Etymology of "Mexico"

[Michael McCafferty]

The assimilation of the affricate written /tz/ to the fricative written 
/x/ in the presumed etymology of /me:xihko/ as /me:tzli/ + /xi:ctli/ is 
a given. That's just nuts-and-bolts Nahuatl phonetics.

However, one cannot simply say that the long /i:/ of /xi:ctli/ goes to 
short /i/ in /me:xihco/. That's a leap to the Moon itself. What is the 
basis for this vowel shortening? This is not expected.

Moreover, /xi:ctli/ doesn't have a glottal stop, written /h/, as we see 
in /me:xihco/. Where did the glottal stop come from?

The "Moon's Navel Place" is an enticing etymology, but more insights 
are needed to explain the messy phonology.

Michael


Quoting David Wright <dcwright at prodigy.net.mx>:

> [My message came back to me with very alien looking characters, for some
> reason. Here it goes again; I hope it comes through this time.]
>
> Mariotzin:
>
> Regarding the etymology of Mexico, I threw in my two cents worth a couple of
> years ago. I used this toponym as an example in the chapter on phonology in
> a text written to teach Nahuatl to Spanish translation to history students.
> I don't mean to disqualify other attempts to understand the etymology of
> this word, but it's the best I've been able to come up with so far. I'll
> just copy and paste it here, simplifying the spelling conventions (using the
> Andrews/Karttunen system, with colons instead of macrons to mark the long
> vowels; saltillos are represented with the letter 'h'). When I write 'c-qu',
> of course I'm just referring to the phoneme /k/, which can be written 'c' or
> 'qu' in this system; 'qu' is used when the vowel that follows is either 'e'
> or 'i', following Spanish orthographic conventions. At the end are the
> references.
>
> The similarity of meaning in the Otomi toponym (noticed long ago by Jacques
> Soustelle) is significant. Most toponyms in central Mexico are calques:
> meanings were translated from one language to another, regardless of
> phonological form. Thus the study of toponyms from a plurilinguistic
> perspective sheds much badly needed light on the meanings behind the place
> names, and can tips the scales in favor of one interpretation or another. Of
> course, we'll never really know. Even if a 16th century native speaker
> explains a toponym's meaning to us in a text, there's always the possibility
> that his interpretation is just a folk etymology.
>
> ***************************************
> 3.7.3. Disimilación
>
> En adición al fenómeno de la asimilación regresiva, puede haber disimilación
> regresiva. En estos casos dos consonantes idénticas entran en contacto, y la
> primera cambia para distinguirse de la segunda:
>
> •	|c-qu| + |c-qu| > |hc-hqu|.258
>
> 	Un buen ejemplo de este proceso es el nombre de la ciudad que
> dominaba el escenario político del centro de México durante el último siglo
> de la época Prehispánica:
>
> •	Me:xxihco ((me:tztli - tli) + (xi:ctli - tli) (i: > i) (tz + x > xx)
> + co (c-qu + c-qu > hc-hqu)).259
>
> 	La disimilación regresiva es opcional en náhuatl; ya hemos visto que
> en algunos casos las consonantes dobles simplemente se alargan, por lo que
> el topónimo anterior podría expresarse también como Me:xxi:cco. En la época
> Novohispana normalmente no se representaban los saltillos ni las consonantes
> largas, escribiendo simplemente Mexico.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> 258 Andrews, 2003a: 35.
> 259 El topónimo Me:xxihco (o Me:xxicco, sin la asimilación opcional cc > hc)
> significa “en (-co) el ombligo (xi:ctli) de la Luna (me:tztli)”. Esta
> derivación, si bien es polémica, se apoya en la gramática del náhuatl de
> Rincón (1998: 50r y sin p. [libro 4, capítulo 1; Vocabulario breve:
> “Mexicco”]), y en el hecho de que el topónimo otomí equivalente, en el
> Códice de Huichapan, expresa un significado similar: Amadetsänä, “en medio
> de la Luna” (Wright, 2005a: II, 338 [apéndice VIII, inciso B, no. 17]).
>
> ***************************************
> Source of this modified quote:
>
> Wright Carr, David Charles, Lectura del náhuatl, fundamentos para la
> traducción de los textos en náhuatl del periodo Novohispano Temprano,
> México, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2007, p. 71.
>
> Sources cites in the footnotes:
>
> Andrews, J. Richard, Introduction to classical Nahuatl, revised edition,
> Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.
>
> Rincón, Antonio del, “Arte mexicana”, facsímil de la ed. de 1595, en Obras
> clásicas sobre la lengua náhuatl, ed. digital, Ascensión Hernández de
> León-Portilla, compiladora, Madrid, Fundación Histórica Tavera/Mapfre
> Mutualidad/Digibis, 1998.
>
> Wright Carr, David Charles, Los otomíes: cultura, lengua y escritura, tesis,
> 2 vols., Zamora, Doctorado en Ciencias Sociales, El Colegio de Michoacán,
> 2005.
>
>
>
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