Nahuatl Digest, Vol 309, Issue 2

Tue Sep 3 15:26:11 UTC 2013

Dear Listeros,

I have not seen McCafferty's review. I am sure that some of the criticisms
are valid and look forward to seeing it.

To be blunt, however, I found MM's comments in various emails frankly
offensive and misguided both in his assumptions regarding the history of
the CUP publication and his comments on orthography. To start with the
first: "The problem is that Launey had the book translated into English but
did not vet it for its thirty-year-old errors, some of which are quite
shocking, as you will see when the review appears. He simply handed the
thing over to his translator, who added some items of his own, and wiped
his hands of the whole affair." Does MM have some insight as to how the
publication evolved and what rights were involved? Does he envision that
Michel petitioned CUP to translate his book and then went on vacation,
"wiping his hands of the whole affair". These are gratuitous remarks that
demonstrate much more than naiveté. Rather they misrepresent the situation
and are semantically loaded ("had translated", "quite shocking", "wiped his
hands"), they are meant to impugn the professionalism of Michel as a
scholar.

This was a translation of a work proposed, as far as I know, by the
translator MacKay, who in fact contacted me before submitting the proposal
to CUP asking if he thought that a translation of Launey 1979 to English
would be a valuable contribution. I said it would be though when I saw the
project did have some misgivings about the proposed "adaptations" (see
"translated and adapted by ...." on the cover page and credits)  Some
authors (here I refer to Michel) might take the opportunity of a
translation to rework/review the original publication. But many others
would not, having moved on to other interests and having limited time. It
is certainly not unusual that a book be translated (in this case the 1979
version) without being updated and "vetted" by the author.

To continue, I was asked to review the translation proposal in 2007. The
conceptualization was, in my view, somewhat deficient and I made this known
to CUP. Apparently my observations were never passed on to Michel. I am not
even clear that he was aware of the changes that were being made to the
French edition. I do not believe that the translator or author saw my
review of the proposal. At any rate, I have published books and often the
copyright is with the publisher, not the author. So it is not entirely
clear the level of control Michel had over the CUP translation or how much
he was involved in the process between the CUP decision to accept the
proposed translation (2007) and the typesetting of the page proofs (2011).

In 2011, after the book had been translated and typeset, I was asked by CUP
to write a blurb for the publication jacket. In reviewing the page proofs
noted what I perceived to be significant errors. Some dated back to the
original 1979 French text, others were obviously new typos or
inconsistencies; some were errors of translation or unfortunate
observations introduced by the translator. I detailed what I found most
problematic in a 28-page single-spaced set of observations. Michel was
extremely gracious and went over the material as best he could given the
circumstances (a typeset ms with a publication deadline and cost overruns).
If errors remain they are probably because of editorial (CUP)
considerations or because Michel had a perspective distinct from mine and
chose to maintain his viewpoint. As anyone who has consulted Michel's
monumental doctoral thesis on classical Nahuatl will know (this thesis came
out in 1986, seven years after his French edition grammar), his knowledge
of this language is unmatched. That is not to say that there may not be
differences of interpretation with other scholars (e.g.,re:  omnipredicativity)
or perhaps even what may be considered now (27 years after Launey's thesis)
infelicitous analyses. But a key point remains that the CUP translation is
of a book published seven years before the thesis and probably written
several years earlier than even that. It would not be unusual that between
the book and thesis Michel caught errors and changed analyses.

Regardless of the errors and miscommunications I would like to say that CUP
is to be highly commended for holding up publication, missing a deadline,
and allowing for many corrections to be made, corrections that are very
expensive when done after page proofs.

In sum, I think that the editorial process involved a degree of
miscommunication that was unfortunate. But both CUP and Michel did a
commendable job in correcting errors to the degree possible at the time of
publication. MM's comments in his email are not simply misrepresentative
but are stated in a tone and language that is not called for.

But now to MM's comments about orthography, which I found extremely
perplexing. His initial email made a rather gratuitous comment about
Carochi's system and seemed to demonstrate a rather unusual claim of the
right to use the orthography of his choice in the review coming out in AL: "and
one of the bedeviling aspects of his work is the perpetuation of Carochi's
orthography. The review was held up for a while as the editor insisted that
I use Carochi's orthography in describing various aspects of Nahuatl, and
that was difficult for me as I see little value in using it."

I don't understand why MM characterizes Launey's "perpetuation" (a loaded
term itself) of Carochi's orthography as "bedeviling". Is it annoying?
unjustified? ad hoc or arbitrary? As far as I can tell, Michel wrote a
grammar of classical Nahuatl and utilized the colonial orthography most
representative of the phonemes of central valley Nahuatl. Not only was
Carochi's analysis of the language brilliant, but his choice of orthography
extremely innovative considering what his choices were at that time (given
his foundation in Spanish and Latin). As to the point of an acute accent
signaling a short vowel in many cases Carochi seems to use this accent in
situations of contrast or to emphasize that the vowel is short or in
certain roots (e.g., tétl, téqui/téco, célia). The situations in which
Carochi uses an acute accent are not clear and, in fact, quite limited.
They deserve study and analysis.

A second point refers to what I can only understand as petulance and
peevishness. The editor of AL apparently asked MM to use Carochi's
orthography in describing various aspects of Nahuatl. MM said that he found
this difficult because of the "little value" of said orthography. It seems
to me that the editor was making a perfectly reasonable request to maintain
consistency. For example, if Launey had a particular interpretation of
tètequi  (the first /e/ with a grave accent),  would it be editorially wise
to permit MM to either change the original orthography in the citation
(e.g., "Launey holds that tehtequi ....") or to comment on the term in a
changed orthography (e.g., "while Launey holds that tètequi is a term
seldom found, I think that tehtequi is indeed quite common ...")? In short,
I find the editorial suggestion at Anthropological Linguistics that MM use
the orthography of the book under review not particularly unusual given the
circumstances. And I find MM's comment that it was difficult for him to do
so because he sees "little value in using it" petty.

It seems that MM prefers that Michel use Andrews's orthography; considering
the situation this would be anachronistic. If Launey wanted to cite an
example from Carochi would he be expected to change Carochi's orthography
in the citation? This would lead to all sorts of problems with no obvious
benefit. A second question concerns the utility of Andrews's orthography.
Michael Swanton is certainly correct in noting that while common in the
works of certain US scholars, it is not used in Mexico and reflects neither
the historical texts nor most modern orthographies.  Una Canger, in her
article in Making Dictionaries (p. 201) compares different orthographies
and Andrews differs from Molina and Siméon in the use of "z" instead of the
cedilla and in the use of "hu" in syllable initial context instead of "u".
Certainly the "h" is not common in colonial orthographies (I believe Olmos
is a partial exception).

One can debate whether the "saltillo" is a segment or a feature of vowels
based on either historical reconstruction or distribution. But clearly "h"
affects alphabetization in a way that a diacritic does not and the use of
diacritics makes "minimal pairs" in colonial orthography more salient
(pati, for example, or a three-way contrast of patilia representing a long
vowel, a short vowel, and a vowel followed by the saltillo).

Finally, I think that an adage I use is relevant: "if standardization is
necessary it won't work" and "if standardization works, it is not
necessary". The SEP, decentralized by state, has been using an orthography
that most Nahuatl-speakers grow up with. In all states "s" and "k" are used
for [s] and [k]. Variation exists between "w" and "hu/uh", "h" and "j",
"tz" and "ts", etc. Vowel length is not (or rarely) represented. To state
that Andrews's orthography connects modern Nahuatl speakers to their
linguistic heritage is erroneous (whatever other reasons might be used to
justify it): it is significantly different from  classical or colonial
representations and it is significantly different from what speakers are
now experiencing in the school systems.

In sum, then, I found MM's comments about Launey's editorial
responsibilities misplaced and misguided and his comments about orthography
gratuitous.

Jonathan

On Mon, Sep 2, 2013 at 11:16 PM, Magnus Pharao Hansen <
magnuspharao at gmail.com> wrote:

> Listeros,
>
> I am very happy that a there is now a publishing venture aiming to produce
> literature in Nahuatl for Nahuatl speakers - this is of immense value for
> speakers and linguists alike. Both congratulations and thanks and thanks
> are in order with to John and Justyna for starting this program and to
> Refugio for his excellent work.
>
> This notwithstanding I am highly critical of the reasoning behind the
> decision to champion a single orthographic standard, which from my point of
> view is both unnecessary and possibly detrimental. The reason it is
> unnecessary is that Nahuatl speakers since the 16th century have been able
> to communicate fine in writing without a standardized orthography (just
> like Shakespeare was able to write his plays without one). I know Nahuatl
> speakers who use a Carochi style writing system on facebook. And I know
> Nahuatl speakers who write using only ad hoc writing systems that to me is
> every bit as frustrating to read as the texts written by the least educated
> scribes of the 16th century, with arbitrary word boundaries and completely
> inconsistent representation of phonemes. But they get their points across
> to each other just fine. The main function of standardization is and has
> always been, not ease of communication, but the construction of norms, and
> normalcy, and by extension the construction of difference, hierarchy and
> power.
>
> The reason I think standardization is possibly linguistically (and
> socially) detrimental is because the process of standardization is
> inevitably also a political process that leads to the glossing over and
> eventual erasure of linguistic diversity (just a the introduction of an
> English standard orthography led to a political process that marginalized
> those dialects of English that became "non-standard"). Erasure both in the
> sense that some linguistic differences are rendered u=invisible to future
> scholars, but also in the sense that some varieties and the features their
> speakers feel characterize them are rendered invisible, as some varieties
> are given priority in the construction of a norm.
>
> In the discussion of Launey's-Carochi's orthography one point is forgotten,
> namely that Carochi chose to represent the glottal stop with a diacritic
> because that reflected something about his understanding of Tenochca
> Nahuatl phonology prosody. He did not consider the glottal stop to be a
> segment, but a suprasegmental feature of a syllable - which was supported
> by the fact that glottal stop and vowel length is in complementary
> distribution in Nahuatl. He also chose it because he was describing a
> language which did not have the phone [h], but a glottal stop.  Some
> dialects have the phone [h] others have [ʔ]  - this difference is made
> invisible by the choice to represent both sounds with the symbol <h>.
> Nahuatl is not one thing, it is many. There are varieties in which <tl>
> exists as a separate phoneme and varieties in which it doesn't, there are
> varieties in which /b/ is phonemic and others in which it isn't, varieties
> that distinguish vowel length others that don't, some varieties that have 6
> vowels others that have five, et cetera. These differences (and perhaps
> even more so the substantial morphological and syntactic differences among
> varieties) are not simply unfortunate obstacles for effective communication
> between speakers of different varieties, but are in fact the very
> linguistic and cultural wealth that we should strive to preserve and
> respect.
>
> best wishes,
> Magnus
>
>
> On 2 September 2013 15:58, <nahuatl-request at lists.famsi.org> wrote:
>
> > Send Nahuatl mailing list submissions to
> >         nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> >
> > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> >         http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
> > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> >         nahuatl-request at lists.famsi.org
> >
> > You can reach the person managing the list at
> >         nahuatl-owner at lists.famsi.org
> >
> > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> > than "Re: Contents of Nahuatl digest..."
> >
> > Today's Topics:
> >
> >    1. Re: Fw:  Totlahtol (Michael Swanton)
> >    2. Re: Fw:  Totlahtol (BT Yahoo!)
> >    3. Carochi's notation (Frances Karttunen)
> >    4. Fw:  Fw:  Totlahtol (Michael Swanton)
> >
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Michael Swanton <mwswanton at yahoo.com>
> > To: BT Yahoo! <a.appleyard at btinternet.com>, Nahuat-L <
> > nahuatl at LISTS.FAMSI.ORG>
> > Cc:
> > Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2013 08:40:02 -0700 (PDT)
> > Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Fw: Totlahtol
> > I am not sure what is inconvenient about a pair of simple, unambiguous
> > writing conventions. Not only have some of the world's most widely
> written
> > languages used such conventions without difficulty, but Nahuatl writers
> > have also used them successfully for centuries. Orthographies and
> > phonological representations are very different things.
> >
> > One would be hard pressed to find an example of a writing system in one
> > language that has not been influenced by another. I think people
> generally
> > understand and accept that writing conventions reflect history. That
> > history not only includes earlier sound changes, but also contact. Today,
> > English speakers write with Latin letters (and not runes, ogham or
> > cuneiform) because of their history. Poles write with Latin letters
> instead
> > of Cyrillic for a similar reason. Persian speakers today write with a
> > script derived from Arabic (and not Pahlavi, cuneiform or Sanskrit),
> which
> > they in turn passed on to Urdu. Etc.
> >
> > Doubtlessly such considerations of potential ambiguity and history
> > informed Andrews, Campbell et al. in their pedagogic/philological
> > orthography, since it makes use of these conventions. However, I am at a
> > loss to explain how the "Carochi orthography", from which the proposal
> was
> > derived, could possibly be qualified as being of little value. On the
> > contrary, it has been exceedingly valuable for philological and
> linguistic
> > investigation. Moreover, Launey's pedagogic use of it to teach the
> grammar
> > of the old texts strikes me as quite sound, much in the tradition of the
> > macron in Latin grammars or the overdot to indicate palatalization in Old
> > English ones.
> >
> >
> > I know of no variety of Nahuatl with the phone [y].
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> >  From: BT Yahoo! <a.appleyard at btinternet.com>
> > To: Nahuat-L <nahuatl at LISTS.FAMSI.ORG>
> > Sent: Monday, September 2, 2013 12:33 AM
> > Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Fw:  Totlahtol
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Michael Swanton wrote:-
> > > The "Carochi orthography" was the most sophisticated orthography used
> > during the colonial period.
> > > We owe a great deal of our understanding of "Classical Nahuatl" to it.
> I
> > find McCafferty's comments about it having "little value" to be utterly
> > baffling.
> >
> > An inconvenience with Spanish-influenced classical Nahuatl spelling is
> > that how to spell the sounds [k] and [s] changes if they are followed by
> > [i] or [e] or [y]. That is a carry-over from phonetic changes that
> happened
> > to the sounds [k] and [g] and [kw] in Europe in Classical Latin as it
> > changed into Vulgar Latin and then into early Spanish (and Italian and
> > French etc); those sound changes did not happen in Nahuatl.
> >
> > Citlalyani.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Nahuatl mailing list
> > Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> > http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
> >
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: BT Yahoo! <a.appleyard at btinternet.com>
> > To: Nahuat-L <nahuatl at LISTS.FAMSI.ORG>
> > Cc:
> > Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2013 16:53:15 +0100 (BST)
> > Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Fw: Totlahtol
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> >  Michael Swanton <mwswanton at yahoo.com> wrote:-
> >
> > > I know of no variety of Nahuatl with the phone [y].
> > Sorry: I meant [j] (the sound of English "y" in "yet" and Spanish "y" in
> > "yo").
> >
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Frances Karttunen <karttu at comcast.net>
> > To: nahuatl discussion list <nahuatl at lists.famsi.org>
> > Cc:
> > Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2013 13:56:53 -0400
> > Subject: [Nahuat-l] Carochi's notation
> > We are deeply indebted to Carochi for revealing, more than any other
> > scholar of Nahuatl, the systematic phonology of the language. Without
> > understanding distinctive vowel length and the function of the glottal
> stop
> > as a segmental consonant (or--in many regional variants--the reflexes of
> > these two things), Nahuatl morphology seems arbitrary where it is, in
> fact,
> > predictable.
> >
> > The problems with Carochi's notation are the following:
> >
> > 1. Marking long vowels with macrons and (some) short vowels with an
> accent
> > mark is redundant. If a vowel is not long, then it is short. (To my
> > knowledge, only Estonian has a three-way vowel-length contrast of
> > over-long, half-long, and short.) In Nahuatl it is sufficient to mark the
> > long vowels long.
> >
> > 2. Marking the presence of a glottal stop with a diacritic over the
> > preceding vowel misleads people into the belief that it is not a
> > consonantal segment but some quality of the vowel. Granted, a vowel
> > followed by a glottal stop does have a different quality from one not
> > followed by a glottal stop. (Long vowels shorten, all vowels reflect an
> > anticipatory constriction of the glottis.) What is more, Carochi uses
> > different diacritics for word-final glottal stop and for all others.
> Again,
> > word-final glottal stop may sound different from a glottal stop within a
> > word, but that difference is entirely predictable. In the systematic
> > phonology of the language, the glottal stop (or its reflex in variant
> forms
> > of the language) is a consonant just as much as /p/ and /t/, so it is
> best
> > written with a letter rather than as a diacritic.
> >
> > 3. The other issue that has been brought up about the writing of /k/ as c
> > or qu depending on context, and likewise /s/ as c/ç or z depending on
> > context, is derived from Spanish orthography. An example of a subsequent
> > sound change in Spanish happening without effect on Nahuatl orthography
> is
> > the change (for Spanish but not for Nahuatl) of the sound represented by
> x.
> >
> > It has been an issue of long-standing whether Nahuatl should be better
> > written with k, s, and w.  To do so makes Nahuatl look "less Spanish,"
> but
> > it also renders the vast body of written Nahuatl less accessible to those
> > who use the k/s/w notation. Nobody, to my knowledge, has proposed doing
> > away with the digraphs tl, tz, and ch, so obviously the push has never
> been
> > to the full realization of "one sound/one symbol."
> >
> > I gave all this long thought when embarking on how to represent the
> > canonical forms in An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl, and I came down
> on
> > the side of J. Richard Andrews. Back then, Una Canger advised me,
> "Whatever
> > you choose will be OK, just as long as you tell people clearly what it is
> > you are doing." In the introduction to the dictionary I did tell users
> what
> > I was doing and why. But I sought to present information in the least
> > misleading and the most serviceable form possible, and that is what I
> came
> > up with, following Dick Andrews' example.
> >
> > Frances Karttunen
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Michael Swanton <mwswanton at yahoo.com>
> > To: Nahuat-L <nahuatl at LISTS.FAMSI.ORG>
> > Cc:
> > Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2013 12:52:45 -0700 (PDT)
> > Subject: [Nahuat-l] Fw: Fw: Totlahtol
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Forwarded Message -----
> > From: Michael Swanton <mwswanton at yahoo.com>
> > To: Michael McCafferty <mmccaffe at indiana.edu>; Nahuat-L <
> > nahuatl at LISTS.FAMSI.ORG>
> > Sent: Monday, September 2, 2013 2:52 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Fw:  Totlahtol
> >
> >
> >
> > Michael McCafferty,
> > I believe you are conflating different issues. One’s choice of
> orthography
> > is different from erroneous grammatical interpretations. Regardless of
> what
> > orthography one uses, it is possible to make mistakes in grammar,
> etymology
> > and translation. This makes your dismissal of Launey’s Introduction based
> > on erroneous, but unspecified, grammatical interpretations seem
> gratuitous
> > when addressing a question about orthography.
> >
> > It is also, I believe, quite mistaken. I have taught Classical Nahuatl at
> > Leiden University for several years before moving to Mexico and I found
> the
> > French version of the Introduction to be quite valuable. Una Canger has
> > used the Introduction for many years in her classes in Denmark. While all
> > works can be improved—there are certainly some errata that need to be
> noted
> >  (especially in the translated versions of his book) and I have different
> > interpretations of certain grammatical phenomena (particularly the
> > passive)—Launey’s Introduction for me and many others continues to be the
> > best, most accessible and overall reliable initiation to the language.
> > [Full disclosure: I studied with Launey in Paris years ago].
> >
> > Returning to the issue of orthography, Launey’s pedagogic use of the
> > so-called Jesuit tradition (attested in Carochi, the Bancroft MS, Aldama
> y
> > Guevara and to some extent in Rincón and Clavijero) strikes me as quite
> > sound. When beginning Latin, one carefully learns to write the macrons in
> > order to learn the grammar, meter and pronunciation even though they
> don’t
> > appear in any classical texts. Eventually then, such annotations are
> > disposed of once the learner has assimilated them. The same applies when
> > learning Old English where not only are macrons added, but many authors
> add
> > an overdot to
> >  <c> and <g> to indicate palatal as opposed to velar articulation. By the
> > same token, when beginning Classical Hebrew, it is common to learn the
> > texts with niqqud. In other words, there is a long practice—in reality
> > going back to the Middle Ages—of adding diacritics to classical
> > orthographies and texts to facilitate language learning. We may want to
> > view Carochi’s orthography as part of this tradition.
> >
> > The advantage of this approach is that relevant information can be added
> > to the text with minimal modification of the original. The goal then is
> to
> > facilitate access to the original texts, not to retranscribe them. In my
> > advanced level classes, we would take a text (even ones with such
> divergent
> > orthographies as the Florentine Codex or Olmos) and directly mark long
> > vowels and glottalization using Carochi’s diacritics without
> > retranscribing. This made for a good exercise.
> >
> > Andrews’ orthography is different. It requires
> >  retranscription of texts because of its innovative use of <h> to
> indicate
> > glottalization. There is nothing wrong with that; it is just a slightly
> > different approach to teaching the classical language. Indeed, there are
> > some good reasons to do so (p.e. emphasizing the complementary
> distribution
> > of Carochi’s grave and circumflex diacritics). And, even though it was
> not
> > designed for such purposes, Andrews’ orthography would make for a fine
> > practical orthography should the Nahua choose to adopt it.
> >
> > I do however disagree with your assertion that Andrews’s orthography
> > characterizes the “modern study” of Nahuatl. Such an assertion would
> > exclude many obligatory references for the language (Canger, Peralta, L.
> > Campbell, Kaufman, Dakin, Lastra…). Indeed, what we see is that Andrew’s
> > orthography is primarily used among certain scholars, generally American
> > and generally more involved in lexicographic or philological endeavors
> (J.
> >  Campbell, Karttunen, Wright, Sullivan, Amith, Wimmer…and I have used it
> > too in one article where I was making a comparative philological
> argument).
> > As much as I respect and admire the work of these other scholars, I am
> sure
> > they would be among the first to acknowledge that there are many
> important
> > modern studies of Nahuatl that do not use Andrews’ orthography. The
> simple
> > fact is that people write Nahuatl in different ways depending on their
> goal
> > and on their intended audience, and any serious student of Nahuatl should
> > be able to shift easily from one representational system to another.
> >
> > It would be most unfortunate if something as trivial as the use of an <h>
> > be taken as an emblem as to one’s membership “in the flow of modern
> study”.
> >
> > Regardless of orthography, any Nahuatl speaker who writes his language is
> > making a contribution to bring the language into a new social space.
> > Regardless of orthography, any scholar who makes
> >  a good argument is contributing to Nahuatl language studies. Regardless
> > of orthography, any teacher who gets his students interested in Nahuatl
> and
> > sets them on a path to learning more is broadening the discipline and
> > dignifying the profound linguistic knowledge that Nahuatl speakers, past
> > and present, have.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Michael Swanton
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> >  From: Michael McCafferty <mmccaffe at indiana.edu>
> > To:
> > Sent: Monday, September 2, 2013 9:59 AM
> > Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Fw:  Totlahtol
> >
> >
> >
> > Carochi has served very well. No question. However, as far I as I can
> > tell, only Carochi and Launey use Carochi's orthographic system. If you
> > look around, that orthography is not where the modern study of the
> > language is going. That's what I meant by my "utterly baffling" thought.
> >
> > I explained also in a letter to Mr. Guillaume that some rather
> > "baffling" ideas about Nahuatl grammar are found in Launey, and I'm
> > confident I didn't find all of the mistakes. In the end, I would
> > recommend having a copy of Launey on your shelf, but not as the sole
> > source of your Nahuatl knowledge, and certainly not as a book used in a
> > classroom unless the professor is knowledgeable enough to 1) catch
> > Launey's errors and 2) bring enormous amounts of material written in
> > the non-Carochi orthographic system so that students can be in the flow
> > of modern
> >  study.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Michael
> >
> >
> > Quoting Michael Swanton <mwswanton at yahoo.com>:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ----- Forwarded Message -----
> > > From: Michael Swanton <mwswanton at yahoo.com>
> > > To: Guillaume Jacques <rgyalrongskad at gmail.com>;
> > > "nahuatl at lists.famsi.org" <nahuatl at lists.famsi.org>
> > > Sent: Sunday, September 1, 2013 4:28 PM
> > > Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Totlahtol
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > The "Carochi orthography" was the most sophisticated orthography used
> > >
> >  during the colonial period. We owe a great deal of our understanding
> > > of "Classical Nahuatl" to it. I find McCafferty's comments about it
> > > having "little value" to be utterly baffling.
> > >
> > > Michael Swanton
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: Guillaume Jacques <rgyalrongskad at gmail.com>
> > > To: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> > > Sent: Sunday, September 1, 2013 2:35 PM
> > > Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Totlahtol
> > >
> > >
> > > I am not a Nahuatl scholar, but as an outsider I think that the Carochi
> > > orthography (perhaps with some modifications to facilitate its
> > typeability,
> > > especially concerning th glottal stop) is still the best orthography to
> > > represent Classical Nahuatl. I am sorry
> >  to say that using an orthography
> > > that neglect vowel length is doing a disservice to language learners.
> > > Launey's manual is still in my opinion the best available introduction
> to
> > > Classical Nahuatl.
> > >
> > >
> > > Guillaume Jacques
> > >
> > >
> > > 2013/9/1 Michael McCafferty
> > > <mmccaffe at indiana.edu>
> > >
> > >> John,
> > >>
> > >> I'm happy to hear about this. "Anthropological Linguistics" will soon
> > >> publish my review of Michel Launey's Nahuatl grammar translated to
> > English,
> > >> and one of the bedeviling aspects of his work is the perpetuation of
> > >> Carochi's orthography. The review was held up for a while as the
> editor
> > >> insisted that I use Carochi's orthography in describing various
> aspects
> > of
> > >> Nahuatl, and that was difficult for me as I see little value in
> >  using it.
> > >>
> > >> Best,
> > >>
> > >> Michael
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Quoting John Sullivan <idiez at me.com>:
> > >>
> > >>   Piyali notequixpoyohuan,
> > >>>          "Totlahtol" is a Series of the University of Warsaw, IDIEZ
> and
> > >>>
> > > other
> > >>> collaborating institutions, for publishing monolingual works in all
> > >>> variants of Modern Nahuatl and Classical Nahuatl. Works are
> > >>> standardized to the orthography of Campbell/Andrews/Karttunen. We
> > >>> hope to accomplish two things with this Series: 1. Get monolingual
> > >>> works of Nahuatl from all variants across space and time into the
> > >>> hands of native speakers, especially young students; 2. By rigorously
> > >>> standardizing the orthography of all
> >  variants across space and time,
> > >>> and "flooding the market" with these works, we hope to break the
> > >>> eighty-year political impasse that has prevented the orthographical
> > >>> standardization of Nahuatl. The first work, in the sub-series,
> > >>> "Toconehuan", is a children's' book, "Malintzin itlahtol", written by
> > >>> Refugio Nava of the University of Tlaxcala. The paper version is now
> > >>>
> > > being distributed, free of charge, in Nahua communities and in
> > >>> educational institutions. You may download a free pdf copy with the
> > >>> following link
> > >>> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.
> > **com/u/15911797/malintzin_**itlahtol.pdf<
> > https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/15911797/malintzin_itlahtol.pdf>
> > >>> or go to www.macehualli.org under Publications. When you read the
> > >>> book, you will not only recognize the orthography, but you will be
> > >>> able to appreciate how Tlaxcallan Nahuatl has evolved over the last
> > >>> 500 years. Have fun!
> > >>> John
> > >>>
> > >>> John Sullivan, Ph.D.
> > >>> Research Scholar in Nahuatl Studies and
> > >>> Academic Director of the Yale-IDIEZ
> > > Nahuatl Language Institute,
> > >>> Yale University;
> > >>> Visiting scholar, Faculty of Artes Liberales
> > >>> University of Warsaw;
> > >>> Professor of Nahua language and culture
> > >>> Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas;
> > >>> Director, Zacatecas Institute of Teaching and Research in Ethnology
> > >>> Tacuba 152, int.
> >  43
> > >>> Centro Histórico
> > >>> Zacatecas, Zac. 98000
> > >>> Mexico
> > >>> Work: +52 (492) 925-3415
> > >>> Home: +52 (492) 768-6048
> > >>> Mobile (Mexico): +52 1 (492) 103-0195
> > >>> Mobile (US): (615) 649-2790
> > >>> idiez at me.com
> > >>> www.macehualli.org
> > >>>
> > >>> ______________________________**_________________
> > >>> Nahuatl mailing list
> > >>> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> > >>> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/**listinfo/nahuatl<
> > http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> ______________________________**_________________
> > >> Nahuatl mailing list
> > >> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> > >> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/**listinfo/nahuatl<
> > http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl>
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Guillaume Jacques
> > > CNRS (CRLAO) - INALCO
> > > http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeJacques
> > > http://himalco.hypotheses.org/
> > > http://panchr.hypotheses.org/
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Nahuatl mailing list
> > > Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> > > http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Nahuatl mailing list
> > > Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> > > http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Nahuatl mailing list
> > Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> > http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Nahuatl mailing list
> > Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> > http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Magnus Pharao Hansen
> PhD. candidate
> Department of Anthropology
>
> Brown University
> 128 Hope St.
> Providence, RI 02906
>
> *magnus_pharao_hansen at brown.edu*
> US: 001 401 651 8413
> _______________________________________________
> Nahuatl mailing list
> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
>
_______________________________________________
Nahuatl mailing list
Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl