"Nahuatl" and/as "dance"?

[Jesse Lovegren]

Niquitta ahmo innahuati.  I think that the authors are not familiar with
Nahuatl language and placed too much trust in their references.  It is
telling that they gave English verbs and adjectives as possible translations
of a noun.  Also in the previous paragraph they mention "...the two pitch
levels of the Nahuatl language..."  which is confusing, since one normally
speaks of pitch levels in the context of languages with lexical tone.  They
may be referring to stressed vs. unstressed syllables or heavy vs. light
syllables, but it is not clear.
The curious sense might come from a confusion with some word derived
from *nahuac,
"*with, close to*".  *Words derived from nahuac (e.g. nahuahtequi) can have
the final consonant reduced to a glottal stop or lost altogether.

The error could probably be traced to one of the authors' references.

Regards,


On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 11:52 PM, Cindy <cindy at grito-poetry.com> wrote:

>  I thought Nahuatl meant “clear speech”—according to Leon-Portilla, I
> think.  No?
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* nahuatl-bounces at lists.famsi.org [mailto:
> nahuatl-bounces at lists.famsi.org] *On Behalf Of *macehual08 at gmail.com
> *Sent:* Friday, July 31, 2009 2:13 PM
> *To:* Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> *Subject:* [Nahuat-l] "Nahuatl" and/as "dance"?
>
>
>
> I just came across a definition in "Oxford Music Online" (in an article on
> Mexican music by E. Thomas Stanford and Arturo Chamorro) that defines
> Nahuatl as "sonorous, audible, council; law" AND "to dance embraced at the
> neck."
>
>
>
> Is anyone familiar with the second definition? Nahuatl as a "dance embraced
> at the neck"? I don't see this definition in Molina, Siméon, Karttunen and
> wonder if anyone knows where this association might come from?
>
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-- 
Jesse Lovegren
Department of Linguistics
645 Baldy Hall
office +1 716 645 0136
cell +1 512 584 5468
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