Translation Assistance for Nahua-inspired Lullaby

Michael McCafferty mmccaffe at indiana.edu
Tue Oct 12 11:39:03 UTC 2010


Quoting "Campbell,  R. Joe" <campbel at indiana.edu>:

> Cindy,
>
>   Michael has already offered the answer with his "pochotl" and "ahuehuetl"
> (note lack of vowel length).

Quematzin. Was lazy about providing vowel length for this kind of enterprise.
:-)


But for interested listeros:

/po:cho:tl/

I believe Kartunnen's dictionary has this here term.

These tree terms are in the Florentine, with no vowel length indicated. 
I'd guess 'ahuehuetl' would be /a:we:we:tl/



>
>   Dibble and Anderson did not include "juniper" as a translation for
> "ahuehuetl" anywhere in the Florentine Codex, but "pochotl" and
> "ahuehuetl" have a high rate of co-occurrence, mainly due to their
> partnership in a "difrasismo", with the meaning of 'refuge'.

This is nice, Cindy, in that your lullaby can hook up with an ancient 
idea that relates to it.

If you wanted to make the song sound even more ancient you could change 
the xi- to xa-.

;-)




>
>   Louise C. Schoenhaus, in her _A Spanish-English Glossary of Mexican
> Flora and Fauna_ (published by the Summer Institute of Linguistics),
> says:
>
>   juniper (Juniperus spp., e.g., J. monticola)  cedro blanco, cedro,
>   cipre's, enhebro, junipero, ta'scate, tlaxcal (page 185)


This "tlaxcal" is curious


>
> ...so since "ahuehuetl" is a cypress (as Michael said), the circle is
> closed... or is it a triangle?

quadrahedron?


Michael



>
> Iztayomeh,
>
> Joe
>
> Quoting Michael McCafferty <mmccaffe at indiana.edu>:
>
>> Quoting Cindy Williams Gutierrez <cindy at grito-poetry.com>:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Dear Nahuatl Enthusiasts:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Can someone kindly help with a translation of the following lines (or
>>> point me to a resource for translation):
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *	"Sleep, small one"
>>> *	"Let me be the cottonwood, the juniper"
>>
>>
>> I'm a sucker, perhaps a buffalo fish, so I'll take the bait.
>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> "Xicochi, conetzin,
>> Xinechchihuacan in pochotl, in X..."
>>
>>
>> X means I don't have "juniper" in my Nahuatl vocabulary, or so I think.
>> I have it in Navajo, French, and Miami-Illinois, but not in Nahuatl.
>>
>> Could I interest you in fir, pine, or cypress?
>>
>> oyametl 'fir', ocotl 'pine', ahuehuetl 'cypress'
>>
>> :-)
>>
>> Hopefully, someone else can supply the juniper.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm working on a Nahua-inspired lullaby poem.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thank you kindly,
>>>
>>> Cindy WG
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Nahuatl mailing list
>> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
>> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
>>
>
>
>
>



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