuatl del Municipio de Mecayapan, Veracruz. Instituto Lingui'stico de Verano: Serie grama'ticas de lenguas indi'genas de Me'xico, no. 5 (1981). Hopefully someone on Nahuat-l has had some direct contact with one of the 'we-excl.' dialects. Best regards, Joe On Tue, 16 May 2000, Anthony Appleyard wrote: > J.Richard Andrews's textbook seems to say that:- > nipatla:ni = I fly > tipatla:ni = you(sg) fly > tipatla:nih = we fly > ampatla:nih = y'all fly > > Are there any Nahuatl dialects where the equivalent of **{nipatla:nih} is > valid? If so, what does it mean there? > > Are there any Nahuatl dialects that have a separate form for "we, not > including you"? > > From Yaoxochitl at aol.com Tue May 16 21:14:04 2000 From: Yaoxochitl at aol.com (Yaoxochitl at aol.com) Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 17:14:04 EDT Subject: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Message-ID: Mark, Another factor could be that you are an outsider and for that reason, the majority of people would not strike up a conversation with you regardless of how casual it is. First, you have to establish trust among your informants. Second, it could also have something to do with your ethnic background, in the sense that you are regarded as a "Westerner" in their eyes. Last, given the so-called social stigma attached to Nahuatl, could it be that they just do not care to talk to you? From karttu at nantucket.net Tue May 16 23:27:27 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 19:27:27 -0400 Subject: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Message-ID: To Yaoxochitl, It's been my experience that Nahuas have been particularly hospitable and outgoing to me and to my North American colleagues, while being quite stand-offish to Mexicans. You can see why. Once one of my colleagues (who has many ahijadas in a Nahua area) and I were waiting for a bus in a miserable dust storm. A couple of women who were also taking shelter against the church atrio wall while waiting for the bus asked us if we were out in the country looking for maids to work for us. We explained that we were carrying suitcases and bultos of presents for the godchildren, and these women helped us on the bus, chatted with us, reminded the bus driver where to let us off and hoped to meet us again. After all, we were traveling by second class bus just like they were. By contrast, one day when I came back late in the afternoon, my landlady told me how lucky I was to have been out all afternoon, because a carload of anthropologists had come looking for me. She had told them nothing and sent them on their way. It took me two days of asking around to figure out who those anthropologists had been. I don't know anyone who welcomes people who arrive with the intention of studying them. Who likes being an object of study, after all? But if one makes oneself useful and also reveals a genuine interest and some ability with the language, someone usually reciprocates that interest. Fran ---------- >From: Yaoxochitl at aol.com >To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >Subject: Re: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects >Date: Tue, May 16, 2000, 5:14 PM > > Mark, > Another factor could be that you are an outsider and for that reason, > the majority of people would not strike up a conversation with you > regardless of how casual it is. First, you have to establish trust among > your informants. Second, it could also have something to do with your > ethnic background, in the sense that you are regarded as a "Westerner" in > their eyes. Last, given the so-called social stigma attached to Nahuatl, > could it be that they just do not care to talk to you? > From Yaoxochitl at aol.com Wed May 17 00:12:23 2000 From: Yaoxochitl at aol.com (Yaoxochitl at aol.com) Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 20:12:23 EDT Subject: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Message-ID: Frances, I agree with you and thank you for reinforcing my views on the matter of what Mark labels, "a grave situation." From andreamb at infosel.net.mx Wed May 17 05:47:24 2000 From: andreamb at infosel.net.mx (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Andrea_Mart=EDnez?=) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 00:47:24 -0500 Subject: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Message-ID: To Frances Karttunen and all: I am very sorry for the arrogant and incorrect view of "Mexicans" your last letter shows. I remind you that "Nahuas" are Mexican, yes, as Mexican as the ones who hire them as maids, for the matter. It is a nationality, most Nahuas belong to it and, as nearly all Mexicans, are proud of being so. I don' t know of a single Mexican who doesn't consider himself as such. I would appreciate a little humbleness: neither "Mexicans"are all as bad, nor all Americans as good as you so confidently think you are. Andrea Martinez -----Mensaje original----- De: Frances Karttunen Para: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu Fecha: Martes 16 de Mayo de 2000 06:35 PM Asunto: Re: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects >To Yaoxochitl, > >It's been my experience that Nahuas have been particularly hospitable and >outgoing to me and to my North American colleagues, while being quite >stand-offish to Mexicans. You can see why. Once one of my colleagues (who >has many ahijadas in a Nahua area) and I were waiting for a bus in a >miserable dust storm. A couple of women who were also taking shelter >against the church atrio wall while waiting for the bus asked us if we were >out in the country looking for maids to work for us. We explained that we >were carrying suitcases and bultos of presents for the godchildren, and >these women helped us on the bus, chatted with us, reminded the bus driver >where to let us off and hoped to meet us again. After all, we were >traveling by second class bus just like they were. > >By contrast, one day when I came back late in the afternoon, my landlady >told me how lucky I was to have been out all afternoon, because a carload of >anthropologists had come looking for me. She had told them nothing and sent >them on their way. It took me two days of asking around to figure out who >those anthropologists had been. > >I don't know anyone who welcomes people who arrive with the intention of >studying them. Who likes being an object of study, after all? But if one >makes oneself useful and also reveals a genuine interest and some ability >with the language, someone usually reciprocates that interest. > >Fran > >---------- >>From: Yaoxochitl at aol.com >>To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >>Subject: Re: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects >>Date: Tue, May 16, 2000, 5:14 PM >> > >> Mark, >> Another factor could be that you are an outsider and for that reason, >> the majority of people would not strike up a conversation with you >> regardless of how casual it is. First, you have to establish trust among >> your informants. Second, it could also have something to do with your >> ethnic background, in the sense that you are regarded as a "Westerner" in >> their eyes. Last, given the so-called social stigma attached to Nahuatl, >> could it be that they just do not care to talk to you? >> From karttu at nantucket.net Wed May 17 11:39:38 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 07:39:38 -0400 Subject: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Message-ID: Dear Andrea and all, I was responding to Yaoxochitl's suggestion that Mark found Nahuatl speakers less than forthcoming because "it could also have something to do with your ethnic background, in the sense that you are regarded as a "Westerner" in their eyes." My point is that being North American is not necessarily a disadvantage in such situations. My experience in rural Mexico is that many people are most aware of a profound distinction between people (urban Mexicans, North Americans, Europeans, whatever) who lead relatively comfortable lives and those who engage in a daily struggle for enough to eat, access to medicine, safe drinking water, and minimally adequate housing. Commonly people resent anthropologists, who are perceived as comfortable people who have actually managed to make their careers out of information extracted from people who do NOT lead comfortable lives. Willingly sharing people's uncomfortable lives (albeit temporarily) and being a resource to make people's day-to-day lives a little better (as in sponsoring godchildren) is more appreciated than ethnic or national background. (And yes, most Nahuatl speakers call their language "mexicano," but they tend to call themselves "macehualtin" as contrasted with the mestizo population of Mexico.) People who are struggling just to live find the issue that Mark considers grave--that of maintaining indigenous languages and letting them be studied--of little urgency by comparison with making sure their children survive and have some sort of future. That route is generally perceived as through making children monolingual in the dominant culture's language, even though that means losing their own language heritage. Linguists find this hard to take, but it's really not our business to preach to people weighing physical survival against language survival. (This is true worldwide. At least half the languages of the world will probably no longer be spoken by anyone after another generation or two.) At the time of Mexican independence in the 19th century, the indigenous peoples of Mexico had their "Indian courts" abolished. The professional notaries who had recorded their deeds, testaments, bills of sale, petitions, and verbatim testimony in their own languages were put out of business. The indigenous peoples (Nahuas, Mayas, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and scores more) were told that "we are all Mexicans now." But it was a disaster for the indigenous peoples. They lost their last bulwark of legal protection, and they lost the one practical reason for maintaining their own languages. Yes, maybe the indigenous peoples of Mexico are now "Mexicans," even patriotic Mexicans, but they are painfully aware that they are at the bottom of a society where the power is reserved for the top. That is what the on-going events of Chiapas are fundamentally about. The book "Speaking Mexicano" provides a sense of what it has been like in the recent past to be a Nahua in modern Mexico. The book represents Jane and Kenneth Hill's cooperative work with Alberto Zepeda (under the alias "Alfredo Zapata" in the book), his community, and neighboring communities and is an example of how such a project can be undertaken by people working together. The Hills made themselves welcome in his community, but it was a very young Albertohtzin who did the interviews, worked with the Hills in transcribing them, and provided commentary about what was going on in the interviews. His priest and family saw this work as a paid apprenticeship that could lead to a better life for Alberto, and as an adult (husband, father, teacher, and our esteemed colleague) he has a profession without having given up his community's language. This is a significant personal accomplishment for someone of his generation, and perhaps it benefits his community too. As for "Speaking Mexicano," it is the product of something that would not have been accomplished by non-Nahuas through casual conversations, structured interviews, or questionnaires. A similar productive partnership is between the linguists Jose Antonio Flores Farfan and Cleofas Ramirez Celestino. Cleofas Ramirez C. is a native speaker of Nahuatl and a traditional painter as well as a linguist. Together she and Jose Antonio Flores F. have produced all sorts of beautiful child-oriented material for Nahuatl language retention and revitalization. The ultimate ethical responsibility of linguists is to help people study their own languages, but in this time of critical language endangerment, we all need to work together. Fran Karttunen ---------- >From: "Andrea Mart?nez" >To: >Subject: RE: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects >Date: Wed, May 17, 2000, 1:47 AM > > To Frances Karttunen and all: > > I am very sorry for the arrogant and incorrect view of "Mexicans" your last > letter shows. I remind you that "Nahuas" are Mexican, yes, as Mexican as the > ones who hire them as maids, for the matter. It is a nationality, most > Nahuas belong to it and, as nearly all Mexicans, are proud of being so. I > don' t know of a single Mexican who doesn't consider himself as such. I > would appreciate a little humbleness: neither "Mexicans"are all as bad, nor > all Americans as good as you so confidently think you are. > > Andrea Martinez > > > -----Mensaje original----- > De: Frances Karttunen > Para: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu > Fecha: Martes 16 de Mayo de 2000 06:35 PM > Asunto: Re: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects > > >>To Yaoxochitl, >> >>It's been my experience that Nahuas have been particularly hospitable and >>outgoing to me and to my North American colleagues, while being quite >>stand-offish to Mexicans. You can see why. Once one of my colleagues (who >>has many ahijadas in a Nahua area) and I were waiting for a bus in a >>miserable dust storm. A couple of women who were also taking shelter >>against the church atrio wall while waiting for the bus asked us if we were >>out in the country looking for maids to work for us. We explained that we >>were carrying suitcases and bultos of presents for the godchildren, and >>these women helped us on the bus, chatted with us, reminded the bus driver >>where to let us off and hoped to meet us again. After all, we were >>traveling by second class bus just like they were. >> >>By contrast, one day when I came back late in the afternoon, my landlady >>told me how lucky I was to have been out all afternoon, because a carload > of >>anthropologists had come looking for me. She had told them nothing and > sent >>them on their way. It took me two days of asking around to figure out who >>those anthropologists had been. >> >>I don't know anyone who welcomes people who arrive with the intention of >>studying them. Who likes being an object of study, after all? But if one >>makes oneself useful and also reveals a genuine interest and some ability >>with the language, someone usually reciprocates that interest. >> >>Fran >> >>---------- >>>From: Yaoxochitl at aol.com >>>To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >>>Subject: Re: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects >>>Date: Tue, May 16, 2000, 5:14 PM >>> >> >>> Mark, >>> Another factor could be that you are an outsider and for that > reason, >>> the majority of people would not strike up a conversation with you >>> regardless of how casual it is. First, you have to establish trust among >>> your informants. Second, it could also have something to do with your >>> ethnic background, in the sense that you are regarded as a "Westerner" in >>> their eyes. Last, given the so-called social stigma attached to Nahuatl, >>> could it be that they just do not care to talk to you? >>> > From dcwright at prodigy.net.mx Wed May 17 15:02:44 2000 From: dcwright at prodigy.net.mx (David Wright) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 09:02:44 -0600 Subject: Linguistic rights Message-ID: Frances Karttunen recently posted an interesting message containing the following paragraph: "People who are struggling just to live find the issue that Mark considers grave--that of maintaining indigenous languages and letting them be studied--of little urgency by comparison with making sure their children survive and have some sort of future. That route is generally perceived as through making children monolingual in the dominant culture's language, even though that means losing their own language heritage. Linguists find this hard to take, but it's really not our business to preach to people weighing physical survival against language survival. (This is true worldwide. At least half the languages of the world will probably no longer be spoken by anyone after another generation or two.)" Linguistic extinction can be avoided by guaranteeing linguistic rights. The process involves reeducating societies, on local, regional, national and international levels, much as the environmental and feminist movements have done since around 1970. A few years ago a serious attempt was made to define the linguistic rights of peoples: the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights. The project was initiated in 1994 by International PEN's Translations and Linguistic Rights Committee, with the collaboration of the Escarr? International Centre for Ethnic Minorities and Nations. A large international interdisciplinary team, including writers, linguists, specialists in international law and representatives of ethnic minorities from several continents, produced twelve drafts, culminating in the declaration which was presented in Barcelona in 1996. This document is now under consideration in a UNESCO committee for adoption by the UN as an international convention. Meanwhile, this document has inspired legislative initiatives in Guatemala and Mexico. Those interested may visit the Web site at: http://www.troc.es/mercator/dudl-gb.htm Perhaps one of the most important points is that, by insuring a linguistic community's rights to use its language within its territory, one of the benefits would be the creation of relatively well-paid and high-prestige jobs for those who are fluent and literate in their mother tongue, thus addressing the problem that Frances Karttunen accurately described in the paragraph quoted above. Peace, David Wright Follow-Up Scientific Council Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mdmorris at indiana.edu Thu May 18 02:01:29 2000 From: mdmorris at indiana.edu (Mark David Morris) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 21:01:29 -0500 Subject: Linguistic rights In-Reply-To: <001c01bfc010$f7bf91c0$41bee994@prodigy.net.mx> Message-ID: Dear Nahuat-'ers, In the last communications, I see two major problems. First, I would like to doubt that poor indigenous people in the Americas do not also feel cultural poverty, or psychological poverty in consequence of social discrimination, or being poor in consequence of being indigenous. It's a possibility. Second, that the creation of universal language decrees and several high paid government posts will be of any sufficient help. I believe that until democractic access to resources is made availabe to indigenous people within their own culture and their own language there will not be a fair place for indigenous cultures. I may be trying to make a point to defend my earlier statement, but I really disagree with the assumption that I fundamentally misunderstand the issues at stake. sincerely, Mark Morris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. Eccl 1:18 To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, this is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental sickness. Only when we are sick of our sickness, shall we cease to be sick. The Sage is not sick, being sick of sickness; This is the secret of health. TTC 71 MDM, PhD Candidate Dept. of History, Indiana Univ. From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Thu May 18 09:51:56 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 09:51:56 GMT Subject: Linguistic rights Message-ID: Mark David Morris wrote:- > ... I believe that until democractic access to resources is made > ... available to indigenous people within their own culture and their > ... own language there will not be a fair place for indigenous cultures. ... Similarly in Britain, the fortunes of the Welsh language turned much for the better when Griffiths translated the Bible into Welsh and so made unnecessary one big way that Welsh-speakers were routinely exposed to the English language, and this codified the language and astablished a standard form and tried to stem the inflow of English loanwords. Similarly in the 19th century the Sokol movement saved Czech from becoming merely a patois domimated by German. But that was before the modern public media and its mass exposure to dominant languages came. How big are the various Nahuatl (and Maya and Zapotec etc) speaking communities compared to the "critical mass" where it becomes practical to translate newspapers and books into Nahuatl/etc, and dub popular films and videos into Nahuatl/etc, and so on, to cut down as far as possible the routine exposure to Spanish? Where "one community" means any group of dialects that are similar enough to each other for their speakers to understand each other. From dcwright at prodigy.net.mx Thu May 18 16:31:54 2000 From: dcwright at prodigy.net.mx (David Wright) Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 10:31:54 -0600 Subject: Linguistic rights Message-ID: Dear Mark: Just a quick clarification to the slight misunderstanding evident in your statement: "Second, that the creation of universal language decrees and several high paid government posts will be of any sufficient help." The Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, evidently, is not a solution in its own right, but an attempt to define these rights, to raise public consciousness as to their importance; as such it is a potential tool for their defense and implementation. As for employment, I was thinking more of "middle-class" jobs in education, media, commerce and bureaucracy, which would tend to appear if the rights of native speakers to use their mother tongues in a wider variety of social contexts were to be effectively supported. My words "relatively well-paid and high-prestige jobs" were chosen with the native speaker's perspective in mind; the word "relatively" was apparently not sufficient to make this clear. As for the statement: "I believe that until democractic access to resources is made availabe to indigenous people within their own culture and their own language there will not be a fair place for indigenous cultures", I think you've hit the nail on the head! Thanks for the feedback and for giving me the opportunity to clarify my earlier post. Peace, David Wright -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From CHMuths at aol.com Sun May 21 10:34:09 2000 From: CHMuths at aol.com (CHMuths at aol.com) Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 06:34:09 EDT Subject: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs Message-ID: Listeros, I am new to the list and I am also a novice in speaking nahuat-l and therefore I hope this is the right place to ask my questions: 1. The material I got speak of Nahuat-l as aglutinant language. What does it mean? 2. In which category fall the germanic languages such as English and German? 3. Do Spanish, French and Italian for example fall in the same category as English and German because they are indo-germanic languages? 4. Is there a connection between Nahuat-l and Finnish for example? Those languages seem to have a similar grammar construction. 5. Which dimensions are recognised in Nahuat-l or by the Aztecs? (we have 4: length, width, height and depth; space-time continuum as fifth dimension has only been recently recognised). 6. How is space understood and described in Nahuat-l? 7. As I am not a linguist but a sociologist/social psychiatrist I like to understand the language from the spatial point of view: as we have a linear language in which everything is referred to by separating all references to a person, the position, ownership etc. in different words, Nahuat-l seems to work in images. The Finnish add all references to a person, position etc. to a stem word; in Nahuat-l there is also a stem word but by changing the pre-fixes and suffices the language became imaginary. Am I right? Does this mean that they have a different understand of themselves in space and therefore a different spatial understanding? 8. I have worked with dyslexic people and I know that they have a spatial understanding of the world. 85 % of Apple software engineers are dyslexic, which was the basic for Apple?s development of new technology. Some American architectural office only employ dyslexic architects because it save them month of tedious calculation work, especially in the design of highscrapers and the heating system, as dyslexic architects think spatially. 9. Some linguistics (Charles William Johnson for example) detected the close similarity between the old Egyptian language and Nahuat-l and speak of a Kemi-Mesoamerican mother tongue. They assume that there must be a common language before the development of those two language, something like indo-germanic for example. This seem to make sense as Archaeologists and Egyptologists found traces of South-American drugs in Egyptian mummies. The scientific community believed so far that there was no connection whatsoever between the ?Old? and the ?New? world. Does anybody on the list has researched this subject or has any ideas on that? 10. Colours: how are the colours depicted? Are there many colours, or many hues and shades of colours described or depicted? Any comments are greatly appreciated. Thanks Christa From anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk Sun May 21 21:41:50 2000 From: anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk (anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk) Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 22:41:50 +0100 Subject: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs Message-ID: CHMuths at aol.com wrote:- > 1. The material I got speak of Nahuat-l as aglutinant language. What > does it mean? That words can have a miscellaneous assortment of suffixes and prefixes, more so than in an inflected language. This email group is NAHUAT-L; but the language is `Nahuatl', without the hyphen. > 2. In which category fall the germanic languages such as English and German? Inflecting; but English has largely become a word-order language (Off-topic PS : please what is an "ergative language"? Everybody uses the word and nobody says what it means.) > 3. Do Spanish, French and Italian for example fall in the same category as English and German because they are indo-germanic languages? They are all Indo-European languages. They are all inflecting. > 4. Is there a connection between Nahuat-l and Finnish for example? No. Their common ancestor was so long ago that by now any remaining cognate words very long ago vanished "behind the noise" of accidental resemblances. There have been long threads about that sort of thing on NOSTRATIC group and elsewhere, where people have talked about a Proto- World language and suchlike. Beware also of look-alike words imitated from the same natural noise, e.g. Nahuatl "papalotl" = Latin "papilio" = "butterfly", both perhaps imitated from the sound of a butterfly flapping against a hard surface. > Those languages seem to have a similar grammar construction. That is a coincidence. > 5. Which dimensions are recognised in Nahuat-l or by the Aztecs? (we have 4: length, width, height and depth; Erh??? I see 3. In any one set-up, two of those four words for dimensions of space are synonyms. > 6. How is space understood and described in Nahuat-l? If you mean space-travel space, perhaps try some compound such as "star- realm". > 7. As I am not a linguist but a sociologist/social psychiatrist ... Does this mean that they have a different understand of themselves in space and therefore a different spatial understanding? Probably merely that their language tends to work in affixes rather than in separate words. In e.g. {nicoatl} = "I am a snake", perhaps the ni- was once a separate word which has become affixed. > 9. Some linguistics (Charles William Johnson for example) detected the close similarity between the old Egyptian language and Nahuat-l ... See (4). > This seem to make sense as Archaeologists and Egyptologists found traces of South-American drugs in Egyptian mummies. Perhaps there was once a cocaine-producing plant in reach of Egypt, but over-collection and/or the land turning to desert drove it to extinction. From CHMuths at aol.com Mon May 22 08:32:35 2000 From: CHMuths at aol.com (CHMuths at aol.com) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 04:32:35 EDT Subject: Nahuatl textbooks Message-ID: The books arrived today. Great Material! Thanks Christa Muths From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Mon May 22 09:54:28 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 09:54:28 GMT Subject: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs (PS); (ti)tlan Message-ID: CHMuths at aol.com wrote:- > 4. Is there a connection between Nahuat-l and Finnish for example? Those > languages seem to have a similar grammar construction. There are only so many sensible ways to organize the various parts of a language, and these ways may recur in unrelated languages as they evolve. E,g, French "Moi, Pierre, je chante" = Nahuatl "NiPetoloh nicuia" = "I, Peter", sing", and those two constructions arose completely independently. > 5. Which dimensions are recognised in Nahuat-l or by the Aztecs? (we have 4: > length, width, height and depth; space-time continuum as fifth dimension has > only been recently recognised). > 6. How is space understood and described in Nahuat-l? > 7. ... I like to understand the language from the spatial point of view ... > Does this mean that they have a different understand of themselves in space > and therefore a different spatial understanding? The Nahua are as likely as anyone else to see that objects and their environment can be long / wide / deep / high / occupy volume, and thus to have words for "high" and "wide" etc, and and such usual behavior of objects when they stack them up. And to realize that time elapses. > 8. ... Apple???s ... 9. ... the ???Old??? and the ???New??? world. ... Please check what your email editor / word processor does with single and double quotes. Here, what started as an apostrophe and single quotes reached me each as three nonsense high-order characters ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When a Nahuatl placename means "among the X", it seems to be sometimes {X-tlan} and sometimes {X-titlan), e.g. {Tula} < {Tollan} = "among the reeds", {Tenochtitlan} = "among the rock prickly-pears". And I found a mixed-language placename {Hidalgotitlan}. What decides whether to insert the "-ti-"? Re names, is {Ci:tlalya:ni} acceptable for "star traveller"? From budelberger.richard at free.fr Mon May 22 09:38:08 2000 From: budelberger.richard at free.fr (Budelberger Richard) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 11:38:08 +0200 Subject: What is an "ergative language"? [Re: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs] Message-ID: 3 Prairial an CCVIII (le 22 mai 2000 d.c.-d.c.g.), 11h33 ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2000 11:41 PM > > (Off-topic PS : please what is an "ergative language"? Everybody uses > the word and nobody says what it means.) I don't know, and I don't use the word... Here something in French : ? On sait que le type *ergatif* est d?fini par une attribution des propri?t?s au moins morphologiques du sujet intransitif au terme qui, dans les constructions transitives, r?f?re au non-agent, tandis que l'agent appara?t avec des propri?t?s nouvelles, absentes de la construction intransitive. Je ne d?velopperai pas les probl?mes pos?s par ce type??, qui n'implique pas n?cessairement la casualit? (p. ex. plusieurs langues mayas, non casuelles et indiciantes comme le nahuatl, pr?sentent une structure ergative aux niveau des affixes personnels). ??. Qui recouvre en fait des sous-types diff?rents, puisque les propri?t?s partag?es par le sujet intransitif et le non-agent peuvent ?tre nombreuses [p. ex. en dyirbal, avec la coordination, Dixon (1972)], ou restreintes ? des jeux d'affixes [basque, Rebuschi (1978)]. Il y a d'autre part des types mixtes, en particulier selon l'aspect, la marque (indicielle ou nominale), ou la personne cf. un expos? g?n?ral dans Lazard (1985). ? Michel Launey, ? une grammaire omnipr?dicative - Essai sur la morphosyntaxe du nahuatl classsique ?, CNRS ?ditions, 1994, page 39. notes de l.n.AmX : ? dyirbal : langue Aborig?ne du ? North Queensland ?. ? la phrase ? p. ex. plusieurs langues mayas, non casuelles et indiciantes comme le nahuatl, pr?sentent... ? serait plus claire en "esperanto" : ? p. ex. plusieurs langues mayas, malcasuelles et indiciantes comme le nahuatl, pr?sentent... ?. ? Well!... What is an ergative language?... From J.Kremers at let.kun.nl Mon May 22 10:23:48 2000 From: J.Kremers at let.kun.nl (Joost Kremers) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 12:23:48 +0200 Subject: What is an "ergative language"? [Re: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs] In-Reply-To: <001801bfc3d1$f5791e80$98291bd4@ostatny> Message-ID: basically, an ergative language is a language with the following property: the subject of an intransitive verb takes the same case (called the absolutive) as the _object_ of a transitive verb, whereas the subject of a transitive verb has a different case (called the ergative). to see how this works, first look at the pattern in a 'nominative/accusative' language (e.g., english, french, latin, etc.): i a the man-P sees the dog-Q b the man-P is running take P and Q to be case endings: the subject of the transitive (ia) has the same ending as the subject of the intransitve (ib), namely P. the object of the transitive (ia) has a different ending, namely Q. in an ergative language, the pattern is thus: ii a the man-P sees the dog-Q b the man-Q is running as you can see, the subject of the intransitive (ib) has the same ending as the _object_ of the transitive (ia). you could say that every sentence in an ergative language has a passive form. cf. the (semantic) object of a passive verb in a nom/acc language such as latin takes nominative case, whereas the (semantic) subject has ablative: iv canis homine videtur the-dog(NOM) the-man(ABL) is-seen This comparison is not a bad one, as ergative languages usually have a so-called 'antipassive' formation, which creates a sentence structure similar to a nom/acc structure. one remark: R. Dixon (in his book _Ergativity_, Cambrigde UP, 1994) claims that there is not a language on earth that is completely ergative. languages generally only show ergativity in some aspects of their structure, whereas they are nom/acc in others. e.g., a language can be ergative in past tense but nom/acc in present tense. or it can be ergative in its pronominal system, but nom/acc with full nouns, etc. (this of course contrasts with nom/acc languages: there are many languages that are purely nom/acc without any ergative feature.) HTH joost kremers ---------------------------------------- Joost Kremers Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen Talen en Culturen van het Midden-Oosten Postbus 9103 6500 HD Nijmegen tel: 024-3612996 fax: 024-3611972 From J.Kremers at let.kun.nl Mon May 22 11:45:17 2000 From: J.Kremers at let.kun.nl (Joost Kremers) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 13:45:17 +0200 Subject: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: a few comments about some of the ten questions asked earlier: >> 5. Which dimensions are recognised in Nahuat-l or by the Aztecs? (we >have 4: length, width, height and depth; > >Erh??? I see 3. In any one set-up, two of those four words for >dimensions of space are synonyms. indeed there are only three: imagine a cube: it is extended in three spatial directions. modern physics has tought us that space should be considered as the fourth dimension. from a physical point of view, space and time are similar, but we, of course, _perceive_ them very differently. and therefore we express them differently in language. >> 6. How is space understood and described in Nahuat-l? >> 7. As I am not a linguist but a sociologist/social psychiatrist ... >Does this mean that they have a different understand of themselves in >space and therefore a different spatial understanding? these are actually interesting questions, but AFAIK the answer should be: not very differently from us. linguists have found that languages employ one of two ways to describe space. in most languages, including all european languages, space is described relative to some salient object, often the speaker. so you get such terms as 'in front of', 'behind', 'to the left/right of', 'under' and 'above/over'. in the other system, which is quite rare, space is described relative to the earth. such systems speak in term of (e.g.) 'to the north/south/west/east of'. this system creates some peculiar effects, such as that speakers of these languages _always_ know to an extreme measure of accuracy where the north is, no matter what time of day or night. (another odd example is the footage i once saw of a man telling a story. they had filmed him telling the same story on two different occasions. in one, he was sitting facing north, in the other facing west. in the story there was a boat that toppled over. he accompanied the words at this point with a toppling-over motion of his hands. oddly enough, on the first occasion he indicated the toppling-over from left to right, but on the other occasion, when he was himself turned 90 degrees relative to the former position, he made the toppling-over motion from back to front! he kept the imaginary boat in the same postion relative to the earth. since he was himself in a different position, he had to change the direction of his hand-gestures!) but as far as i know, nahuatl has a spatial reference system similar to ours: that is, relative to the speaker or a salient object. note, by the way, that even though languages may use different methods to talk about something, that does _not_ mean that the speakers of those languages are forever condemned to see the world in a specific way: the system of earth-relative spatial orientation is easily explained in english, and is even _used_ in that language as a secondary system. please do not make the mistake of Sapir who thought that because the Hopi indians do not express tense in their language (which, if i'm not mistaken, was a wrong assessment in itself...) they have no notion of time! >> 9. Some linguistics (Charles William Johnson for example) detected the >close similarity between the old Egyptian language and Nahuat-l ... cf. the ever-popular Discovery Channel documentaries about this man (Bauval his name was?) who finds indications all around the world for a lost civilization, Atlantis, that he believes was located on Antarctica, before the last ice-age. although he points out some fascinating questions, his 'theory' consists mostly of speculation upon speculation. as for similarities between ancient egyptian an nahuatl: ancient egyptian died out centuries before classical nahuatl as we know it developed. ergo: there can be no links. furthermore, egyptian has a fundamentally different structure from nahuatl, so again, it seems quite unlikely that any links exist. there may be similarities in writing systems, but these are accidental: a case of two peoples stumbling upon the same solutions for the same problems, independent of each other. again, the temporal dislocation excludes any links. well, my appologies for turning those few comments into a small lecture... joost kremers -------------------------------------------------------- Joost Kremers (Mr.) University of Nijmegen - The Netherlands Department of Languages and Cultures of the Middle-East PO Box 9103 6500 HD Nijmegen - The Netherlands phone: +31 24 3612996 fax: +31 24 3611972 From SPoole8257 at aol.com Mon May 22 15:33:46 2000 From: SPoole8257 at aol.com (SPoole8257 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 11:33:46 EDT Subject: What is an "ergative language"? [Re: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs] Message-ID: For a good summary of what an ergative language is, see Michael Coe, Breaking the Maya Code (Thames and Hudson, 1995), 51-52. Stafford Poole SPoole8257 at aol.com From cberry at cinenet.net Mon May 22 16:29:05 2000 From: cberry at cinenet.net (Craig Berry) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 09:29:05 -0700 Subject: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20000522134517.008022f0@hooft.let.kun.nl> Message-ID: On Mon, 22 May 2000, Joost Kremers wrote: > note, by the way, that even though languages may use different methods > to talk about something, that does _not_ mean that the speakers of those > languages are forever condemned to see the world in a specific way: the > system of earth-relative spatial orientation is easily explained in > english, and is even _used_ in that language as a secondary system. > please do not make the mistake of Sapir who thought that because the > Hopi indians do not express tense in their language (which, if i'm not > mistaken, was a wrong assessment in itself...) they have no notion of > time! The Sapir assertion definitely does go too far. But I find it indisputable that language *influences* how we think about the world, making some thoughts easier, some harder to grasp. > cf. the ever-popular Discovery Channel documentaries about this man > (Bauval his name was?) who finds indications all around the world for a > lost civilization, Atlantis, that he believes was located on Antarctica, > before the last ice-age. although he points out some fascinating > questions, his 'theory' consists mostly of speculation upon speculation. Given the inevitable gaps, coincidences, and (currently) unexplainable evidence which litters archaeology, forming grand theories like this is remarkably easy. > as for similarities between ancient egyptian an nahuatl: ancient egyptian > died out centuries before classical nahuatl as we know it developed. ergo: > there can be no links. No, no; you're neglecting to take into account the steam-driven tape recorders the Egyptians built and used under the guidance of Von Daniken's "gods from the sky". :) -- | Craig Berry - cberry at cinenet.net --*-- http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html | "The road of Excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom" - William Blake From info at abbateconsulting.com Mon May 22 17:01:20 2000 From: info at abbateconsulting.com (Abbate Consulting) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 19:01:20 +0200 Subject: Address Change Message-ID: Could you please pass my new address to all members of nahuatl recipient list? The old address aleabb at tin.it has been changed into info at abbateconsulting.com The old address has been definitely deactivated. Best regards A.ABBATE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk Mon May 22 21:00:02 2000 From: anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk (anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 22:00:02 +0100 Subject: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs Message-ID: Craig Berry wrote:- > No, no; you're neglecting to take into account the steam-driven tape > recorders the Egyptians built and used under the guidance of Von > Daniken's "gods from the sky". :) Or where Kukulcan came from, as discovered at a site in Yucatan in an X- Files text story (not TV episode) called "Ruins" by Kevin J Anderson, publ. Harper Collins 1996, ISBN 0 00 648253 8 :-) :-) From anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk Tue May 23 19:24:46 2000 From: anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk (anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk) Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 20:24:46 +0100 Subject: Mexican wild cats Message-ID: Andrews's textbook translates {ocelotl} as "ocelot" (Felis pardalis). But another Nahuatl textbook translates {ocelotl} as "jaguar" (Panthera onca). What is current opinion on this? A / English bilingual example in Andrews's textbook describes a big Mexican wild cat called the {}, and seems to say that is was remarkable because it could eat a whole deer at a meal. Does this correspond to any known species? -- Anthony Appleyard From anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk Tue May 23 19:35:09 2000 From: anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk (anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk) Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 20:35:09 +0100 Subject: Mexican wild cats :: erratum Message-ID: Sorry, erratum: my emailer's spelling checker suddenly decided to act silly. I wrote:- ... A Nahuatl / English bilingual example in Andrews's textbook describes a big Mexican wild cat called the {cuitlamiztli}, ... Anthony Appleyard From Mexika71 at aol.com Tue May 23 22:20:27 2000 From: Mexika71 at aol.com (Mexika71 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 18:20:27 EDT Subject: Fwd: Re: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Message-ID: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Yaoxochitl at aol.com Subject: Fwd: Re: Intelligibility between Nahuatl dialects Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 18:17:20 EDT Size: 1495 URL: From jsullivan at prodigy.net.mx Wed May 24 12:27:05 2000 From: jsullivan at prodigy.net.mx (John Sullivan) Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 07:27:05 -0500 Subject: nahuas and outsiders Message-ID: Mark, Based on my very limited experience with nahuatl speakers, I have the following things to say regarding the discussion on field work. First of all, the nahuas I work with divide the world into two groups of people: macelhualme, or Indians, which are characterized by language, skin color, poverty, lack of education, rural residence, etc.; and coyome, a category transcending national boundaries which includes people with the opposite characteristics. I'm not defending the logical integrity of this system from a Western point of view (For example there are non-Indians who are poor and non-white). Rather I believe this is the system used within nahua culture, and its internal logic needs to be researched. All coyome, be they Mexican or from other countries, are potential exploiters and racial discriminators of Indians, and are treated as such on initial contact. I have never met a nahua who upon initial acquaintance has admitted to knowing how to speak nahuatl. Racial discrimination of Indians in Mexico is terrible (as it is in the U.S., and most other New World countries), and this denial is a logical response based on the need to function within a larger society which penalizes difference. An outsider who wants to interact with nahuas needs to slowly demonstrate (with deeds, not words) their interest in integrating themself into the community/family and taking on permanent responsabilities which contribute materially to its wellbeing. The worst thing a researcher can do (and I know of a few who have done this) is get into the system, and then after publishing their book, abandon all responsability to the community. John Sullivan Universidad Aut?noma de Zacatecas From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Wed May 24 12:53:03 2000 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 07:53:03 -0500 Subject: Mexican wild cats :: erratum In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I can't be sure, Anthony, but I believe this is another term for mountain lion. Someone else will chime in, I'm sure, to affirm this or offer something else. A salient feature of this cat is its tail, cuitlatl. The same idea shows up elsewhere in native American languages, as for example in Algonquian. On Tue, 23 May 2000 anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk wrote: > Sorry, erratum: my emailer's spelling checker suddenly decided to act > silly. I wrote:- > > ... A Nahuatl / English bilingual example in Andrews's textbook > describes a big Mexican wild cat called the {cuitlamiztli}, ... > Anthony Appleyard > > Michael McCafferty 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "So, who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" -Chico Marx ******************************************************************************* From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Wed May 24 16:11:51 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 16:11:51 GMT Subject: Mexican wild cats; matrix/embed Message-ID: anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk wrote: > ... A Nahuatl / English bilingual example in Andrews's textbook > describes a big Mexican wild cat called the {cuitlamiztli}, ... Michael Mccafferty wrote:- > ... I believe this is another term for mountain lion. ...A salient feature > of this cat is its tail, cuitlatl. ... Thanks. As the ".uk" at the end of my email address may point at, I am not the best knowledgeable about American deer and wild cats. What threw me off the track was Andrews's textbook translating {cuitlamiztli} as "excrement lion"! Is Andrews's textbook's terminology of "matrixes" and "embeds" generally known among Nahuatl scholars, or should I avoid using those terms? As a Nahuatl name, is {Ci:tlalya:ni} = "star traveller, traveller among the stars" valid and accaptable? Would the -ly- become -ll-? From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Wed May 24 16:59:52 2000 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 11:59:52 -0500 Subject: Mexican wild cats; matrix/embed In-Reply-To: <1CC419504E1@fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk> Message-ID: Of course, there is a problem with referring to 'tail' since cuitlapilli is the word for 'tail'. But, I guess, if this is truly "excrement-cat," then, again, it might be the mountain lion--for sheer volume. Michael On Wed, 24 May 2000, Anthony Appleyard wrote: > anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk wrote: > > ... A Nahuatl / English bilingual example in Andrews's textbook > > describes a big Mexican wild cat called the {cuitlamiztli}, ... > > Michael Mccafferty wrote:- > > ... I believe this is another term for mountain lion. ...A salient feature > > of this cat is its tail, cuitlatl. ... > > Thanks. As the ".uk" at the end of my email address may point at, I am not the > best knowledgeable about American deer and wild cats. What threw me off the > track was Andrews's textbook translating {cuitlamiztli} as "excrement lion"! > > Is Andrews's textbook's terminology of "matrixes" and "embeds" generally known > among Nahuatl scholars, or should I avoid using those terms? > > As a Nahuatl name, is {Ci:tlalya:ni} = "star traveller, traveller among the > stars" valid and accaptable? Would the -ly- become -ll-? > > Michael McCafferty 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu ******************************************************************************* "So, who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" -Chico Marx ******************************************************************************* From MishaGMCLA at aol.com Fri May 26 06:40:26 2000 From: MishaGMCLA at aol.com (MishaGMCLA at aol.com) Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 02:40:26 EDT Subject: 10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs Message-ID: CHMuths at aol.com writes: 1. The material I got speak of Nahuat-l as aglutinant language. What does it mean? Agglutinating languages generally have large numbers of suffixes, less often prefixes, which can be used to pile meanings and relationships into a single word. I know Hungarian better than its relative Finnish; I've made a Hungarian speaker laugh with my concoction "zongorazhatatlanak" "unplayable on the piano" zongora- "piano" -az- verb-forming suffix, hence zongoraz "to play piano" -hat- potential form "-able" -atlan- "without", but following -hat- has the meaning of "un-do-able" -ak plural ending (nouns and adjectives) anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk writes: >(Off-topic PS : please what is an "ergative language"? Everybody uses >the word and nobody says what it means.) A favorite subject --or should I say topic-- of mine. Ergativity has to do with subject, object and agent cases, where "case" is the relationship of nouns to the verb of the sentence, in many languages indicated by endings, pre positions or postpositions on the nouns. In most actions there are an Agent and a Patient: the Agent is the actor, the one providing the impetus to make the action happen. the Patient is generally the direct object, the thing undergoing or feeling the direct effects of the action. The opposite of "ergative" and the more common construction among languages is called "nominative-accusative." In these languages, the Subject is generally the Patient in intransitive sentences ("John died"), while in transitive sentences ("Bill killed John"), the Subject is the Agent and the Object the Patient. Ergative languages (for example Basque, Georgian, some Polynesian) use the Subject case for the Patient in both kinds of sentences, with the Agent marked differently in transitive sentences ("John died at-the-hands-of Bill"). These constructions could be analyzed as passive forms, especially if the normal word order is Patient before Agent ("John was-killed by-Bill"), resulting in such exaggerations as saying Basque uses only the passive voice. I don't know how clear that explanation was, or how relevant this discussion is to a language without overt case markings. I'm always pleased to run across ergativity in an unexpected place like Tonga. Misha Schutt M.A. Linguistics, Indiana University now a librarian and amateur linguist From notoca at hotmail.com Sun May 28 12:49:03 2000 From: notoca at hotmail.com (Chichiltic Coyotl) Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 12:49:03 WST Subject: Long or Short Vowel Message-ID: In the Annalytical Dictionary of Nahuatl does the small line above a vowel imply that the vowel is long? EZR ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From karttu at nantucket.net Sun May 28 10:51:53 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 06:51:53 -0400 Subject: Long or Short Vowel Message-ID: > In the Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl does the small line above a vowel > imply that the vowel is long? Yes, that is what the macron (small line) means. The verbs that end in long vowels in their dictionary forms (mostly -ia: and -oa: verbs; I'm using a: here for long a:, because email messes up macrons) have short vowels in inflected forms if the vowel is at the end of the word or followed by saltillo/glottal stop, which is written as "h" in the dictionary. For example, -ia: and -oa: verbs have a short vowel in both the singular and plural simple present tense form. It is short in the singular because there is no suffix added to the singular form, and that puts the -a at the end of the word. The vowel is also short in the plural, because the plural suffix is -h. But the vowel shows up long in the customary present, where the suffix is -ni and in the imperfect, where the suffix is -ya. There are some nouns where a long vowel does end up in word-final position. For instance, the word for 'hand/arm' is ma:itl. In the possessed form, a possessive prefix is added, and the -tl is absent. So you can think of it as something like no-ma:i 'my hand/arm,' but the short final -i also disappears, leaving noma: with a long vowel at the end of the word, and this vowel stays long. Likewise there are some uninflected words that have long vowels in word-final position: ma: 'let it be that', za: 'only', no: 'also', ahmo: 'no, not', ce: 'one' The number of particles that end in a long vowel is small, and they can just be learned. The nouns that end up with long vowels at the end of possessed forms can be recognized, because that have the vowel "i" between the long vowel and the -tl of the dictionary form. Then the general rule that long vowels turn up short at the end of words and before -h applies across the board. Fran Karttunen From notoca at hotmail.com Tue May 30 19:09:41 2000 From: notoca at hotmail.com (Chichiltic Coyotl) Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 19:09:41 WST Subject: -tla:n and -tlan Message-ID: The short answer to your query is that there are two locative suffixes and both are spelt the same. The only difference is the vowel length: -tla:n (long vowel length) and -tlan. Unfortunately, this is where it gets a little confusing. I located two sources to explain the meanings, however, both sources contradict each other when referring to the vowel length. The sources with their explanations are: 1) "An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl - 1983 Edition" ======================================================== -tla:n (long vowel) meaning "place of / place at". In the dictionary the "a" has a small line above (a macron, I believe) and this marks the vowel as long. This suffix connects directly to a noun stem when creating place names. e.g. Tepoztla:n i.e tepoztli + -tla:n -tlan meaning "below, next to (the base of), among". This suffix can only affix to a noun stem to form a place name via -ti- (a thing called a ligature or a connector). e.g. Cuauhtitlan i.e. cuahuitl + ti + tlan 2) "A Posting By F Karttunen - May 1999" ======================================== "There are two locative suffixes that are spelled '-tlan'. One is actually -tlan with a short vowel and means 'place of/at'. The other is -tla:n and means 'below, next to the base of'. You can tell these two apart even if vowel length is not marked, because the second one, -tla:n, attaches to the noun with -ti-." These are the two sources. As you can see they are very similar except for the contradiction in which suffix has a long vowel. Which one is correct - I do not know. Maybe someone on the list can clarify. > >When a Nahuatl placename means "among the X", it seems to be sometimes >{X-tlan} and sometimes {X-titlan), e.g. {Tula} < {Tollan} = "among the >reeds", >{Tenochtitlan} = "among the rock prickly-pears". And I found a >mixed-language >placename {Hidalgotitlan}. What decides whether to insert the "-ti-"? > >Re names, is {Ci:tlalya:ni} acceptable for "star traveller"? ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk Tue May 30 15:00:36 2000 From: mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk (Anthony Appleyard) Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 15:00:36 GMT Subject: -tla:n and -tlan; high-order chars in email; 1st person honorifi Message-ID: Chichiltic Coyotl wrote that:- 1) "An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl - 1983 Edition" and 2) "A Posting By F Karttunen - May 1999" both say that (a) {-tlan} = "below, next to the base of" prefixes {-ti-}, and (b) {-tlan} = "place of/at" does not. (1) says that (a) has long wowel and (b) has short vowel; (2) says vice-versa. I read that Nahuatl stresses words on the last syllable but one. Sometimes in history books I have seen the name "Tenochtitla'n" with the last vowel marked stressed. Spanish does not have vowel length distinction. For a Spaniard to hear "teno:chTItla(:)n" (uppercase = stress) and pronounce it with the stress moved to the end, likeliest the last vowel was long. Re use of high-order characters (accented vowels, etc) in this email group, the next line should contain accented and circumflexed vowels and n-tilde:- ????? ????? ? Are there any members who see something else there? I am sorry to seem silly, but I have seen too much down the years of high-order characters (= with ascii codes more than 127) getting distorted in email transmission. The books say that using honorifics of oneself in Nahuatl is not done because it would seem too pompous. But are there any examples of it found in the literature. perhaps to achieve a special effect? (Chinese has an example: a pronoun pronounced "ching", written by a special character, which could be fairly translated as {nehhua:tzin}; only the Emperor was allowed to use it!) From karttu at nantucket.net Tue May 30 20:28:44 2000 From: karttu at nantucket.net (Frances Karttunen) Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 16:28:44 -0400 Subject: -tla:n and -tlan; high-order chars in email; 1st person honorifi Message-ID: I'm sorry if through carelessness on my part there has been some miscommunication about -tlan and -tla:n. Please rely on the dictionary. -tla:n with a long vowel is a locative meaning 'place of, at.' It doesn't take the ligature -ti-. The short-vowel postposition -tlan 'at the base of, below, next to' takes -ti- when bound to nouns to form place names but not in ordinary postpositional constructions. It can go either way with body parts. Spanish places final stress on uninflected words that end in -n in any case, right? It's not tied to Nahuatl vowel length. The only use of first-person honorifics that I have seen in Nahuatl writing is where a person refers to her corpse after her death. She says that she (as corpse)-Honorific is to lie before the main altar before burial. Fran ---------- >From: "Anthony Appleyard" >To: nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu >Subject: -tla:n and -tlan; high-order chars in email; 1st person honorifi >Date: Tue, May 30, 2000, 11:00 AM > > Chichiltic Coyotl wrote that:- > 1) "An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl - 1983 Edition" and > 2) "A Posting By F Karttunen - May 1999" > both say that (a) {-tlan} = "below, next to the base of" prefixes {-ti-}, and > (b) {-tlan} = "place of/at" does not. > (1) says that (a) has long wowel and (b) has short vowel; (2) says vice-versa. > > I read that Nahuatl stresses words on the last syllable but one. Sometimes in > history books I have seen the name "Tenochtitla'n" with the last vowel marked > stressed. Spanish does not have vowel length distinction. For a Spaniard to > hear "teno:chTItla(:)n" (uppercase = stress) and pronounce it with the stress > moved to the end, likeliest the last vowel was long. > > Re use of high-order characters (accented vowels, etc) in this email group, > the next line should contain accented and circumflexed vowels and n-tilde:- > ????? ????? ? > Are there any members who see something else there? I am sorry to seem > silly, but I have seen too much down the years of high-order characters > (= with ascii codes more than 127) getting distorted in email transmission. > > The books say that using honorifics of oneself in Nahuatl is not done because > it would seem too pompous. But are there any examples of it found in the > literature. perhaps to achieve a special effect? (Chinese has an example: a > pronoun pronounced "ching", written by a special character, which could be > fairly translated as {nehhua:tzin}; only the Emperor was allowed to use it!) >