Vetancurt manuscript title transcription

[Jesse Lovegren]

In the one colonial-era document that I've studied, word-final nasals are
often omitted.  So the idea that *çe* is short for "çem" is probably a good
guess.

On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 8:29 PM, Susan Zakaib <szakaib at gmail.com> wrote:

> Listeros,
>
> A colleague at the John Carter Brown library has asked me for
> assistance in transcribing the title of a Nahuatl manuscript held
> there, by Agustín de Vetancurt. Like plenty of colonial-era
> manuscripts, the letter spacing doesn't always correspond to the
> actual word separation, which complicates the process of transcribing
> it. Faded ink in some spots isn't helping, either. They don't need a
> translation, just a proper transcription--but it still requires
> determining what would actually make sense in Nahuatl. I'd very much
> appreciate some input, especially on some parts I'm stuck on. Here's
> my (attempted) transcription:
>
> "NexcuitilMachiotl quimoteittitilia yn tonantzin Santa Yglesia ytechpa
> tlatohua Çe tlâtlacohuani aic chipahualiztica Omoyolcuiti
> Ocentelchihualoc Mictlan Oqui_motecpanilli Padre fray Agustin de
> Betancurt San Francisco teyenoPiltzin; San Joseph Mexico motlapielia."
>
> The parts I'm especially unsure about are the following:
>
> "Çe tlâtlacohuani": Should this be all one word, or two? I separated
> them into two because I figured "çe" refers to the word for "one," and
> the compound form of that (as far as I know) is "cem," rather than
> "ce" (and there is clearly no letter in between). But perhaps "ce"
> means something else, here?
>
> "Oqui_motecpanilli": By the looks of the manuscript, what I've
> inserted as a blank space is probably either an n or just a smudge
> that isn't actually a letter. I figure an n doesn't really belong
> there, as it would presumably turn into an m, since it's in front of a
> labial consonant. While it's possible that what looks like an n is
> actually a squished m, I think it might make more sense if the object
> is the singular "qui" rather than the plural "quim"; I figure the word
> is "he arranged it," as in, Vetancurt arranged the following
> manuscript (referring back to "nexcuitilmachiotl," "exemplary model,"
> which I assume describes what follows). Does this sound right, that
> this space probably doesn't contain any letter at all, or is it
> possible that it's actually an n or an m?
>
> "teyenoPiltzin": The first two letters are hard to make out, but I
> think the first one is t, and the second one is either e, i, or
> possibly o. I figure the latter half of this word(s) is pil(li) and
> -tzin, but I have no idea what teye/tiye/toye could be, or whether any
> of it should be attached to "piltzin." I'm stumped--any ideas?
>
> Tlazcamati in advance, and apologies for a rather lengthy series of
> questions!
>
> Saludos,
> Susan
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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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