Me:xi'co and other toponyms

[Gordon Whittaker]

Hi everyone,

It's good to see this topic receiving attention again. But please excuse
me, Magnus, for setting the record straight on a few things -- this is
just to avoid certain misconceptions getting perpetuated in cyberspace and
beyond.

1) In the Navel/Centre of the Moon:
David Wright was not saying that the idea was his. Nor was it Tibon's,
which a mail by another contributor seemed to suggest. As David and I both
had noted, the popularizer of this etymology was Jacques Soustelle,
although, as David rightly points out, the etymology goes back to Rincón.
And, as Michael McCafferty stresses, the actual evidence (incl. Carochi
and Rincón) for the form and meaning of the name in the 16th century is
not particularly overwhelming. After all, the fact that a language (or
even group of languages) adopts a specific etymology in translating a
place name does not make the etymology any more convincing or original
than another -- we have plenty of examples of false or variant etymologies
being so adopted. I even found one example of a Nahuatl name coming from a
mistranslation of a 16th-century Spanish translation of a Oaxacan toponym!

Besides, I have just offered an alternative etymology for Me:xi'co, namely
that it derives from a legendary (or semi-legendary) ancestor, <Mexi>,
linked to Hutzilopochtli -- the same Mexi after whom the (pre-Mexica)
<Mexitin> are named. The latter name can hardly be derived from me:tz-
'moon' plus xic- 'navel'!

2) The Otomi connection:
You state that "Dr. Wright argues very convincingly that Mexico is a Nahua
calque of an earlier oto-pamean placename".
Actually, no he doesn't -- at least not in the mails posted recently. As
far as I can tell, David does not claim an Otomi (let alone Otopamean)
etymology for Me:xi'co. He and I merely repeated (with some phonological
elaboration) the arguments and the connection already made by Soustelle in
his classic introduction to Aztec civilization. It would not be very
plausible ( -- in fact, it would be downright implausible -- ) to suggest
that the Aztec capital itself is a translation of an Otomi name.

3) -ca:n toponyms:
You write, "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."
Not quite. There are indeed many instances of -ca:n in place names NOT
derived from nominals. These names consist of an intransitive verb + -ca:n
(see my separate posting on Teo:tihua'ca:n vs. Teo:hua'ca:n).

Thanks to all for the stimulating exchange! And thanks, Magnus, for the
details on recent toponym history in Morelos.

Best wishes,
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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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