Ometeotl

[Campbell, R. Joe]

Quoting Pedro de Eguiluz <temazkal at mexicoantiguo.org>:

> Dear Profesor Campbell
>
> Thanks for tyour answer, enclosed a link in spanish where frank Diaz
> explains the Ometeotl concept
>
> http://www.templotolteca.com/tse/articulos/ometeotl.html
>
> The idea of Ometeotl being 2 3 divinity is not just from a Language
> point of view, more from a comsovisión view. As we can see the
> vertical space divided in three infraworld-earth- heaven.
>
> All the best
>
> Pedro
>
>

*****************
*****************

(I am bringing this discussion back to Nahuat-l since I believe it to 
be of general interest to members of the list and should not be a 
private communication.)

Pedro,
     Since I have no expertise in cosmology, I will not address those issues.
But as a long-time linguist and Nahuatlahtoh (since 1962) I can tell you
unequivocally that the linguistic argument fails. I have been studying
Molina's dictionary closely and analyzing it morphologically since 1970. In
about 1979 I began to add Sahagun's Florentine Codex to my morphological data.
So I feel fairly confident in discussing Nahuatl morphology (the study of
meaningful word-pieces).
     The word "ome" does NOT have two analyses. "ome" means 'two' and it
cannot be further divided. The 'e' part is not a separate morpheme (meaningful
word piece). It can be deleted in certain circumstances, primarily before
count-words such as -tetl, -tzontli, etc., but it has no meaning in itself.

     Consider the following:
     1) the word for three is "e:yi" or "e:i". It has a long vowel. "o:me" has
a short "e". Vowel length is distinctive in Nahuatl. That is, words can be
differentiated merely by the length of a vowel. This shows that the "e" in
"o:me" cannot be part of the word "e:yi". The "e:" in "e:yi" is not the same
vowel from the classical Nahuatl perspective. See Fran Karttunen's dictionary
and J. Richard Andrews' books.
     2) Even if it were possible to relate the two e's, Nahuatl numbers do not
compound by just butting up against each other except in the cases of the
numbers involving "chiuc" "five" in combination: "six" "chicuace:", "seven"
"chico:me", "eight" "chicue:i", "nine" "chiucna:hui". "two-three" just isn't a
possible Nahuatl combination.
     3) Aside from your assertion concerning "ometeotl", there are NO
instances of a word with the morpheme variants "o:me, o:m, o:n" meaning "two-
three". I am looking at 1,389 examples from the Molina and Sahagun data.
     4) Consider some examples from Molina's dictionaries:
        ometica "son dos" 71m2
        ometlacatl ititlan "mensajero entre dos" 55m
        omilhuitl "dos dias" 55m
In no such cases does he define these words with "dos-tres" or "dos o tres".
        Also, he defines "la trinidad de dios" as "yeitilitzin dios". Molina
was apparently a semi-native speaker of Nahuatl, having lived with the
language since childhood. He and the other friar missionaries used native
concepts whenever they could, but I've never seen anything involving "trinity"
and "ome".

All the best,

Joe


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