[Aztlan] Calcos? Calque?

Thu Jul 19 18:57:35 UTC 2007

Hasn't John Sullivan already coined and circulated a host of linguistic 
terms for Nahuatl? I seem to remember having seen something like that 
from him.

Melahuac?

Michael

Quoting David Becraft <david_becraft at hotmail.com>:

> Brokawtzin,
>
> The reason I want to use these Nahuatl terms is because I am trying
> to distance myself from the
> theory of the "evolution of writing" as espoused by Bishop Warburton
> and I.J. Gelb.  Terms such as "hieroglyph", "glyph", "pictograph",
> and "ideograph" are ambiguous concepts, as well as ethnocentric.  As
> it is common with many scientists to use non-english words for
> scientific terminology by using Greek or Latin roots, I am also
> trying to use non-Greek/Latin roots for further developing a
> "writing" terminology in Nahuatl.
>
> The Nahuatl terms I propose are obviously not organic Nahuatl
> concepts per say; But the theoretical application of these terms are
> important since Mesoamerican (specifically Central Mexican) writing
> was based primarily on "Semasiography" and served as a mixed system
> of writing which included "Logography", "Phoneticism", and "Syllabic"
> elements.  The Greek words themselves only serve to conceptualize the
> concept of writing as a theoretical function for "Near Eastern"
> writing, to quote I.J. Gelb.  As can be seen by research, Mesoamerica
> developed writing independently of Near Eastern cultures, and as
> such, a well developed terminology for studying the "mixed" system of
> writing in Mesoamerica is integral for continued research in this
> area.
>
> In order to explain "Semasiography" as applied to Mesoamerican
> writing, I think that a terminology more in tune with an Indigenous
> perspective of its lexicon might be helpful in analyzing at least on
> a linguistic level the different aspects of writing as understood
> semantically and metaphorically; granted, they are calques.
>
> By these Nahuatl terms, I intend to lay down the foundation for
> further analyzing and studying the writing systems as "understood" by
> Mesoamericans by using linguistic frameworks that outside of this
> current research could potentially be further developed for a
> complete study of Mesoamerican writing.  These same concepts could be
> used in Purepecha, Mazahua, Maya, etc.
>
> Just to recap (correct me if I'm wrong):
>
> For *Semasiography*
> I proposed: *Nezcayoticuiloa* (I used Nezcayotia instead of Nezcayotl):
> Nezcayotia [ne:zka:yo:tia]=to mean, denote, indicate something
> (Karttunen 1983:172)
>
> You proposed: *Nezcayocuilolli*
>
> The problem I was having with Nezcayotia was that I didn't know what
> to do with the "-tia".  I had thought:
> *Nezcayotiacuiloa*
> *Nezcayoticuiloai*
>
> Does the elimination of "-tia" change the meaning of the word to mean
> "Nezcayo(tl)?
>
>
> Once again, Thank you for your feedback, your comments, your
> suggetions, and your words of caution; they will all be taken into
> consideration.
>
> David F. Becraft
> Anthropology
> Southern Oregon University
> Ashland, Oregon
> http://www.sou.edu/mcnair/scholars/becraft.html
>
>
>
>
>> From: Galen Brokaw <brokaw at buffalo.edu>
>> To: David Becraft <david_becraft at hotmail.com>
>> CC: Aztlan at lists.famsi.org
>> Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Calcos? Calque?
>> Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:12:44 -0400
>>
>> Pancho,
>> There is a fundamental difference between defining a word and
>> translating it. I'm not sure exactly why you need or want to come up
>> with Nahuatl equivalents for the English terms you list, but no
>> Nahuatl term is going to be a transparent translation of any of
>> those terms, because Nahuatl culture has not conceptualized semiotic
>> phenomena in the same way as Western philosophy and linguistics.
>> Ultimately, the definition of words are conventional (i.e.,
>> determined and perpetuated through dialogic communicative
>> interactions). So the morphology of a term or phrase does not
>> necessarily have to exhaustively describe the concept you wish to
>> convey. In fact, if there is any desire for linguistic economy, it
>> is often better that it not do so in order to avoid overly unwieldy
>> terms. In other words, it can be conceptually metonymic. You just
>> have to convince other people to use it in the same way.
>> Nahuatl usage does include some rather long and complex
>> constructions, so technically you certainly could formulate a
>> Nahuatl word that conveys a lot more descriptive detail. And this
>> might even be a more authentic way of creating a neologism, but I
>> don't think there is any way to make it completely transparent.
>> It seems to me that most of the terms you have formulated (with the
>> minor revisions that I suggested) would work fine. You would just
>> have to define the terms prior to using them.
>> I would also just say that as a linguistic exercise, I think that
>> formulating these types of neologisms can be interesting; but for a
>> research project on mesoamerican writing, I'm not sure what purpose
>> such translations would serve. To introduce such neologisms in that
>> context might run the risk of giving people the impression that
>> these were organic Nahuatl concepts.
>> At the most general level, there are two theoretical approaches to
>> Mesoamerican writing. One would attempt to understand the writing
>> systems using indigenous concepts. The other approach relies on
>> Western theories of language, writing, and semiotics. (Of course,
>> there are different theoretical approaches within the more general
>> category of Western theory, and maybe within the indigenous
>> perspective as well.) There are those who will advocate a strictly
>> indigenous perspective, because according to this view imposing
>> Western concepts effects a sort of violence on indigenous culture. I
>> see value in both approaches. It seems to me that they are different
>> sorts of projects. But I think it is important not to ascribe any
>> sort of inherent conceptual paradigm to the object of study itself.
>> I'm not sure if that is what you are attempting to do, but I thought
>> I would just include this cautionary note, for whatever it is worth.
>>
>> Best,
>> Galen
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> David Becraft wrote:
>>> Mr. Brokaw,
>>>
>>> Thank you for your help!  The calques I suggested; do they make
>>> sense in contrast to the Greek terms?  Are there other words that
>>> could be used to further define these concepts of writing?  Any
>>> other suggestions besides what I presented as calques?
>>>
>>> Thank you,
>>>
>>> Pancho Becraft
>>>
>>>
>>>> From: Galen Brokaw <brokaw at buffalo.edu>
>>>> To: David Becraft <david_becraft at hotmail.com>
>>>> Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Calcos? Calque?
>>>> Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:17:35 -0400
>>>>
>>>> David,
>>>> I would just point out a couple of things. First, all of the
>>>> English words you have listed are nouns, but most of the Nahuatl
>>>> definitions are verbs. The noun form of the verb "cuiloa" which
>>>> refers to writing is "tlacuilolli." Just converting the "cuiloa"
>>>> portion of your terms into "cuilolli" would probably solve this
>>>> problem. See other comments below.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Any suggestions?
>>>>>
>>>>> Semasiography--------------------------------------------------------Nezcayoticuiloa
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I don't think you need the "ti" in there. I think it should just
>>>> be "nezcayocuilolli."
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Glottography-----------------------------------------------------------Nenepilcuiloa
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Nenepilcuilolli
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Logography------------------------------------------------------------Tlatolcuiloa
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The difficulty here is that "tlahtolli" is a more general term
>>>> meaning "speech," but that often has the meaning "word" in
>>>> translation. Other terms that are often translated as "word" are
>>>> "camatl" and "tentli," which literally mean "mouth" and "lip"
>>>> respectively; but again, they are also more general. Even when
>>>> they specified adding "cen" on the beginning, which means "one" as
>>>> in "cencamatl," it doesn't necessarily mean "one word." It can
>>>> mean "one statement." It seems to me that the closest you could
>>>> come to conveying the actual meaning of "logography," you would
>>>> have to use some sort of modifier such as "nenecni," "iyoca," or
>>>> "noncua" (or even better "nononcua"), which all convey the idea of
>>>> something like "separately." Another possibility of which I'm not
>>>> exactly sure is to use "xelihui" in there somewhere, which means
>>>> "to split."
>>>> Of course, these are neologisms anyway, so you can always just
>>>> decide on a term like "tlahtolcuilolli" this and define its use as
>>>> "logography."
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Phonography----------------------------------------------------------Caquizcuiloa
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> caquizcuilolli
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Syllable-----------------------------------------------------------------Tlatolcotonqui
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> same issues as with tlahtolcuilolli. You might also use just
>>>> "tlatoltontli." There are other possibilities that might better
>>>> convey the notion of "a piece of a word/speech"; but there is no
>>>> getting around the conceptual barrier.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Sign
>>>>> (phoneme)-------------------------------------------------------Nezcayotl
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Nezcayotl works as sign, but as I'm sure you know, "sign" is not
>>>> the same as "phoneme."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Graphic
>>>>> Sign----------------------------------------------------------Nezcayocuiloa
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Technically, I think you might want to use "tlacuilolnezcayotl."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Tlashtlawi,
>>>>>
>>>>> David Becraft
>>>>> Anthropology
>>>>> Southern Oregon University
>>>>> Ashland, Oregon
>>>>>
>>>>> becraftd at students.sou.edu
>>>>>
>>>>> _________________________________________________________________
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>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>
>
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