petate and metate

[Frances Karttunen]

>>
>> I thought too the accent on tomatl should fall on atl.


The stress in basic Nahuatl falls on the penultimate syllable (except in
some dialects where final syllables have been lost, and under some other
contextual circumstances). When a Nahuatl word is borrowed into Spanish, the
stress more often than not gets moved: TO-matl > to-MA-te; ME-tlatl >
me-TA-te; PE-tlatl > pe-TA-te, etc.  The same is true of borrowings in the
other direction: SA-ba-do 'Saturday' > xa-PA-toh.

>
> I believe "petate" is from "petl-atl," or "water rock," or, something
> that can make stone feel as soft as water.  I think "metate" is from
> "metl-atl," or "moon-water."  I'm not as convinced about this metaphor,
> but I think maybe it has to do with creating the water (atl) from which
> the moon (metl) is created -- the moon being "tlaxcalli (tortilla)."
>

These are attractive metaphors, but they fall into the realm of what is
known as folk etymology.  Simeon's dictionary contains quite a number of
such etymologies, which is why we need to be careful about what we find in
dictionaries, even venerable old ones that are, for the most part, full of
reliable information.