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The Nahuatl orthography used in the 16th century and continuing to the present (along with a number of alternative orthographies that have been proposed since) uses some digraphs (two characters to represent a single consonant).<div><br></div><div>Examples at tl for laterally released t as in tletl; tz as in tzapotl and itepotz; ch in Nahuatl chihua and nochpoch; qu before i and e; etc.</div><div><br></div><div>Spanish uses hu- for phonetic w, which only occurs syllable-initially in Spanish. But in Nahuatl, [w] can be syllable-final as well as syllable-initial. In that case, the digraph is turned around and written -uh. So hu- as in huipilli and -uh as is notepeuh (possessed form of tepetl).</div><div><br></div><div>(By the way, I am omitting vowel-length marking here, because the macrons in my Nahuatl print font often do strange things in the course of email transmission.)</div><div><br></div><div>Similarly, the traditional Nahuatl orthography uses cu- in syllable-initial position but -uc syllable-finally: cualli but teuctli. Sometimes in traditional orthography, instead of the digraph -uc, the trigraph -cuh has been used (tecuhtli), and that causes all sorts of confusion, because people take the h here to be the saltillo, which it is not. cu-, -uc, and -cuh all stand for k made with rounded lips.</div><div><br></div><div>In the examples cited below, the systematic dropping of a stem-final vowel in the past tense of Type 2 verbs changes the position of w from syllable-initial (ihui, ohua, -ihua, ehua, ahua) to syllable-final (iuh, ouh, iuh, euh, auh).</div><div><br></div><div>So no, the h in these digraphs is not saltillo. It is part of hu- ~ uh, representing w.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On Jan 18, 2010, at 2:59 PM, <<a href="mailto:lahunik.62@skynet.be">lahunik.62@skynet.be</a>> <<a href="mailto:lahunik.62@skynet.be">lahunik.62@skynet.be</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"> <div class="Section1"><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">Dear one's,</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">I fully understand the argumentation of Lady Frances Karttunen contrasting open and closed syllables and the use of the –h as the </span></font></i><i><font color="blue"><span lang="EN-US" style="color:blue;font-style:italic">saltillo</span></font></i><i><font color="blue"><span lang="EN-US" style="color:blue;font-style:italic"> and as consonant, thanks anyway.</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">Like you said the </span></font></i><i><font color="blue"><span lang="EN-US" style="color:blue;font-style:italic">saltillo</span></font></i><i><font color="blue"><span lang="EN-US" style="color:blue;font-style:italic"> is more than a morphogram, a sign to close a syllable,it is a phonogram too with a special sound.</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">But what about the following verbs and their Base 2 (verbal stem of the preteritum, el pretirito):</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">Ìcihui, ìcihui > iciuh.</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">Cōhua, cōhua > cōuh.</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">Palēhuia, palēhuia > palēhuih.</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">Pōhua, pōhua > pōuh.</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">Chīhua, chīhua >chiuh.</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">Ēhua, ēhua > ēuh.</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">Cāhua, cāhua > cāuh.</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">These are all verbs by which the end letters change of place in Base 2.</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">The ending –h, is that a </span></font></i><i><font color="blue"><span lang="EN-US" style="color:blue;font-style:italic">saltillo</span></font></i><i><font color="blue"><span lang="EN-US" style="color:blue;font-style:italic">, or is it just the letter –h? </span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">And if it is just a letter –h, what is than the difference between the two?</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">Or is there no difference?</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">Lahun Ik 62</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">Baert Georges</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">Flanders</span></font></i><i><font color="blue"><span lang="EN-US" style="color:blue;font-style:italic"> Fields.</span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic">PS. My excuses to the moderator.</span></font></i></p><div><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11.0pt"> </span></font><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic"> </span></font></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="2" color="blue" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic"> </span></font></i></p><div><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11.0pt"> </span></font><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div> </div><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></body></html>