Color questions

[Jose Maria Hernandez Gil]

To my knowledge, the Mexica arrived in Aztlan around the time Teotihuacan
started to become a power (200-400 CE). Unless they went from being
agricultural to nomadic, they were not agricultural until well into this
millenium (around 1250?), when Tula fell and the Chichimeca started
entering the Anahuac and eventually the Valley. Perhaps other Nahuatl
speaking people were agricultural before, but I do not think that it is
+-200 years.

As to chilli being the root/derivative of chihchiltic, I would guess no.
First of all, chiles are always red (in fact the hottest ones I've tasted
were yellow) and most, I would say, are green. Anyway, given the common
nature of color, I would assume chihchiltic was in use well before the
arrival of the Mexica in Anahuac, before they came across chile. Perhaps
it might be related to a third word or be borrowed from a previous
language (my guess) and merely adapted to Nahuatl.

My 2 cents...
>
>Does anyone know the reconstructed form for red in proto-Uto-Aztecan.
>
>Were the ancestors of the Nahuatl-speaking groups agricultural folks
>before they landed in the Valley of Mexico.
>
>Was chihchiltic their word for red when they were pre-agricultural.
>
>
>It only stands to reason that  an agricultural people would use the name
>for an important, red food for their word for red. The proto-Algonquian
>term for blood mec,kwi- became the term for red in most of the descendant
>languages of these hunting people.


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  Jos=E9 Mar=EDa Hern=E1ndez
  Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - Lausanne
  Telephone: +41 21 / 693-5528