Inic Ome netlanliztli

[Michael Mccafferty]

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It's quiet, too quiet for some, so what is this yuhquimma I see in Juan
Bautista's Huehuetlahtolli?  Sounds a bit like what we call Yupper speak,
as in instead of Sorry, ma forgot to take out the trash, it's yohkey ma,
I'll take out the trash.  Inquiring, scholarly minds want to. . .  Mark
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Mark,

I don't believe your Nahuatl term <yiuhquin'ma>  actually reflects the
'Yupper speak in "yokey, ma"', although that was fun to see.

The orthographic <y> is precisely what Bautista *hears* and is simply
epenthetic. It owes its initial existence to the placement of the
tongue in the pronunciation of /i/ and represents a slight relaxation of
the buccal muscles resulting in the articulation of the expected
semi-vowel /y/, yod by any other name. This phenomenon occurs in
many languges and and is "sparked" by even lower vowels than /i/ (but not
as low /o/ as "yokey," which, I would gather, is created by analogy with
some other expression which I don't want to think about right now. But
you characteristically see /w/ with those mid/high back vowels). Not only
/i/ but even /e/ can spark the creation a preceding yod.  In the northern
Great Lakes Algonquian dialects of Ojibwe this epenthesis takes on
phonemic stature, where you get things like Ottawa /mewe/ but Potawatomi
/myewe/, our Nahuatl "ohtli."

ipan ohtli,

Michael