<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN></SPAN></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Oct 27, 2006, at 4:39 AM, Susan Gilchrist wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">Dear listeros,<BR>I'm looking at what seem to be three examples of the same thing, where breaking a long word into some short words seems to result in a mnemonic for learning new words, but it can turn into a "false etymology" and/or an insult: <BR><BR>Chichimeca = dog (chichi) + rope (mecatl)<BR>Dominicanes = God (Domini) + dogs (canes)<BR>Manhattan = man + hat + tan<BR><BR>I found a long explanation online for "domini canes," which eventually became the basis for the escudo of the Dominicans, but had nothing to do with their being called Dominicans in the first place (from: "St. Dominic and His Work, by Pierre Mandonnet, O.P., Translated by Sister Mary Benedicta Larkin, O.P., B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis/London, 1948. Domini Canes by Pierre Mandonnet, O.P.," online at <A href="http://www.op.org/Domcentral/trad/domwork/domworka6.htm">http://www.op.org/Domcentral/trad/domwork/domworka6.htm </A>)<BR>As far as I know there's no explanation for "man + hat + tan" unless it's that it's an easy spelling to read in English and Dutch (maybe as man + hatt + an).<BR>I've found sort of an explanation of chichi + mecatl but am not sure what to think of it; <BR><BLOCKQUOTE style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">"As the Spaniards and their Amerindian allies from the south made their way into Nueva Galicia early in the Sixteenth Century, they encountered large numbers of nomadic Chichimeca Indians. Philip Wayne Powell - whose Soldiers, Indians, and Silver: North America's First Frontier War is the definitive source of information relating to the Chichimeca Indians - referred to Chichimeca as "an all-inclusive epithet" that had "a spiteful connotation." Utilizing the Náhuatl terms for dog (chichi) and rope (mecatl), the Aztecs referred to the Chichimecas literally as "of dog lineage." But some historians have explained that the word Chichimeca has been subject to various interpretations over the years, including "perros altaneros" (arrogant dogs), or "chupadores de sangre" (blood-suckers). The Spaniards borrowed this designation from their Aztec allies and started to refer to the large stretch Chichimeca territory as La Gran Chichimeca (the Great Chichimeca)." –from THE DIVERSITY OF INDIGENOUS MEXICO By John P. Schmal ( <A href="http://www.somosprimos.com/spmar02.htm">http://www.somosprimos.com/spmar02.htm</A>)<BR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>The reason I'm curious about it is that it seems as though a picture of a dog attacking a person might relate to "dog + rope." The odd thing about the picture is that the artist didn't make it clear whether the rope was attached to the person or to the dog, maybe indicating it wasn't an eyewitness report by the artist. This is the picture: <A href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/4912/3197/1600/b73-1599-trial-Cholula-1519.0.jpg">http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/4912/3197/1600/b73-1599-trial-Cholula-1519.0.jpg</A><BR>I wonder whether the horrible attack dog and the mild-mannered coyote might have to do with the Chichimecas and the Dominicans respectively, since Bartholome de las Casas was a Dominican. In other words it's a reminder that Las Casas was horrified by such crimes. (In Christian art dogs are sometimes very positive and sometimes very negative.) But maybe the dog and rope in the picture have nothing to do with Chichimecas. My question is whether it seems as though this picture has to do with bilingual picture writing, where both a Nahuatl and a Latin word are broken down into short words. In other words it seems as though the same method of language teaching might be working in both directions. But on the other hand, is a Chichimeca word being distorted in order to translate it into Nahuatl and then into Spanish? <BR>Susan Gilchrist<BR><A href="http://elboscoblog.blogspot.com/">http://elboscoblog.blogspot.com/</A><BR><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Nahuatl mailing list</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:Nahuatl@lists.famsi.org">Nahuatl@lists.famsi.org</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl">http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl</A></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV><BR><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><BR></P></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>