Etymology of "Mexico"

Sun Jul 26 15:56:31 UTC 2009

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

> 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.

The problem with Andrews' explanation, David, is that it's a fallacy 
based on circular logic, with no supporting evidence.

He explains the etymology of "Mexico," on page 500, on the basis of 
this putative /kk/ > /?k/ shift, basing this pronouncement on an 
earlier note in the explanation of Nahuatl phonology. The reader then 
goes to that note, on page 35, only to find that he says, well, /kk/ > 
/?k/...and we see this in the term... Mexihco. (!)  Bad reasoning. We 
need real evidence, many more examples. Andrews doesn't have any. :-)

Now, on page 29 that you refer us to, Andrews simply states that the 
vowel before a glottal stop has to be short. Uh...

None of the above serves to explain the etymology of /me:xihco/, as far 
as I can see.

Saludos y buenos tardes,

Michael

>
> 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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