Chimalpahin

[sfargo@earthlink.net]

About puns, I wonder if another thing to consider is that 
puns and rebuses were a potential source of confusion 
to Europeans as soon as they started to look at picture 
writing. It seems as though there might have been more 
discussion about puns than about grammar at least at 
the start. In other words maybe people were asking "does
this picture mean the same thing as that one" before they 
started asking "is that a noun or a verb"?
Susan


Original Message:
-----------------
From: José Rabasa jrabasa at CALMAIL.BERKELEY.EDU
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 19:11:02 -0700
To: NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Chimalpahin


Dear Listeros:

A group of us in the Bay Area have a Nahuatl workshop in which we
have been reading Chimalpahin's Diario.  We found the following
passage a bit difficult to sort out. It comes from that section in
which Chimalpahin compares Nahuatl and European language on eclipses.
The passage reads:

"ynic otlatoca ynic momamallacachotihui ynic mopapanahuitihui ynic
cecenteotlatoca, ynic yzqui tlanepanoltitimani ylhuicame" (Rafael
Tena's edition p. 228).

We are particularly undecided on how to read cecenteotlatoca.
Because of the earlier otlatoca (avanzar, andar) we thought that it
could be a combination of cecentetl and otlatoca but cecentl as an
adjetive could not modify a verb.  The other option would be to read
cecen and teotlatoca (teotl.tlatoa.ca), which would translate as
"each one is god talk." This gets particularly heady given that the
European talk on the planets would amount to theology rather than
science, etc. etc., etc. Is this a pun? Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Jose Rabasa

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