A few words

Wed Jul 28 23:03:41 UTC 2010

I've been wondering (for European art history projects) about what might be
a related question: why is it that acatl is often translated (as in 1-cana
or 1-reed), while Tollan/Toltec/tule fog are explained (they all relate to
"reed") but not translated? I wonder if it has to do with concerns about how
to translate or paraphrase Bible stories, most importantly the finding of
Moses, and comparisons to Egypt. Saint Jerome followed the Septuagint and
used the Greek word papyrus in Exodus 2 for what are just reeds in other
versions, that is the Egyptian plant used to make paper for writing, not the
ordinary cane (cana) used for fishing poles etc. that appears in other
places in the Vulgate. So I wonder if acatl was regarded as an ordinary reed
and tule has a more special significance, not to be confused with either
Egyptian or ordinary plants.
I wonder if the words for cricket and locust are similar, since calling
something a locust would imply a comparison to the plagues of Egypt.
For context, there's a facsimile reprint of Petrus Martyr de Angleria,
Opera: Legatio Babylonica, De Orbe Novo Decades Octo, Opus Epistolarum,
1966, Graz. It's the size of a telephone book and all in Latin, but it's
really amazing that the firsthand account of a trip to Egypt was published
together in the same volume with some of the secondhand accounts in the
Decades in 1516, and with all of the decades in 1530. There's a translation
of the Egyptian part (Legatio Babylonica) into Spanish that I haven't been
able to find. But having the Legatio Babylonica in the same volume with the
Decades must have encouraged comparisons of all kinds. Meanwhile the
Complutensian Polyglot Bible encouraged comparing translations, with the
Vulgate in the center and the Hebrew and Greek on either side, so readers
who could follow the text in three languages could see what was going on
word by word. Not that people compiling Nahuatl dictionaries read all this,
but they were certainly in contact with scholars who did. On the American
side, missionaries might not have wanted to imply Moses was found among some
ordinary reeds and there was a plague of noisy crickets.--susan gilchrist

On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 3:04 PM, Michael McCafferty <mmccaffe at indiana.edu>wrote:

> Quoting John Sullivan <idiez at me.com>:
>
> > Piyali Baert,
> >       First of all the dictionary I made available has only about 1000 of
> > the 7000 headwords that are in our dictionary. The full list will be
> > available by the end of this next school year.
> >       In Modern Huastecan Nahuatl shoe is "tecactli", my shoe, "notecac".
> >       Michael, yes the language has evolved over the years (centuries),
> > but not that much:
> > pitzahuac, "a tree or stick with a thin diameter", or "change
> > (money), vs canactzin, "s.t. thin (except trees and sticks)"
> > nicpitzahua tomin, "I break the money into smaller denominations"
> > nimitzpitzahuilia tomin, "I break the money into smaller
> > denominations for you (I give you change).
> >       I don't think there is much difference between a tree that
> > (grammatically) has become thin, and money that has become thin.
>
> Good points, John. And I agree wholeheartedly on these forms and
> meanings (although I'd say we could have a hearty discussion about how
> much the language has changed in 500 years. :-)
>
> What I meant to refer to was the *abstract* meaning it had acquired in
> the modern language rather than the literal meaning. When you break a
> ten dollar bill, the ten dollar bill in your hand isn't divided into
> smaller parts. That's what I was talking about, albeit unclearly.
>
> Michael
>
> > John
> >
> > On Jul 27, 2010, at 6:56 PM, lahunik.62 at skynet.be wrote:
> >
> >> ·     Pitzahua,
> >> John Sullivan in his Modern Vocabulary translated this as: to give
> change.
> >> Molina speaks of: emmagrecerse.
> >> Karttunen: to get thin
> >> Zan niman tlalli ixco hualpitzahuatiuh ixiuhyo, its foliage come out
> >> slender, just on the surface of the ground, is said of the plant
> >> Tzatzayanalquiltic, Sah.II.162.
> >> ·     Chapolin,
> >> Grasshopper or cricket?
> >> The grasshopper (Gryllus devastator). Like the Latin name says a
> >> very devastating insect.
> >> The cricket (Gryllus campestris). An insect of the night. The male
> >> one makes that typical sound which Sahagun probably mentioned in his
> >> 11th Book pag 250. Spring at Chapoltepec. Is it possible that a town
> >> like Chapoltepec was found on a mountain full of devastating
> >> grasshoppers?
> >> The glyph of Chapoltepec shows a Gryllus, but is it the devastator
> >> or the campestris?
> >> ·     Cactli, shoe (Launey).
> >> Except Launey no one seems to have a Nahuatl word for shoe.
> >> It is not mentioned in Sullivan's Vocabulary, nor in that of John
> Bierhorst
> >> Lahun Ik 62
> >> Baert Georges
> >> Flanders Fields
> >>
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> >
> >
>
>
>
>
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