Me:xxihco

[David Wright]

Listeros:

In search of additional examples of Me:xxihco (or possible variants
Me:xihco, Me:xxi:cco or Me:xi:cco, which could also hypothetically derive
from the same combination of morphemes me:tzli, xi:ctli, and -co), I came
across a reference in Bierhorst (1985: 211) to the form Me:xihco in
"Huehuetlatolli document A" (Mexican MS 458, Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley). If any of you have a copy of this at hand, could you
please check 11:6 (I guess that means folio 11, line 6) and tell me what you
see there? Or at least the transcription from Karttunen's and Lockhart's The
Art of Nahuatl Speech (which I don't have at hand). This is important, since
this Bancroft manuscript is one of those rare colonial documents that marks
long vowels and saltillos, coming from Carochi's circle at Tepotzotlán, if I
remember correctly.

While I had Bierhorst down from the shelf, I looked up xi:ctli and found
that he writes it xictli, with a short /i/ (he's usually pretty careful
about vowel length). In Karttunen's dictionary, which is usually where we
(me and the mouse in my pocket) usually look first for information on vowel
length and saltillos, we find xi:ctli. Wolf (2003) has xi:ctli too. I got
out some dictionaries of modern Nahuatl that mark vowel length and looked
for this word or cognates. I found it with /i/ in Santa Catarina, Morelos
(Guzmán, 1979), with /i/ in Texcoco, Mexico (Lastra, 1980), and with /i:/ in
Pajapan, Veracruz (Kojis, 2007). In Lastra's massive compilation of field
data (1986), there are forms with /i/ and /i:/, more of the former than the
latter, with both forms present in some regions.

Bierhorst also refers to a curious quote from 16th century Dominican friar
Durán (1967: II, chapter 44, paragraph 3), which may (or may not) be
relevant to the etymology of Mexico. He records a tradition in which
Nezahuapilli, lord of Texcoco, says to Ahuitzotl, lord of Mexico: "Por
tanto, pues eres, aunque de poca edad, rey de tan poderoso reino, el cual es
la raíz, el ombligo y corazón de toda esta máquina mundial [...]."

Saludos,

David

Referencias

Bierhorst, John, A Nahuatl-English dictionary and concordance to the
Cantares mexicanos, with an analytical transcription and grammatical notes,
Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1985.

Durán, Diego, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e islas de tierra
firme, 2 vols., Ángel María Garibay Kintana, editor, Mexico City, Editorial
Porrúa, 1967.

Guzmán Betancourt, Ignacio, Gramática del náhuatl de Santa Catarina,
Morelos, Mexico City, Departamento de Lingüística, Instituto Nacional de
Antropología e Historia, 1979.

Karttunen, Frances, An analytical dictionary of Nahuatl, 2nd. ed., Norman,
University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.

Koji, Ando, Gramática náhuatl de Pajapan, Xalapa, Universidad Veracruzana,
2007.

Lastra, Yolanda, Las áreas dialectales del náhuatl moderno, Mexico City,
Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma
de México, 1986.

Lastra, Yolanda, El náhuatl de Tetzcoco en la actualidad, Mexico City,
Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma
de México, 1980.

Wolf, Paul P. de, Diccionario español-náhuatl, Mexico City/La Paz, Instituto
de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México/Fideicomiso Teixidor/Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur,
2003.


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