tlahueliloc

[Michael McCafferty]

Quoting David Gloster <david at GLOSTER.NET>:

> p {margin: 0px}I don't like to be a bore (I just can't help it!), but the
> difference between the derivations may be "obvious" to the experts (who
don't
> need an answer to Rick's question anyway) but there are thousands of mere
> mortal Nahuatl enthusiasts (like me for instance) to whom it's not at all
> obvious.I know that you're all very busy, but is there anyone out there with
> a little sympathy, time and patience who would deign to enlighten us on this
> matter?We would be most humbly grateful  ;-) Thanks for all your wonderful
> contributions. It always makes my day when something arrives from the
> list. David GlosterOttobrunn, nr. Munich, Germanyp {margin:
>
Well, Fran's explanation below is very good. And I believe she sent an earlier
message about this (or did I imagine it?), which was also quite good.

Let me point out a couple of things. Like Fran said, the original orthography
created by the Spaniards for Nahuatl did not mark vowel length, e.g., short
/a/ and long /a:/ were both written "a". This is a major problem that befell
many languages of the Americas. It occurred big time in the recordings of the
Illinois language, e.g., the Jesuits wrote <nipi> for both 'water' and 'my
arrow', the first being /nipi/, the second /ni:pi/. Now, for speakers of
Europeans languages, this distinction in vowel length seems meaningless, but
for speakers of American languages that have vowel length distinctions, it's
absolutely of paramount importance in terms of *meaning*. The same goes, as
Fran pointed, out for the sound /h/ ~ the glottal stop. Early historical
Europeans just glossed right over this sound, in Nahuatl, in Illinois, all
over the place, but it is a *phonemic characteristic* of these languages. In
other words, if you leave it out where it should be or put it in where it
shouldn't be, you're making yourself essentially unintelligible. Illinois
examples are coming to me quicker right now than Nahuatl examples: /ka:wiahki/
'thorn land' but  /ka:wiaki/ 'thorns'. That /h/ draws a distinction in
Illinois that is as great as that between "catnip" and "cats" in English. See
what I mean? In Nahuatl metzli is 'thigh' but me:tzli is 'moon'. Big dif.

So, if I may paraphrase Fran's message, what's going on is that even though
certain words may have been written the same by the Spaniards, one cannot
presume that those words are the same. One must be very careful.

Michael
o
0px}..........................................................................
.......Frances
> Karttunen <karttu at NANTUCKET.NET> schrieb am 29.06.04 14:44:02:
> on 6/28/04 11:54 PM, rick dosan at rich_ph!
>  otos at YAHOO.COM wrote:> How could you determine whether the root of
> tlahueliloc is tlaue: l , or ahuelia?
> > One means rage, and the other evil(malo), and they both can be applied to
> > the meaning of tlahueliloc.  Sometimes the texts use it to describe
someone
>
> > enraged, and other times its translated as malvado in other texts.
>
>
> I am skeptical about citations of "ahuelia" in the sense of evil.
>
> There is ahhuel(i), composed of the negative element ah- and huel possible,
> which literally means (to be) impossible.  Molina has "auel
> monotza.incorregible," which follows from the sense of impossibility.
Andrews
> goes so far as to extend the connotation to being unsuccessful and "bad" in
> that sense, but thats not evil.
>
> The difference between tlahue:l- derivations and ahhuel- derivations is
> obvious when you look beyond spelling to phonology and morphology.
>
> Fran Karttunen
>
>
>
>
>