christian text in nahuatl

[r. joe campbell]

    Wow!  This is a wide question.  The Spanish 'jota' varies by dialect
(no big surprise).  A *very* rough summary:

  1. In Northern Spain, the predominant pronunciation is a uvular trill --
nothing like an English [h].  ""Very raspy""

  2. In non-Gulf Coast Mexico (and a good deal of Spanish America), the
"normal" 'jota' is still not like an English [h], but impressionistally is
a step closer.  It is produced by bringing the back of the tongue up and
back, closer to the velum and parallel to it, so that audible friction is
made by the constricted airstream.  The position of the back of tongue is
affected by adjacent vowels -- similar to, but not to the extreme degree,
of the context sensitivity of the German 'ch'.  So the constriction is
considerably higher on the velum for the 'jota' of "dije" than that of
"ajo".
    This is the 'jota' of most of the places in Mexico where Nahuatl is
spoken, but it is *not* the pronunciation of the modern reflex of the
"classical" glottal stop, which has an [h] with no velar constriction --
much like the English [h].

  3. Some Spanish dialects have a 'jota' unlike 1 and 2 in that it
involves no narrowing of the passageway in the area of the uvula or the
velum.  *Roughly*, it is similar to the Nahuatl 'h' referred to above;
Coastal Mexico and Caribbean Spanish are common examples of this kind of
'jota'.

  So back to your questions:

> Is the [h] in Spanish 'jota' similar to the final sound in German
> 'ach?'

   Yes, the Spanish 'jota' frequently sounds like the German 'ch', as in
'ich' or 'ach' (depending on surrounding vowels), but the German 'ch' does
not sound like [h].

> Did Nahuatl ever have the softer sound found in German 'ich?'

   No, the Nahuatl [h] is like English [h], not like the fricative sound
in German 'ich'.


Best regards,

Joe


On Tue, 3 Sep 2002, Matthew Montchalin wrote:

> |However, the 'j' represents phonetic [h] (roughly similar to the
> |Spanish "jota"), but the 'h' of the Norte de Puebla represents a
> |glottal stop ("saltillo"), similar to the commented dialects of the
> |Sixteenth Century.
>
> Is the [h] in Spanish 'jota' similar to the final sound in German
> 'ach?'


> Did Nahuatl ever have the softer sound found in German 'ich?'
>