Nahua toponyms

[Michael McCafferty]

Quoting Magnus Pharao Hansen <magnuspharao at gmail.com>:

> Dr. Sullivan: before reading your response I realized the weakness of my
> proposed translation of teotihuacan: you are right /ka:n/ is used for
> placenames derived form nominals!  It should be teotihuaya:n for my
> etymology to work. However holyfireowneragentplace still doesn't convince me
> either.

Quemetzin, Magnus.

/-ya:n/ occurs after impersonal verb forms in -hua and -lo, as for 
example in "cochihuayan," "tlamachtiloyan," etc. So, yes, -can on the 
end of the indeed attested verb "teotihua" is problematic. It would 
interesting to scour the known corpus of Nahuat place names to see if 
-can is seen *anywhere* else with impersonal verbs. That might help in 
this discussion.


teotl + tetl- + -can   is also within the (far-reaching :-) realm of 
possibility, 'place of the divine stone'.

Does anyone know where "Teotihuacan" is attested?

What are the original attested spellings?

Are there any variant spellings? Who got this place name?

Best,

Michael












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