Vetancurt manuscript title transcription

[Michael McCafferty]

Quoting Jesse Lovegren <lovegren at buffalo.edu>:

> In the one colonial-era document that I've studied, word-final nasals are
> often omitted.  So the idea that *çe* is short for "çem" is probably a good
> guess.

Jesse, I don't think so. I just wrote some preliminary ideas to Susana 
and included a note stating that, from where i sit, it looks like 
tlatlacohuani is a noun and "ce" is just the indefinite article, 
English "a".

Michael

>
> On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 8:29 PM, Susan Zakaib <szakaib at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Listeros,
>>
>> A colleague at the John Carter Brown library has asked me for
>> assistance in transcribing the title of a Nahuatl manuscript held
>> there, by Agustín de Vetancurt. Like plenty of colonial-era
>> manuscripts, the letter spacing doesn't always correspond to the
>> actual word separation, which complicates the process of transcribing
>> it. Faded ink in some spots isn't helping, either. They don't need a
>> translation, just a proper transcription--but it still requires
>> determining what would actually make sense in Nahuatl. I'd very much
>> appreciate some input, especially on some parts I'm stuck on. Here's
>> my (attempted) transcription:
>>
>> "NexcuitilMachiotl quimoteittitilia yn tonantzin Santa Yglesia ytechpa
>> tlatohua Çe tlâtlacohuani aic chipahualiztica Omoyolcuiti
>> Ocentelchihualoc Mictlan Oqui_motecpanilli Padre fray Agustin de
>> Betancurt San Francisco teyenoPiltzin; San Joseph Mexico motlapielia."
>>
>> The parts I'm especially unsure about are the following:
>>
>> "Çe tlâtlacohuani": Should this be all one word, or two? I separated
>> them into two because I figured "çe" refers to the word for "one," and
>> the compound form of that (as far as I know) is "cem," rather than
>> "ce" (and there is clearly no letter in between). But perhaps "ce"
>> means something else, here?
>>
>> "Oqui_motecpanilli": By the looks of the manuscript, what I've
>> inserted as a blank space is probably either an n or just a smudge
>> that isn't actually a letter. I figure an n doesn't really belong
>> there, as it would presumably turn into an m, since it's in front of a
>> labial consonant. While it's possible that what looks like an n is
>> actually a squished m, I think it might make more sense if the object
>> is the singular "qui" rather than the plural "quim"; I figure the word
>> is "he arranged it," as in, Vetancurt arranged the following
>> manuscript (referring back to "nexcuitilmachiotl," "exemplary model,"
>> which I assume describes what follows). Does this sound right, that
>> this space probably doesn't contain any letter at all, or is it
>> possible that it's actually an n or an m?
>>
>> "teyenoPiltzin": The first two letters are hard to make out, but I
>> think the first one is t, and the second one is either e, i, or
>> possibly o. I figure the latter half of this word(s) is pil(li) and
>> -tzin, but I have no idea what teye/tiye/toye could be, or whether any
>> of it should be attached to "piltzin." I'm stumped--any ideas?
>>
>> Tlazcamati in advance, and apologies for a rather lengthy series of
>> questions!
>>
>> Saludos,
>> Susan
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Jesse Lovegren
> Department of Linguistics
> 645 Baldy Hall
> office +1 716 645 0136
> cell +1 512 584 5468
>



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