Icniuhtli

[r. joe campbell]

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, John F. Schwaller wrote:

> I was contacted by a reporter wanting to verify a bit of information given
> to him in an interview he is doing.  He wanted to know if in fact the word
> for friend [icniuhtli; nocniuh] literally means "one who gives me happiness"
> 


Fritz,

   If the reporter is trying to *verify* whether the word for 
friend in Nahuatl (icniuhtli; nocniuh) literally means "one who 
gives me happiness", it depends on what he means by "means".
If you get at "means" in the way that we usually do by asking, 
"What is another way to say "icniuhtli" or "nocniuh" in Spanish"?,
an accurate answer (and the one that you would get in any Nahuatl 
speaking community) is "hermano" and "mi hermano".  This kind of 
answer also fulfills the request for *strict* meaning, *literal* 
meaning.

   If you asked a Nahuatl speaker for the *meaning* of one of the 
following Nahuatl words, he would be likely to reply with one of 
Molina's equivalents (as below), but not with "hermano".  

  teaahuialtiani.  plazentero, o halague¤o. 
  teaahuiltiani.  halague¤o.
  teahuiltiani.  plazentero o regozijado, que regozija alos otros.
  tetlatlacaahuiloani.  halague¤o. 
  tetlatlacahuiloani.  halague¤o. 

  tepapaquiltiani.  cosa [o persona] que da plazer y alegria.


   So if a reporter seeks to *verify* (determine the *truth*) of 
the claim that "icniuhtli" literally means "one that gives me 
happiness", the black-and-white answer is "no".

   However, people who get only the black-and-white version of 
truth and the interaction between language and the world and our 
societies get a cartoon about reality -- a stick figure 
representation, but hardly one that you would prefer in all 
circumstances to a shades-of-gray photograph or a 
gigabytes-rich-color one.  

   Setting aside the sober, objective "facts" that we find in 
dictionaries or that we get from language community members in 
answer to requests for short equivalences in meaning, it is 
possible for one community to branch off in their use of a word and 
adopt it for a different meaning.  In fact, I imagine that 
something analogous to this (i.e., using a combination of novel 
elements to replace an old one for a particular meaning) happened 
when "tzontecomatl" encroached on the usage territory of "cua:itl". 
Some member of the community decided that "tzon(tli)-tecomatl" 
('hair-gourd') was more descriptive than the simple label "cua:itl" 
('head') or more cute or mod.  So did the people that he spoke to 
-- and lexical change took place, leaving "cua:itl" out of 
independent use in sentences, but still embedded in many words 
which continue to be used (cuacuahueh, bovine; tlacuaatequiah,
they baptize; cuacaxtic, shaped like a bowl in top; 
ninocuachalania, I knock myself on the head, etc.)

   But this involves an unradical change involving a word and its 
referent.  If I understand the "friend" / "happiness" example 
correctly, the innovation consists of taking a word which refers to 
a notion which is subjectively *associated* with another notion and 
transferring the label.  I highly admire the motivation for doing 
this, since it involves the attempt to improve the values of 
children.  When those children become adults, the people who deal 
with them will benefit from the society that they swim in.

   To bring my tlahtolmecayotl to an end, my main point is simply 
that we should recognize the innovation as linguistically very 
unusual -- and as leaving the Nahuatl language unchanged.  When 
people ask about a word in **Nahuatl**, they want to know about 
conventional associations of words and meanings.  --And the point 
under discussion might well be mentioned as a footnote.

Yotlan,

Joe