Cuates, Cholos, Sor Juana, Nahuatl in the early years

[Paul Anderson]

Mel Sanchez had been good enough to propose two Mexicanisms for "twin", and
had asked the list if anyone could confirm what he thought to be the
derivations ("cuate" from Quetzalcoatl; "cholo" from Xolotl). We're working on
it. Here's what a friend in Mexico City has turned up so far...

La verdad es que la palabra cuate la utilizamos para distinguir a los
hermanos que se gestan al mismo tiempo en un vientre materno pero cada cual
viene en su propia bolsa, porque fueron dos óvulos los fecundados en el
mismo periodo por dos espermatozoides, pueden ser de sexo distinto y no son
idénticos, a diferencia de los gemelos, twins, que vienen de  un mismo óvulo
y por ello en la misma bolsa, son idénticos y del mismo sexo.




melesan at pacbell.net wrote:

> Paul,
>
> Use the mexicanismo for twin what my high school students in Santa Ana, Ca
> use for twin:  cuate from coatl from Quetzalcoatl.  One of the aspects of
> this diety was that he was the morning and evening star, Venus.  His twin
> was Xolotl (from which I believe but will have to substantiate comes the
> word cholo, used throughout Latin America).  See Alfonso Caso's El Pueblo
> del Sol (The People of the Sun) for a more scholarly explanation.
>
> Would love to read any part of your novel beforehand.  Am a high school
> teacher and we delve into Sor Juana and Mexica or Aztec culture in my high
> school Spanish for Spanish Speakers courses.
>
> Mel Sanchez.
>
> Paul Anderson wrote:
>
> > Dear fellow subscribers to Nahuat-l:
> >
> > I’m a new subscriber and this is my first posting. I’ve had some initial
> > difficulty accessing the archives, so am not sure whether it’s customary
> > for newbies here to introduce themselves. As will quickly be apparent,
> > I’m not a professional in the field of Nahuatl studies.
> >
> > I’m currently wrapping up my first novel, based in part on the life of
> > Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and am delighted to be able to say that it
> > has just been accepted by Random House of Canada. While in Mexico on a
> > research trip in 1995, I had the great delight of speaking with Dr.
> > Patrick Johannsen (sp.) at UNAM for a couple of hours about Sor Juana’s
> > use of Nahuatl in her poetry.
> >
> > Did he, I asked, have any opinion on just how well she used or spoke the
> > language?
> >
> > By sheer happenstance he was then completing a paper on the topic, and
> > felt her usage to be highly sophisticated. This was consistent with some
> > notions I’d been noodling with regarding her first 11 years of life in
> > Nepantla and Panoyan. My publisher has asked for more from this period
> > and I’m happy to try to oblige. It’s natural to suppose there were a
> > number of Nahua speakers among the workers of both haciendas. I’ve come
> > up with a Nahua-speaking wetnurse, whose daughter is Juana’s age, and
> > her best friend.
> >
> > In one chapter I have her wetnurse and best friend teaching her Nahua
> > proverbs during a long, bumpy ride by mule cart from Nepantla through
> > Chimalhuacan and into Nepantla. I’ve been working with a few of the
> > proverbs published in Thelma Sullivan’s _A Scattering of Jades_.
> >
> > If there were anyone out there willing to look over the chapter as a
> > whole, I would of course be thrilled.
> >
> > In the meantime, I have so far a few words or phrases I’m looking for
> > the Nahua equivalent of:
> >
> > “Yes, hurry up.”
> > (Spoken, or rather parroted, impatiently by an imperious two-year-old
> > (Juana) to a small group of Macehual fieldhands.)
> >
> > “Twins”
> > I have “cocoa” for serpents, as in, perhaps, “dragon twins” but these
> > two little girls fancy themselves twins also. Would “Cocoa” (pl.?) be
> > something they might run through a courtyard shouting as the equivalent
> > of: [we are] Twins! Mellisas! Cocoas!
> >
> > “Ixayac”
> > I have this for “face”. It is a rock face, but the two girls call their
> > secret place that because it looks like a human face or mask. (There has
> > been discussion of masks already in the chapter.)
> >
> > I know how it is with long postings – the shorter, the easier to answer.
> > So please feel free to weigh in with only one small bit.
> >
> > And please accept my heartfelt thanks in advance.
> >
> > Yours sincerely,
> >
> > Paul Anderson