Azteca

[Michael Mccafferty]

Richard and listeros,

I seem to tend to come at these  things from the oblique fisheyed angle of
Algonquian languages, but let me lay out what i think your sentence might
mean. (Where did it come from, by the way?). If my analysis doesn't work,
there are great hawks lurking out there in nahaut-l land that will sweep
down and snatch it up to eat it.

But here's how i'd parse it:

Cencah  'very much'

i:c  'because of it

o:-    the antecessive prefix indicating action in the past

momotz-  (don't know the vowel length), a root meaning "shine".

-(a)hui  a thematic suffix

-(y)a  imperfect tense marker

i:n    subordinate clause marker/also "the" sometimes

i:yollo  'his/her/its heart

"It was very much because of it that it was shining/used to shine, that
which is his/her/its heart."

Or in street English "His/her/its heart used to shine a lot because of
it."

One thing, the antecessive prefix indicates that the verb that
follows is a past tense verb.  Thus, what is written -huia is actually
-huiya.

Michael


On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Budelberger, Richard wrote:
>
> > Can anyone offer a translation for this Classical Aztec:
> > "Cencah   i:c  o:momotzahuia in   i:yo:llo."
> > (In particular, I don't recognize the verb root.  It's vowel length may,
> > therefore be incorrect in this transcription.)
> >
> > Richley Crapo
>