Me:xi'co : alternative etymologies

[Gordon Whittaker]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering how long it would take for this topic to surface!

Here are some observations, for what they're worth:

First, the etymology that derives Me:xi'co from 'moon' and 'navel' is
worth consideration despite the apparent rough fit. It is true that 'At
the Navel of the Moon' should be Me:tz-xic-co, which is more complex than
the attested name. However, we should keep in mind that place names, like
names in general (incl. attested Nahuatl names), are subject to
simplification, reanalysis and corruption, and change at different rates
from simple words.

Furthermore, a form *Me:x-xic-co may indeed underlie Me:xi'co.
On the one hand, we have enough parallels in Nahuatl for assimilation and
for underrepresentation of the resulting geminate consonant: Cf. the name
Te:cuichpotzin (lit. 'the lord's girl' for the daughter of Motecuhzoma
II), which represents te:cuh- 'lord' + ichpo:ch- 'maiden' + -tzin (rev.),
where <tz> stands for <tztz> from <chtz> - This led to the extrapolated
form Tecuichpo on the assumption that the following <tz> in the
reverential form represents a single affricate.
On the other hand, a dissimilation of the stop cluster <cc> to <'c> would
account for the short <i> vowel in the second syllable of the capital's
name.

There is clear evidence for an indigenous analysis of Me:xi'co as 'At the
Navel (and thus also: 'In the Middle) of the Moon'. First, the city lies
within Lake Metztliapan ('On the Waters of the Moon'). Secondly, as
Soustelle mentions (by the way, before Gutierre Tibon) in his famous study
of Aztec civilization, the Otomi name for the Aztec capital is Anbondo
Amadetzânâ, where bondo refers to the opuntia cactus of Tenochtitlan fame
but, more interestingly, amadetzânâ is rendered 'in the middle of the
moon'.

And now for something completely different -- a place name derived from a
personal name. Not much work has been done on this category of place names
in Nahuatl. In fact, I am not aware of a single study. But there are a
number of toponyms derived from the names of gods and eponymous ancestors,
and even of other prominent figures, legendary and historical.
Huitzilopochco (of Churubusco fame) is one such example, even if one could
take it as an elliptical form for 'At (the Temple of) Huitzilopochtli'. We
also have Copilco, named after an Aztec leader from the time of the
foundation of Tenochtitlan (apparently not the same Copil that gave the
Aztecs hell on their way there). Given such examples, it is neither
impossible nor even unlikely that Me:xi'co represents Me:xi' (if the name
rendered <Mexi> for the ancestral leader linked to Huitzilopochtli is the
same) + the locative suffix -co. Thus, the place name might mean 'At (the
Place of) Mexi'.

Best wishes,
Gordon

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gordon Whittaker
Professor
Linguistische Anthropologie und Altamerikanistik
Seminar fuer Romanische Philologie
Universitaet Goettingen
Humboldtallee 19
37073 Goettingen
Germany
tel./fax (priv.): ++49-5594-89333
tel. (office): ++49-551-394188
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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