chiya, tlachiya, tlachilia

[John Sullivan]

Piyali notequixpoyohuan,
	Like most non-native speakers, I have always wondered how we get from chiya, nic., "to wait for s.o. or s.t." to tlachiya, ni., "to observe". Now I understand. Many cultures (and religions) have both a transitive and an intransitive version of "to wait". The transitive version is part of daily life, "Nimitzchiyaz tianquizco", "I'll wait for you at the market". The instransitive "to wait", is used in spiritual discourse. To "wait" without an object is to be conscious, aware of everything around you (both what is seen and what is unseen). In everyday English we say the cougar "lies in wait", aware of everything (especially of some tender morsel that might wander into its field of experience), yet focusing on nothing. In Modern Nahuatl, "tlachixtoc", literally means, "to lay in wait", and more colloquially it means "to be awake, conscious, alive." Here chiya is made intransitive using the tla- prefix, and the -toc (-t(i)-o-c) turns the action into a state.
	And then we have tlachilia, nic., to examine or analyze s.o. or s.t. This is tlachiya + lia (applicative). So the idea is to be aware, conscious, (or laying in wait) with respect to s.o. or s.t.
	Again, and as always, grammar as a window into worldview, culture, the soul.
John

John Sullivan, Ph.D.
Research Scholar in Nahuatl Studies and
Academic Director of the Yale-IDIEZ Nahuatl Language Institute
Yale University
Professor of Nahua language and culture
Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
Zacatecas Institute of Teaching and Research in Ethnology
Tacuba 152, int. 43
Centro Histórico
Zacatecas, Zac. 98000
Mexico
Work: +52 (492) 925-3415
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idiez at me.com
www.macehualli.org

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