mystery "n"

Ben Leeming bleeming at gmail.com
Mon May 21 01:44:35 UTC 2012


Piyali listeros,

In Sell & Burkhart's *Nahuatl Theater* Vol. 1 there is play titled "The
Three Kings" the author of which had the habit of adding a mysterious "n"
to the end of certain words.  Here are a few examples:

*tlacatlen*, "O personage"
*tlatohuanien*, "O ruler"
*teuctlen*, "O lord"
*nocniuhtzinen*, "O my friend"

I understand that the final "e" is the vocative, but does anyone have any
idea what's going on here with the "n" tacked on to it?

My guess is that it's some regional/dialectical thing.  Are there modern
Nahuatl speakers that do this today?

Ben

-- 
Ben Leeming
PhD Student
Department of Anthropology
University at Albany, SUNY
_______________________________________________
Nahuatl mailing list
Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl



More information about the Nahuat-l mailing list