yucatan etymology

[Michael McCafferty]

How about Yolcatlan "land of critters" ??

Just kidding.

Michael

Quoting "John Sullivan, Ph.D." <idiez at mac.com>:

> David,
> 	I assume that the root of this "-yohcauh" from Fran's dictionary is
> the preterite agentive "-yoh", "owner of/covered with". Since it's a
> preterite agentive the only locative it could take would be "-n",
> giving "yohcan", which I have never seen by itself, only with imbeds,
>  such as "tizatl", "chalk", "tizayohcan", "place covered with chalk".
>  If indeed, "yucat(l)an" is a Nahuatl word, and it has the "-t(l)an"
> locative, there would be six possible roots, "yocatl", "yocahtli",
> "yohcatl", "yohcahtli", "yocaitl", or "yohcaitl". I haven't seen any
> of these.
> John
>
> John Sullivan, Ph.D.
> Profesor de lengua y cultura nahua
> Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
> Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas, A.C.
> Tacuba 152, int. 47
> Centro Histórico
> Zacatecas, Zac. 98000
> México
> Oficina: +52 (492) 925-3415
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> idiez at mac.com
> www.idiez.org.mx
> ?
>
>
>
>
> On Jan 16, 2007, at 3:04 PM, Frye, David wrote:
>
>> Dear nahuatlatos:
>>
>> I'd like your professional opinion(s) on the following statement,
>> which I frankly find dubious: "The name Yucatan comes from the
>> Nahuatl language Yokatl?n, meaning 'place of richness'." The source
>> cited is Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian Languages: The
>> Historical Linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University
>> Press. Pg. 403. I cannot see how "Yokatl?n" would mean "place of
>> riches" in Nahuatl. I assume Campbell was analyzing it as yohc?
>> (tia) "riches" + -tlan "place of", but (from the invaluable
>> Karttunen's dictionary) yohc?(tia) means "to take possession of, to
>> appropriate," so by extension I can imagine it meaning
>> "possession," which is not at all the same thing as "riches."
>> Opinions?
>>
>> Many thanks, David Frye
>>
>>
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>
> J
>
>
>
>
>




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