Etymology of "Mexico"

Sun Jul 26 01:13:24 UTC 2009

Well, Michael, all we have to do is get all our morphophonological nuts and
bolts together, put them out in the moonlight, and the phonology doesn't
look so messy. The glottal stop comes from the regressive dissimilation that
is described in my post: two /k/ segments come together and the first one
becomes /?/ (that's a glottal stop, not a question mark). That's what I
meant by "(c-qu + c-qu > hc-hqu)." It looks cleaner in IPA: (/k/ + /k/ >
/?k/). The first /k/ is the last segment of the root morpheme of the noun
xi:c(tli), and the second /k/ is the first segment of the locative suffix
-co. So far so good? The next step is to shorten the /i:/, since a long
vowel before a glottal stop in Nahuatl shortens. That's what I meant by "(i:
> i)". The latter reduction in vowel length is not only expected but
required. (On both regressive dissimilation and vowel-length reduction
before a glottal stop, see Andrews, 2003: 25, 29, 35.)

Thus, Me:xxihco ((me:tztli - tli) + (xi:ctli - tli) (i: > i) (tz + x > xx) +
co (c-qu + c-qu > hc-hqu)). This may look messy, but it's really not, it's
just a bit complicated, due to the chain reaction of (c-qu + c-qu > hc-hqu)
making (i: > i) necessary.

Can you see it now? I'm using a shorthand loosely based on algebraic signs,
hoping they'll be comprehensible to most readers. The sign > is like a
little arrow, indicating the result of the morphophonemic processes that
distort the boundaries of the morphemes (it doesn't mean "greater than"
here).

Since the regressive assimilation is optional, the following alternative is
also possible (as I pointed out in one of the footnotes in my post, although
I see now I forgot to mark the vowel length in the /i:/ segment):

Me:xxi:cco ((me:tztli - tli) + (xi:ctli - tli) (tz + x > xx) + co). This
form looks a lot cleaner, since there is only one segment change (tz + x >
xx) instead of three.

Thanks for making me look hard at this, Mike. You helped me catch the error
in vowel length in the latter example. I've made the correction in the
manuscript for the forthcoming (someday, I hope) second edition of my book.
By the way, if anybody out there has a copy of the first edition without the
"Fe de erratas," please write to me and I'll send it to you by e-mail.
Between the author, the editor and the designer we managed to let a lot of
little bugs slip through the filters.

Peace,

David

-----Mesaje original-----
De: Michael McCafferty [mailto:mmccaffe at indiana.edu] 
Enviado el: sábado, 25 de julio de 2009 07:00 p.m.
Para: David Wright
CC: Nahuat-l (messages)
Asunto: Re: [Nahuat-l] Etymology of "Mexico"

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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