10 questions about Nahuat-l and the Aztecs (PS); (ti)tlan

Anthony Appleyard mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk
Mon May 22 09:54:28 UTC 2000


  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



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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"?



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