syllable-initial aspiration

[idiez at MAC.COM]

Fran,
        First of all, I'm not going to respond with a short and direct answer, 
because this is not the problem that is bugging the hell out of me. I 
am trying to decide upon a single system for writing older and modern 
nahuatl. Most of the many newer conventions used for dealing with 
modern nahuatl stink, for two reasons: 1. they introduce letters such 
as the "k" and the "w", which have the effect of opening up a Grand 
Canyon between living indians and their cultural legacy (the canon of 
older nahuatl writing). I think tradition is important; 2. they tend to 
have many errors, like confusing the glottal stop, the "-uh", and the 
/k/ before another /k/; and not representing word-final "n"s, etc., 
etc. This also bugs me, because I believe people have a right to 
understand how their language works, at the very least through the 
intuitive information contained in a well structured writing system.
        I don't consider the glottal stop to be a quality of the preceding 
vowel. I only consider this option because Carochi used it, and his 
writing system is pretty representative of the corpus of colonial 
mundane documents. If I really wanted to be as close as possible to the 
colonial system, obviously I would just ignore the glottal stop 
altogether, but then, neither I nor my students would be able to deal 
with the language academically. And that is precisely what we are about 
to begin to do here: re-elevate nahuatl to an academic stature at the 
university. We will teach native-speakers to read and write in nahuatl. 
They will read older texts, and comment on them in nahuatl verbally and 
in written form. They will discuss important issues and write about 
them in nahuatl, and participate in the production of dictionaries, 
grammars, and other texts.
        I've probably written too many times to the list about this. It's just 
that I haven't been able to make up my mind, and I don't want to keep 
subjecting my students to changes in writing systems. Just as you did 
with your dictionary, I need to decide upon a traditional system with 
sufficient minimum modifications to make it academically usefull. But 
at the same time I don't want to be part of the club of researchers who 
think they are being cool by creating a new writing system.
        OK, it looks like I've painted myself into a corner. And in this case, 
that's good.
John

On Feb 11, 2004, at 8:38 PM, Frances Karttunen wrote:

> Dear John,
>
> Ca you share with us your rationale for representing a consonant with a
> diacritic as though it were a quality of the vowel preceding the 
> consonant?
>
> Fran
>
John Sullivan, Ph.D.
Profesor de lengua y cultura nahua
Centro de Estudios Prospectivos
Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
Director
Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas, A.C.
Francisco García Salinas 604
Colonia CNOP
Zacatecas, Zac. 98053
México
Oficina: +52 (492) 768-6048
Celular (desde México): 044 (492) 544-5985
Celular (desde el extranjero) +52 (492) 544-5985
idiez at mac.com
www.idiez.org.mx