tlahtoa / saltillo

[Mark David Morris]

Galen,

I think I remember that conversation also--that the modern final saltillo
tends to be aspirant, and I think part of the issue is what is the
saltillo.  To teach the saltillo to non-Nahuatl speakers, it is imperative
to emphasize clear glottal stops that emanate and terminate below the
mouth. Yet,I think it is Carochi who remarks that the Tlaxcaltecas aspirated the
glottal stop, and I imagine that a diversity of glottal stops have
existed historically in Nahuatl language communities.  So, I think the
main point about the saltillo is that it is not similar to Spanish, French
and English phonemes and has to be learned as an extra by most students
of Nahuatl , and perhaps has been unlearned in some parts by Nahuatl
speakers.

yours,
Mark

On Wed, 9 Feb 2000, Galen Brokaw wrote:

> Fran,
> Do we have to distinguish here between Classical and modern dialects?
> As a fellow graduate of the "Joe Campbell school of Nahuatl," I was under the
> same impression as Michael with regards to many(most?) modern dialects.
> (Disclaimer: I take full responsibility for my ignorance and any stupid thing I
> say should not reflect in any way upon Joe.)
> It was my understanding that in Classical Nahuatl the saltillo functioned as the
> plural marker in the present indicative and was written as an "h", but that in
> many modern dialects it is the opposite: the saltillo marks the singular verbs
> and a slight aspiration or nothing at all marks the plural. I think this is what
> causes so much confusion when comparing classical orthography and modern speech
> because if a modern speaker marks plurality with a slight aspiration, then the
> "h" which represented a saltillo in Classical is taken for an aspiration. I
> think this is what caused the confusion a while back on this list in regards to
> the saltillo/glottal stop. I haven't had a lot of experience with native
> speakers, but it seems to me that at least Tlaxcalan Nahuatl tends to aspirate
> what was a glottal stop in Classical, and uses the glottal stop to mark the
> singular indicative and other words that end in vowels without aspiration. If I
> am correct, Classical orthography works very nicely with such modern dialects as
> long as you reinterpret the h=saltillo as h=aspiration and you place a glottal
> stop at the end of words that end in vowels. Is this an accurate assessment?
> Galen
>
> Frances Karttunen wrote:
>
> > It's the opposite.  The saltillo functions as the plural marker in the
> > present indicative.
> >
> > Verbs like tlahtoa: shorten the final vowel before saltillo and also when
> > the a: is word-final, so you never see/hear that it is long in the present
> > indicative.  But in the habitual present (that adds -ni) and the imperfect
> > (that adds -ya), the a: is long.
> >
> > In the future, where the a: is dropped before the future suffix -z, the
> > vowel goes away but casts its length back on the preceding vowel.  Then you
> > do get o: as in nitlahto:z "I will speak."
> >
> > Fran
> >
> > ----------
> > >From: Michael Mccafferty <mmccaffe at indiana.edu>
> > >To: Multiple recipients of list <nahuat-l at server.umt.edu>
> > >Subject: Re: tlahtoa
> > >Date: Wed, Feb 9, 2000, 8:37 AM
> > >
> >
> > >
> > > Thanks Frances, for the correction. My understanding about the saltillo is
> > > that it represents a glottal stop, and that the glottal stop is present in
> > > the singular present indicative and is not present in the plural.  Please
> > > fill me in.
> > >
> > > tlazohcamati,
> > >
> > > Michael
> > >
>



















~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more
grief. Eccl 1:18

To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, this is a noble insight. To
regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental sickness.  Only when we
are sick of our sickness, shall we cease to be sick.  The Sage is not
sick, being sick of sickness; This is the secret of health.  TTC 71

MDM, PhD Candidate
Dept. of History, Indiana Univ.