moyoma (vs. moyoni) reconsidered

[Gordon Whittaker]

Dear Nahuatl(@lists.famsi.org)aca,

Not long after clicking on Send to submit my last post on yomo:ni vs.
moyo:ni I realized that I should have gotten a little more sleep before
writing it. While rereading the post I noticed that I had completely
overlooked the obvious fact that Sahagún's <moioma> and <moiôioma> are not
odd cognates of moyo:ni (and yomo:ni) but rather simple reflexives with
prefixed mo-. Oops! So my comment "What is interesting here is the fact
that the second syllable of <moioma>, /yo/, gets reduplicated, not the
first. " is not interesting at all, because the verb stem is actually
<iom>, not <moiom> (in the Florentine's orthography).

I stand by the other remarks and comparisons made, concerning the
relationship between Molina's <moyoni> and <yomoni>. The metathesis of
moyo:ni to yomo:ni, if that is what has happened, may have been facilitated
by the existence of the verb mo-yoma (for which I have not yet found
attestations with long o), given its semantics.

Best wishes,
Gordon

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:42:59 +0100
> From: Gordon Whittaker <gwhitta4 at googlemail.com>
> To: t_amaya at megared.net.mx
> Cc: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> Subject: [Nahuat-l] yomo:ni vs. moyo:ni -- a metathetical
>        relationship?
> Message-ID:
>        <CAKNL27cMcVmEyVc=-fUvtrQW82-4kV=mth4OL7AJyjYh+KiukA at mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Tomastzine,
>
> Many thanks for your valuable comments! A couple of days before receiving
> your mail I had been communicating with Jonathan Amith on <yomoni> and he
> remarked that it "sounds sounds something like moyo:ni, which is used for
> the agitated movement of disturbed insects" in Guerrero Nahuatl. That got
> me thinking about the possibility that <yomoni> might just be a local or
> regional metathetical variant of the well-attested moyo:ni.
>
> So I checked Molina and this is what I came up with:
>
> Moyoni.    bullir las hormigas gusanos o cosa semejante.
> [...]
> Yomoni.    bullir los gusanos, o piojos, pulgas, hormigas, o cosas
> semejantes, o dar mucha comezon los granos o la serna, o tener gran
> encendimiento de la carne los mozos o mozas luxuriosas.
> Yoyomiquiliztli.    comezon.
> Yoyomoca. ni.    tener comezon.
> Yoyomoctli.    los riñones.
>
> I think the striking similarity between the first two entries strongly
> suggests not only a semantic but also a morphological/genetic relationship
> between the two verbs.
>
> So then I checked the Florentine Codex, and this is what I found in Bk. 10,
> Ch. 27, Par. 12 (p. 131 in Dibble and Anderson):
>
> *Testis                          Joiomoctli: *
> [...]
> it moves lasciviously           moioma,
> both move lasciviously          moiôioma,
> it stirs                        iomonj,
> it swoons with lasciviousness   iôionmjquj,
> [...]
>
> Sahagún's juxtaposition of these verbs again suggests a close semantic, if
> not morphological, relationship. I suspect that <ixyoyomoni> might refer to
> making faces by rolling the eyes and twitching the face. The <ô> of Sahagún
> is likely to be o + glottal stop. What is interesting here is the fact that
> the second syllable of <moioma>, /yo/, gets reduplicated, not the first. So
> in both these verbs, <moiôioma> and <iôionmjquj>, we have a reduplicated
> /yo'/ (with glottal stop). The verbs with initial /yo/ are likely to be
> local or regional variants hailing from Mexico and/or Tetzcoco and
> environs. Cf. also the dynastic name Yoyontli.
>
> Tomás, your information on similar verbs in Chachahuantla and Cuetzalan,
> especially on ixmomoyoni (for i:xmo:moyo:ni, with the first o vowel long?)
> and ixmohmoyoni, is, I think, confirmation of this hypothesis. It would be
> interesting to know if the same compounds turn up elsewhere. Thanks so much
> for your very useful comments. Cenca' nimitztlazo'ca:mati! Übrigens, Dein
> Deutsch ist bewundernswert. Ich wünschte mir, meins wäre so gut!
>
> I am also very grateful to Jonathan Amith, John Sullivan and to the
> contributors to the totlahtol list for their thought-provoking comments and
> data.
>
> Best wishes,
> Gordon
>
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