Etymology of "Mexico"

Sun Jul 26 21:49:29 UTC 2009

Listeros,
1. /kk/ > /hk/ is an absolute rule for Huastecan Nahuatl. In fact, in  
the subject-specific object sets "nic-" and "tic-" followed by a  
consonant, the /k/ is practically inaudible.  Further, -uh is  
pronounced /h/, and /kw-k > hk/. However, none of these sound changes  
result in the shortening of a preceeding long vowel. In other words,  
it is not the sound of the glottal stop that shortens the preceeding  
long vowel, it is the glottal stop itself. For this reason, though I'm  
sure that the "c" in "xi:ctli" is pronounced /h/ before /k/, I doubt  
that this would shorten the "i:".
	Is there any evidence in Classical Nahuatl (besides the possible  
example of "mexihco") of a "c" actually being written as an "h" or  
converting into the diacritic for a glottal stop, before another /k/?
John

On Jul 26, 2009, at 3:15 PM, David Wright wrote:

> Muy estimado Michael:
>
> I'm glad we've gotten beyond the "messy phonology" argument to  
> something
> more tangible, i.e. the possibility that one of Andrew's grammatical  
> rules
> (/kk/ > /?k/) may be incorrect and that he offers little supporting  
> evidence
> for it (only the toponym Me:xihco). The frequent lack of evidence  
> and of
> showing where the examples are from is the weakest aspect of Andrews'
> Introduction to Classical Nahuatl. I often turn to this book for
> morphophonological information, since his treatment of this area  
> goes beyond
> other sources I have at hand. You are right in being suspicious of the
> statements he makes without displaying his evidence. Usually when  
> one looks
> for supporting evidence for Andrews' claims one finds them, but  
> there may
> still be problems here and there (in spite of the fact that the 2003  
> edition
> was revised during a quarter of a century of constant use, although  
> this is
> no guarantee). At any rate, the problem of /kk/ > /hk/ that you  
> bring up
> needs to be solved. If no further examples turn up after an exhaustive
> search, this rule should be crossed out from our collective list of  
> possible
> morphophonological changes. It occurs to me that a good place to  
> start would
> be to read through Carochi with this doubt in mind. I wish I had a
> searchable digital version; that would make this task much quicker.  
> Any
> other sources that consistently use the glottal stop (there aren't  
> that
> many) should also be searched. I checked Launey's thesis but it he  
> seems to
> have spread his comments on morphophonology throughout his lengthy  
> text, so
> there's no quick fix. I don't have the time to solve this problem  
> right now.
> If any listeros have pertinent data, it would be helpful if they  
> shared it.
> The matter is of some importance.
>
> As for vowels before glottal stops being short, you don't need page  
> 29 of
> Andrews 2003 to see this; it's basic Nahuatl phonology. Just run  
> through any
> of the grammars and dictionaries that mark vowel length and glottal  
> stops
> (Carochi, Andrews, Launey, Campbell/Karttunen, Karttunen, Wolf, and
> Bierhorst) and you'll see how it works.
>
> So we have one possible analysis of the toponym "Mexico" that works  
> as "in
> the navel of the Moon", in which the optional regressive dissimilation
> proposed by Andrews (kk > hk) is not applied:
>
> Me:xxi:cco ((me:tztli - tli) + (xi:ctli - tli) (tz + x > xx) + co).
>
> In the latter analysis the only morphophonological change required  
> is the
> regressive assimilation tzx > xx which you have accepted as "nuts- 
> and-bolts
> Nahuatl phonetics".
>
> The second form, which depends on the optional kk > hk  
> dissimilation, is
> essentially the same as the latter, except for the first c (/k/)  
> becoming h
> (/?/), with the required shortening of the long vowel (i: > i).
>
> Me:xxihco ((me:tztli - tli) + (xi:ctli - tli) (i: > i) (tz + x > xx)  
> + co (c
> + c > hc).
>
> Either form, Me:xxi:cco or Me:xxihco, can be translated "in the  
> navel of the
> Moon". Either would have usually been written "Mexico" in standard
> "Franciscan" orthography, since long vowels were not marked, glottal  
> stops
> were rarely written, and double consonants were usually written as  
> single.
> (Exceptionally, I've seen xx in Franciscan orthography, e.g.  
> "inimexxaiac"
> (in i:mexxa:yac), "su cara [máscara] de [piel de] muslo", in book 2,  
> chapter
> 30 of the Florentine Codex.)
>
> In support of Me:xxihco, we have Carochi (book 3, chapter 11) writing
> Me:xihco (I've changed his macron into a colon for the long e, and his
> accent over the i to an h to sneak it by the Internet gremlins;  
> these don't
> alter the underlying phonology.) This is not a typo. In book 1,  
> chapter 2,
> he writes Mexihcatl (person from the city of Mexico) and Mexihcah  
> (people
> from the city of Mexico). Here he seems to have forgotten to mark  
> the long
> vowels; in book 3, chapter 11 we find Me:xicah and Me:xicah. The usual
> procedure with these gentile names, derived from toponyms ending in  
> the
> locative suffix -co, is to remove the -co and add the gentilic  
> suffix -ca
> plus -tl for singular or -h for the plural. Carochi didn't write the  
> double
> x, but this can be considered normal in colonial period Nahuatl texts.
>
> So there we have a non-Andrews example of Me:xihco. That would tend to
> reinforce Andrews' kk > hk regressive dissimilation, assuming the  
> presence
> of the root xi:c, although additional examples are still needed.
>
> Carochi's mentor, the Jesuit priest and native Nahuatl speaker  
> Antonio del
> Rincón, descendant of the royal house of Texcoco and author of a  
> Nahuatl
> grammar (Arte Mexicana) published in 1595, has something to say on  
> this
> matter, as I mentioned briefly in a recent post, providing the  
> citation.
> (Unfortunately, although he explains how he used diacritics to mark  
> glottal
> stops in his text, the printer was unable to reproduce them and they  
> were
> omitted from the published version; as far as I know the original  
> manuscript
> has not surfaced.) Here is what Rincón says, in the first chapter of  
> book 4
> (folio 50 recto and verso of the 1595 edition):
>
> "Nota lo primero que en qualquier composicion el nombre que pierde  
> algo con
> la composicion es el que tiene la significacion en oblico, o como  
> adjetivo
> v.g. [...] Mexico. en medio de la luna, porque perdio el tli, el  
> nombre,
> metztli y generalmente pierden los nombres la ultima en composicion,  
> como
> con los genitivos de los pronombres."
>
> In his "Vocabulario breve", at the end of his Arte (without folio  
> numbers),
> we find this gloss:
>
> "Mexicco: ciudad de Mexico, i. en medio de la luna."
>
> It's pretty clear that he's thinking (me:tztli - tli) + (xi:ctli -  
> tli) (tzx
>> xx > x) + co, with xi:ctli, "navel", meaning "middle" in this  
>> context. At
> least I don't see any viable alternatives.
>
> As John Sullivan pointed out, central Mexican toponymical etymology  
> involves
> going beyond morphological analysis and searching for the meanings  
> behind
> the names. I pointed out that most toponyms passed from one central  
> Mexican
> language to another as calques. Here's the data on the Otomi name  
> for Mexico
> Tenochtitlan that I mentioned in  earlier post. It appears in the  
> Huichapan
> Codex (BNAH Testimonios Pictográficos 35-60), with two words:  
> anbondo and
> amadetzänä, sometimes written together, sometimes individually, much  
> as we
> find Mexico and Tenochtitlan together or apart. The final 'o' in  
> Anbondo
> represents a vowel midway between Spanish /o/ and /a/ and today is  
> written
> by the Otomi with an underlined 'a' (except in the Mezquital, where  
> this
> phoneme has shifted to /o/). So we have the singular nominal prefix  
> an- with
> the word 'bonda (underlined 'a'), where ' is a glottal stop. It  
> means "the
> red Opuntia fruit", the seedy fruit of the nopal cactus, of the sort  
> that
> stains your mouth bright red when you eat it. (On a deeper level,  
> this type
> of fruit is a metaphor for human hearts, food for the Sun, in Mexica
> literature and iconography, e.g. cuauhnochtli, "Opuntia fruit of the  
> eagle",
> i.e. human hearts.) Anbondo is the semantic equivalent of the  
> Nahuatl word
> tenochtli. The second Otomi toponym is Amadetzänä, which can be  
> parsed as
> the singular nominal prefix (an - n) plus the adjective made  
> ("middle") plus
> the word tsänä (today zänä in Mezquital Otomi and some other  
> variants),
> "Moon". (The ä is a nasal /a/.) Thus Anbondo Amadetzänä can be  
> translated
> "the red Opuntia fruit in the middle of the Moon".
>
> The close match between Rincon's translation of Mexico and the Otomi  
> toponym
> Amadetsänä strongly supports the former's etymology.
>
> I guess that's all I have. I hope all this helps you to see the  
> logic of the
> navel/middle of the Moon hypothesis. Thanks for motivating me to  
> spend an
> interesting four hours looking at this problem and writing up the  
> results.
> Hopefully someone will help us resolve the kk > hk question.
>
> Saludos respetuosos,
>
> David Wright
>
> ********************************************************************
> 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
>
>
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