yucatan etymology

John Sullivan, Ph.D. idiez at mac.com
Tue Jan 16 21:37:23 UTC 2007


David,
	I assume that the root of this "-yohcauh" from Fran's dictionary is  
the preterite agentive "-yoh", "owner of/covered with". Since it's a  
preterite agentive the only locative it could take would be "-n",  
giving "yohcan", which I have never seen by itself, only with imbeds,  
such as "tizatl", "chalk", "tizayohcan", "place covered with chalk".  
If indeed, "yucat(l)an" is a Nahuatl word, and it has the "-t(l)an"  
locative, there would be six possible roots, "yocatl", "yocahtli",  
"yohcatl", "yohcahtli", "yocaitl", or "yohcaitl". I haven't seen any  
of these.
John

John Sullivan, Ph.D.
Profesor de lengua y cultura nahua
Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas, A.C.
Tacuba 152, int. 47
Centro Histórico
Zacatecas, Zac. 98000
México
Oficina: +52 (492) 925-3415
Fax: +52 (492) 925-3416
Domicilio: +52 (492) 768-6048
Celular: +52 (492) 118-0854
idiez at mac.com
www.idiez.org.mx





On Jan 16, 2007, at 3:04 PM, Frye, David wrote:

> Dear nahuatlatos:
>
> I'd like your professional opinion(s) on the following statement,  
> which I frankly find dubious: "The name Yucatan comes from the  
> Nahuatl language Yokatlān, meaning 'place of richness'." The source  
> cited is Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian Languages: The  
> Historical Linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University  
> Press. Pg. 403. I cannot see how "Yokatlān" would mean "place of  
> riches" in Nahuatl. I assume Campbell was analyzing it as yohcā 
> (tia) "riches" + -tlan "place of", but (from the invaluable  
> Karttunen's dictionary) yohcā(tia) means "to take possession of, to  
> appropriate," so by extension I can imagine it meaning  
> "possession," which is not at all the same thing as "riches."  
> Opinions?
>
> Many thanks, David Frye
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nahuatl mailing list
> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl

J




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/nahuat-l/attachments/20070116/970e3a82/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: John Sullivan, Ph.D..vcf
Type: text/directory
Size: 33602 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/nahuat-l/attachments/20070116/970e3a82/attachment.bin>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/nahuat-l/attachments/20070116/970e3a82/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
Nahuatl mailing list
Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl


More information about the Nahuat-l mailing list