Teotihuacan vs. Teohuacan

[Gordon Whittaker]

Hi everyone,

There is one other possibility that we should consider when pondering the
etymology of Teo:tihua'ca:n. That it is a variant of the attested place
name Teo:hua'ca:n, variously 'Where One Has Deities', 'Where There Are
Deities', or simply 'Place of the Deities (or Gods, if one prefers)'. I
realize that we have a <ti> there that seems to discount that idea, but we
should keep in mind that this all-important name of the city where deities
gathered to found our world age has been the subject of considerable
discussion in Nahuatl society and, thus, may well have undergone folk
etymology, influenced by the verb teo:tihua. I realize, of course, that my
suggestion is a little unconventional.

The name as attested CANNOT be analyzed, as often done, as a compound of
the verb teo:tihua + -ca:n. If this had been the case, the resultant form
would be *Teo:tihuaca:n -- without the glottal stop before -ca:n. There
are parallels for toponyms compounded of intransitive verb + -ca:n. For
example, A:pitza:huaca:n 'Where the Water is Narrow'.

Incidentally, we should get away from translations of -hua'ca:n toponyms
as 'Where There Are -ers', as famously in Michhua'ca:n, supposedly 'Where
There Are Possessors (Owners, Masters) of Fish / Fishermen'. I think there
is good reason to understand the suffix chain to mean rather 'Where There
Are (Fish, etc.)', 'Where One Has (Fish, etc.)', 'Place Having (Fish,
etc.)'. An inhabitant of such a place is either a (Mich-, etc.)-hua'
(identical with (mich-, etc.)-hua' in the sense of 'One Who Has ...s') or
a (Mich-, etc.)-hua'catl.

The advantage of this analysis is that we can avoid interpretations of
such place names as Coyo:hua'ca:n as 'Place of the Possessors of Coyotes'
and Chapolhua'ca:n as 'Place of the Possessors of Grasshoppers'. For an
excellent (in fact, by far the best) discussion of Nahuatl toponyms, see
Dyckerhoff, Ursula and Hanns J. Prem, Toponyme und Ethnonyme im
Klassischen Aztekischen (Berlin 1990).

Best,
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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


_______________________________________________
Nahuatl mailing list
Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl