'Totatzine'

[Leonel Hermida]

Hi Joe,

As people say here 'one should hammer the iron while it is hot', so I am
reporting without delay to you and to the 'list' the results, the doubts and
the conjectures coming from my dealing with the Nahuatl version of the
'Pater' (Mattew vi.9-13) you kindly sent to me.

>TOtatzine in ilhuicac timoetztica, ma c/enca
>yectenehuallo in motocatzin

"Our revered father, which art in heaven: hallowed be thy revered
name".
I suppose final -e in 'totatzine' is a vocative suffix, am I right? The
first difficulty is 'timoetztica': ti- is 2nd. p. subj., mo- is perhaps the
reflexive and it ends with -tica (perhaps better -ticah) which is
the present of cah (be), but I was unable to deal with etz- (or moetz-?)
(if it were quetz- I would say it means 'stand' so 'thou art standing' but
as it is I cannot decide...). Is it correct to put *totahtzine instead of
totatzine, *timoetzticah instead of timoetztica and yectenehuallo
with a single 'l' so *yectenehualo?

>ma hualauh in motlatocayotzin

No difficulties except that my glossary has 'huallauh= to come' instead
of 'hualauh' . Which one is correct?

>ma chihuallo in motlanequil-
>litzin in yuh chihuallo in ilhuicac in tlalticpac

this time I'm afraid my source indicates 'chihualo' would be better than
'chihuallo' as a passive of 'chihua= to do, make' and *tlanequiliztzin
instead of tlanequillitzin (it has 'tlanequiliztli= will, willpower'). Which
one is the best? Also I have not found the meaning of 'yuh', though my
source does have 'yuhquin= like this, this way'...so the whole passage
would translate: "Thy revered will be done on earth as it is in heaven",
pretty much the same as the English version except in that Nahuatl
repeats the verb (chihualo) and puts 'in heaven' before 'in earth'
according perhaps better with the Latin "sicut in caelo et in terra" which
follows the original Greek "hws yn ouranwi kai epi gys" (I put eta=y,
omega =w and the spiritus asper=h). So yuh= ?

>auh ma xitechmomaquilli in axcan in totlaxcal
>momoztlaye totech monequiz

Again I have *momaquilia= to give, instead of momaquilli; I coud not find
'axcan' or 'in axcan' but that I conjecture to mean 'this day=today' (?);
but I did find 'momoztlaye= daily' and 'totechmonequi= totech monequi
= we need'; does totech monequiz is the future and means ' as we will
come to need' or something alike? Or has the final -z another meaning?
This form "totech monequiz" is very intriguing to me and I would be grateful
to the lady or gentleman who is so kind as to explain it to me.

>auh ma xitech-mopopolhuillilli in totlatlacol,
>in yuh tiquin-popolhuia in techtlatlacalhuia

I was able to puzzle out (in part) 'xitechmopopolhuillilli', knowing that
mopopolhuilia means ' to forgive' but could not make anything of the ending
"-lli" after "-illi". I was however unable to find in my glossary
"tla-tlacol". I would put boldly "(tla)tlacolli= debt" if I was not aware of
the
fact that in the Iberian Peninsula children are (or at least were) teached
to say in prayers *our offenses* instead of "our debts" (this latter being
the correct rendering of the Latin "debita nostra" which follows the
original Greek "ta opheilymata hymwn". So I remain ignorant as to whether
'tlacolli' ( or is it tlatlacolli?) means 'debt' or 'offense' (or yet a 3rd
thing...).
'popolhuilia' we all agree is 'forgive', but a doubt about the meaning of
'techtlatlacalhuia' remains. The ending also is not clear to me. (looks
like a noun is constructed from a verb form whose origin was the
aforementioned noun '(tla)tlacotl'...) (I'm afraid verb endings and
deverbative suffixes are a long way ahead for me...)

>anh macamo xitechmocahuilli inic ipan tihuetzizque
>in tene[y]ecoltiliztli

'auh macamo xitechmocahuilli' is of course "and do not leave us"
and 'huetzi' being 'to fall down' and 'teneyecoltiliztli= temptation' this
puts together as  "and do not leave us to fall into temptation"
which is NOT the same as the English , the Latin and the Greek,
( which three all agree with "and lead us not into temptation" ) but
IS the same as is ordinarily spoken in the Spanish speaking countries
in prayers.

>Ma in mochihua

Is of course "may this/it become [true]'.
I apologize for having been so long and (I'm afraid) so boring.

Best wishes,
Leonel

P.S. I would say the Nahuatl version of the 'Pater' has nothing to
envy to its counterparts in Spanish or English either in beauty or
in conciseness...A 'great' text by any standards, thank you!... L.