Hello

[Doug Barr]

Hello, all -

I've always been fascinated by languages, and recently came across  
Nahuatl - I'm hooked! Diving into it already thanks to the surprising  
amount of information out there...

Got a couple of quick linguistic questions for anyone who can answer  
them (these are about the Classical language as that's the only one I  
have materials for).

1. Do long vowels have a different quality from short vowels, or are  
they simply pronounced twice as long? And, are there very many  
minimal pairs for vowel length? I've seen "metztli" "foot" and  
"me:tztli" "moon," but that's the only minimal pair for vowel length  
that I've seen, so far.
2. Verbs with third-person subject and object that are of the same  
number, i.e. both singular or both plural - if there's only one noun  
argument, is there a default reading for subject or object? E.g. does  
"O:quitta in cihua:tl" mean "The woman saw him/her," "He/she saw the  
woman," or both/either?
3. I know that the modern languages are different enough from each  
other to make inter-comprehension difficult, I'm curious to know how  
inter-intelligible any of the modern languages are with the classical  
language. Are the differences as great as, say, between Latin and the  
modern Romance languages?

Thanks, and I hope to learn lots!

Doug Barr

'S fhearr an saoghal ionnsachadh na sheachnadh. Better to teach (or  
learn) the world than shun it. (Gaelic proverb)

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