Teuctli

[John Sullivan, Ph.D.]

Fran,
	I don`t see very much influence of the Catholic Church in the  
communities I visit in northern Veracruz. None have a church.  
Parallel ceremonies are conducted for weddings (church and  
traditional indigenous), but the Church has absolutely nothing to do  
with ceremonies of death. Family alters have pictures of saints, but  
even in this case, the concept of "saint" is indistiguishable from  
that of the natural spirits which inhabit mountains. If there was an  
initial round of baptisms during the colonial period, it looks to me  
like the priest then packed up and moved back into the municipal  
centers where they remain to this day.
	The word final position of the original "-uc" in "itecoh" may have  
something to do with its changing into "coh". I've been trying to  
think of other words that end like this, but I can't come up with  
any. "neuctli", for example goes to "ineuchui" (i-neuc-hui) or   
"inechui" (i-nec-hui) depending on how you want to spell it.
John

On Oct 23, 2007, at 7:08 PM, Frances Karttunen wrote:

>
> On Oct 23, 2007, at 5:44 PM, John Sullivan, Ph.D. wrote:
>
>> Sorry for the late comment on this topic. In Northern Veracruz  
>> Nahuatl, we also have "tecohtli", "dueño", and "itecoh", "su  
>> dueño". But I can't see how this could be a spelling  
>> pronunciation. The Huasteca is peripheral to the Central Mexican  
>> writing tradition, and I just can't see literacy as having had any  
>> significant impact on speech in this area. Also, in this region a  
>> syllable final "w" sounds very much like an "h", perhaps a bit  
>> more prolonged. In Tamazunchale, only a few hours away, the sound  
>> is still pretty much like the "h", but the rounding is perceptible.
>> John
>>
>
>
> I don't know the answer for sure.  The difference in Milpa Alta is  
> that there is regular monosyllabic reflex of teuc- with the core  
> meaning of 'lord' that contrasts with a bisyllabic stem te.coh-  
> that has a more contemporary meaning. Plus, M.A. has a long  
> literary tradition.
>
> Only thing to consider is the argument I have heard that Central  
> Mexican honorific morphology is to be found in Huastecan Nahuatl  
> but only attached to lexical items having to do with Christian  
> observance and particularly with loanwords from Spanish having to  
> do with the Church. Is this accurate?  I would have to hunt around  
> for the source of this argument.
>
> If it's so, it's not hard to imagine that Catholic clergy, even a  
> long time ago, might have orally transmitted spelling pronunciation  
> of the stem for 'lord' to Nahuatl speakers with negligible history  
> of writing.
>
>


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