A question for Fran and Joe

[Gordon Whittaker]

Dear Roberto and Lahun Ik 62,

Unless Fran Karttunen and Joe Campbell can help us out here, I think that
whatever we do, we will end up with a problem -- the place name will not
fit any of the various proposals given over the years. And the personal
name remains segmentable only as cuitla-hua'. In the latter case, the
question remains as where Simeon found his less smelly secondary meanings,
none of which helps us towards a collective meaning that would sound
particularly pleasant to our ears. The long list of citations from the
secondary literature given by Lahun Ik 62 give no examples of these
meanings and thus shed no light on this.

Here's a question for Fran and Joe: Do you have any examples of the
metaphorical usages given by Simeon for cuitlatl? Or any ideas on the
place name or the personal name?

If we had Cuitlahuac, a meaning 'he has dried up (huac) like excrement
(cuitla-)' would be possible, but this form of the name with its final
<-c> is simply too rarely attested (if it turns up at all in an original
manuscript, as opposed to an edition of such) to be considered as the real
name of the emperor. So we seem to have no choice but to go with the form
Cuitlahua which would allow only one analysis: 'one who has (-hua')
whatever cuitla- (or cuetla-) refers to'.

Cuitlach- ~ cuetlach- unfortunately won't work, because the <ch> doesn't
drop. And the huactli bird is impossible for the reasons given above. I
had played in the past with the idea that the name meant 'brown huactli
bird', since a number of creatures have names beginning with cuitla-, but
that was before I realized that Cuitlahuac is almost certainly a fiction.
The use of the CUITLA glyph for the name may well be phonetic -- sadly,
there is no way to tell.

Sometimes we just have to live with the fact that a name (or two names in
this case) may defy all attempts at etymologizing. There are, in fact,
quite a few such names and titles in Nahuatl.

Gordon

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gordon Whittaker
Professor
Linguistische Anthropologie und Altamerikanistik
Seminar fuer Romanische Philologie
Universitaet Goettingen
Humboldtallee 19
37073 Goettingen
Germany
tel./fax (priv.): ++49-5594-89333
tel. (office): ++49-551-394188
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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