Tecuhtli, teuctli, tekwtli

[Michael McCafferty]

Quoting "<Mario E. Aguilar>" <micc2 at COX.NET>:

> 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!


But it is important to remember that, in teaching the erroneous
pronunciation "te-cu-tli," you are also engraving in their memories the
possibility that -tli is added to stems that end in vowels, which is not
true. -tli is added to stems that end in consonants, which is exactly
what /te:kw-/ is.

The pronunciation of [te:kw-] is as simple as pie to teach and to learn. I
teach it to my students in 30 seconds. As I noted earlier, the problem is
really not pronunciation; the problem is a confusing orthography. However, if
the teacher does not have a firm grasp of Nahuatl phonetics, then the student
may not have the opportunity to learn the pronunciation correctly.

Michael

>
>
>
> >
> > 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
> > >
> >
>
>
>