momik? mimik? (Insane, crazy, or kook customer?)

[Lidia Gomez]

Richard:

I'm sorry my english is not very good but here I go:

In the nahuatl area of Mexico we use the word "mimiqui" to describe a
childish behaviour.  Mimiqui, as someone has already pointed out, is
related to the verb to die.  This is because toddlers who need attention,
sometimes because they are so spoiled or jealous of having a new baby at
home for instance,  cry a lot in a way like  throwing a tra-trum (I read
this word once long ago) .   They make a deep aspiration for cryin and then
suddenly stop breathing, got blue and their eyes go white.   Here you can
see the relation to the verb to die.  The tra-trum is over when you sprink
some cold water on the child face.  Pediatrician have a technical word for
this behaviour: "espasmo del solloso" (I couldn't find the word in
english).  According to experts in parent counseling the' espasmo del
solloso' stops as soon as the child is sure that he or she is loved, and
you can help a lot if just ignore the kid when is having the "mimiqui",
because the circle "espasmo del solloso"-attention is broken.  I am a
mother myself and believe me when I say that it does work.  We also apply
the word "mimiqui" to adults who are always in a URGE for attention, doing
silly, childish, very annoying, but harmless things.  By harmless I mean
that their behaviour is not violent or agresive in any way, just VERY
annoying.  However, I wouldn't say that a  "mimiqui" guy  is
"disfunctional" in some way.  Perhaps for nahuatl and mexican culture there
is plenty of room for patterns of behaviour that don't fit with the
establishment, as long as they are not harming someone else.  Anyway, the
word "mimiqui" is not pejorative, well,  lets say that it depends on the
context: to who, when, how, etc.  I thing your employee was refering to
this  when he called the costumer's  behaviour "mimiqui".

There are some other words for adult behaviour that have their roots in
nahuatl, for instance "chipil" which is applied to a person that is always
uneasy, in bad mood, unhappy, nothing seems to please him or her, and
extremely attached to his or her mother  ( this is a typical pattern of
behaviour in the relation machos-mexican wives-mother in law ).  Chipil,
when applied to a toddler describes the behavior and mood of a child whose
mother is expecting a baby or just had a new one.  Chipil relates only to
the relation with the mother, the need for being always the favorite,  to
be reasure of mom's love, and the awareness of having to share mom's love
and attention with sibils (which is very unpleasent for kids by the way).
Any clue about the meaning of chipil in nahuatl?

Furthermore, there are other words in nahuatl that refer to childish
behaviour, for instance, "miate" when refering to small kids.  I don't
recall the word in nahuatl but the translation into spanish is "pedo"
(sorry!).  According to Luis Reyes this means that kids are like "pedos":
always there, always annoying but you have to live with them.   In nahuatl
culture kids are seen in a rather different way, thing in the word
"escuicle" (perro) applied to kids, for instance.  Luis Reyes always says:
"los ninnos son unos cabrones", and there is not a pejorative meaning in
the statement, but  rather a different way of looking at child behaviour.


Luis Reyes has some amazing stories about kids, child behaviour and their
relation with adults within the nahua culture.  Once he was telling us
about the day he was reading to kids in a primary school part of  Sahagun'
s  work, that when the father adresses to his son.  The answer of these
kids to the nahuatl discourse was just amazing, words that we could analize
in the most brilliant academic way, for nahua kids have a concrete
significance that can go far beyond of what we could expect from our
"academic" understanding of the nahua words.

Saludos,

Lidia.


>
>Well, I quizzed him on it again today, and he said it's "mimiki" (however
>you spell that in Spanish; the second vowel seems long, and seems to bear
>the stress).  There is definitely an 'i' on the end, perhaps a long i.
>I wonder if it is pejorative, maybe something along the lines of "idiot"
>or "jerk?"  But your connecting it with the verb for dying might be a very
>good lead.  How about the related (transitive) verb mictia, "to kill,
>mistreat someone?"  Might it denote someone that ought to "drop dead?"
>
>So far as I can tell, Nahuatl is one of the most amazing languages that I
>have ever run into.  :)
>
>| Where is your Nahuatl-speaking employee from?
>
>Oh, somewheres north by northeast of Mexico City, a hundred (?) miles or
>so.  Something of a vagabond spirit that has finally chosen to settle
>down, and has spent the last five or six years here in Oregon.


___________________________________
Lidia Gomez, Edmundo Gutierrez, Bilha, Adrian
3 Oriente 850-E, C. P. 72810
San Andres Cholula, Puebla
MEXICO
Tel: 52 (22) 473749
e-mail: lidia1 at pue1.telmex.net.mx