<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">There's an article by Richard Haly called "Bare Bones: Rethinking Moesoamerican Divinity" in which he suggests that Ometeotl is a God of Bones. And an article by Una Canger and Karen Dakin from Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl, Oct. 1985, that says that according to the region, the word Bone could be Ometl, or Omitl. <BR><BR>--- On <B>Fri, 4/17/09, Campbell, R. Joe <I><campbel@indiana.edu></I></B> wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid"><BR>From: Campbell, R. Joe <campbel@indiana.edu><BR>Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Ometeotl<BR>To: "Iván Pedroza" <ipedrozar@gmail.com><BR>Cc: nahuatl@lists.famsi.org<BR>Date: Friday, April 17, 2009, 8:21 PM<BR><BR>
<DIV class=plainMail>Pedro,<BR><BR> Things are frequently not as simple as we think they are... or wish<BR>they were. If they were, I might be a chemist. But I'm glad I'm not.<BR>I wouldn't have missed Nahuatl (and Nahuat-l) for anything.<BR><BR> When we find that morphemes have variant forms, it is natural to<BR>wonder if a particular form isn't connected with a particular "meaning<BR>unit" (i.e., morpheme) that we are familiar with. If we are going to<BR>entertain the possibility of that connection, we are frequently faced<BR>the necessity of building "semantic bridges" between the basic<BR>meanings of forms and the meanings of other forms (usually in<BR>combination with others.<BR><BR> An example:<BR><BR> 1) When I started the English translation and morphological<BR>analysis of Molina's 1571 Nahuatl-Spanish dictionary in about 1970, I<BR>hadn't read Carochi -- and
Andrews' and Karttunen's works were still<BR>in the future.<BR> I looked at Molina's entry:<BR> Atlacatl. marinero , o mal hombre.<BR><BR> The first part looked obvious... ("if Nahuatl morphology is *this*<BR>simple..." I thought).<BR> "a(tl)" = 'water' + "tlaca(tl)" = 'person, man' == "a-tlaca(tl)" --<BR>'water-man, sailor'.<BR> But the second Spanish gloss made me pause -- what was bad about<BR>sailors? And then I remembered reading that the people who took their<BR>dugout canoes around the canals of central Mexico, peddling fruit,<BR>vegetables, and game, sometimes left the people at their stopping<BR>place less than pleased with their behavior. That seemed like a<BR>satisfactory semantic bridge to me. So the behavior of water-persons<BR>was a likely explanation for the extended meaning, even though there<BR>is nothing inherent in 'water' or "atl" that
hints at evil or bad<BR>behavior.<BR><BR> Years later, I benefitted from Carochi, Andrews, and Karttunen,<BR>and learned that "a:tl" has a long vowel, and that the initial<BR>element of "the other meaning" not only has a short vowel, but a<BR>glottal stop as well --"ah-". Or, "ah-" 'not' + "tlacatl" 'person,<BR>human' = 'not human, bad'. (It can be noted that I still don't<BR>always write vowel length, but at least now, I admit it.)<BR><BR><BR> The moral of the story is that all that seems simple may not be.<BR>...and that there is always more to know.<BR><BR>................<BR><BR> On the issue of "ometeotl", I would first suggest that it may not<BR>be a single word, maybe a two word phrase. There are other apparent<BR>words might deceive us:<BR><BR> coatlicue name of a divinity<BR>really: coatl i-cue (her skirt is snakes)<BR><BR>
Coatlichan name of a town<BR>really coatl i-chan (snake's house)<BR><BR> Atlihuetzia name of a town (in Tlaxcala)<BR>really atl i-huetziya(n) (water's falling place -- waterfall)<BR><BR>.............................<BR><BR> On the issue of the vowel dropping behavior of "o:me" and "e:yi",<BR>the facts just don't support a simple "they drop their final vowels<BR>before X" statement.<BR><BR> "e:yi" obeys the general rule that "y" usually drops in direct<BR>contact with "i", as in "ayi, celiya, chichiya, chiya,<BR>ciyacatl, ihcuiya, piya, etc." It happens too after the other<BR>front vowel "e", but not with such regularity: "ceya, meya".<BR>So "eyi" shows up frequently as "ei".<BR><BR> As Ivan and Mario recently pointed out, when "y" occurs in final<BR>position, it changes to "x"
('sh'):<BR><BR> castolcan omexcan in eighteen places<BR> cempoalpa omexpa. twenty-three times<BR> chicuexpa. eight times<BR> excampa nacaceh triangular<BR><BR> Sometimes "yi" deletes and leaves only the "e" segment:<BR><BR> epantli. three rows<BR> oc epoalcan in another sixty places<BR> epoalilhuitl sixty days<BR><BR><BR> Given this kind of variation, I would hesitate to identify any<BR>"e", "ex", or "ei" as a token of "eyi". And even more, I would
walk<BR>with great trepidation with regard to making a statement about the<BR>worldview of a culture on the basis of such an identification.<BR><BR>Iztayomeh,<BR><BR>Joe<BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Nahuatl mailing list<BR><A href="http://us.mc380.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=Nahuatl@lists.famsi.org" ymailto="mailto:Nahuatl@lists.famsi.org">Nahuatl@lists.famsi.org</A><BR><A href="http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl" target=_blank>http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl</A><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></td></tr></table><br>