cuicatl/huicatl

[Frances Karttunen]

on 2/5/04 9:56 AM, idiez at MAC.COM at idiez at MAC.COM wrote:

> Can anybody say anything about the variant in the Huasteca for the word
> "song", which is "huicatl" instead of the expected "cuicatl". I am
> familiar with different examples of /k/ softening, but in all other
> cases it becomes an aspiration. This happens 1) to the first of two
> adjacent /k/, caqui > cacqui; 2) to the third person singular specific
> object prefix, when it comes after "ni" or "ti" and before another
> consonant, for example, "nicnequi"; 3) to the /k/ after a /w/,
> "iuhquinon (from iuhqui, inon)", "in this way", and "nouhquiya (from
> no, iuhqui, ya)", "also". I also looked in the Keys' Zacapoaxtla
> vocabulary. They don't have a "cuicatl" entry for "song", but they do
> have "cuica" for "llevar, to carry s.t.".
> Back to my question. Anything on "huicatl", "song"?
> John
>
Not really, but there is another comparable pair: cuetzpalin/huetzpalin
'lizard, iguana.'  This variation is documented for Tetelcingo, Morelos.

In my experience, /kw/ and gw/ in the Spanish of rural Morelos tend to /w/
too.  Could this be substratum influence from the local Nahuatl?

Fran