Tecuhtli, teuctli, tekwtli

[Mario E. Aguilar]

Especially when the remedy "teuctli" is worse than the ailment "tecutli"  I have hear novices try to say
te-uc-tli and think that that is correct.  I would rather have people say te-cu-tli (closer to the real te-Kw-tl) and later try to explain live and in person the "exotic" sound of Kw!



>
> From: mmccaffe at INDIANA.EDU
> Date: 2004/04/29 Thu AM 11:31:29 EDT
> To: NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: Re: Tecuhtli, teuctli, tekwtli
>
> Quoting ANTHONY APPLEYARD <a.appleyard at BTINTERNET.COM>:
>
> > Michael Mccafferty <mmccaffe at INDIANA.EDU> wrote:
> > > I should have added that "teuctli" is composed of only *two* syllables:
> > > /te:kw-/ + /-tli/, and, of course, the penultimate syllable is strong.
> > > The pronunciation of this word and others noted by Dave is "exotic" for
> > > speakers of European languages and require some practice to master.
> >
>
> Michael says:
>
> I didn't receive this posting or the one I sent that preceded it. In any event,
> here is what I wrote that preceded it:
>
> "I haven't had the time yet to look at your site, but
> Dave has made some excellent points, Ian. The only thing I would add is vowel
> length. Since vowel length is phonemic in Nahuatl, Dave's phonemic /tekwtli/ is
> actually /te:kwtli/, where the digraphs /kw/ and /tl/ are actually unit
> phonemes (and thus in actual, "vigorous" linguistic transcription would each be
> represented by a single symbol, in the first case by a k with superscript w and
> in the second case by a Greek lambda."
>
>
>
>
>
> > Someone raised this matter a year or two ago. I advised him to say
> > [te_cuatli], stressed on the [e_], and then to gradually get rid of the [a]
> > without letting the [w] disappear or turn into [u].
> >
> >
> Interesting. I've had success just teaching students to first learn to say
> [te:kw-], which is not that hard. Then I have them say [-tli] several times.
> And then combine the two sounds.
>
> In truth, I don't think there is really any challenge in learning how to **
> pronounce** "teuctli" and "Moteuczoma," etc. The challenge is learning how to
> not get distracted by the orthography. The sounds are easy.
>
> Michael
> >
>