Cholula Nahuatl class and encounter

Sat Jan 18 18:24:14 UTC 2014

Dear John,

There is a lot of obviousness in all what you say, but in this case we can
talk about a situation in which there are obvious things we do not want, in
any way, to see:

1.       The nahuatl of Chimalpahin and the nahuatl of the XVI Century
testaments are also the nahuatl of Soyatla and Cuetzalan and Huauchinago;
as well as the Spanish of Cervantes is also our Spanish. Of course, there
is a broken line between Valeriano’s nahuatl and that of Doña Luz Jimenez
or Ildefonso Maya. But this line is more a rope, a rope whose threads not
all are really broken: the joint can still be reconstructed. But we have to
hurry up. Time plays against us.

2.       Scholars prefer to take als source, for the understanding of
nahuatl, the grammars and writtings made by Spanish friars (from Molina to
Carochi). It has not been bad, of course, but they have to recognize that
there exist a living source: that represented by the real nahuatl-speaking
people of our days. If they were able to go to this source, many doubts and
obscurities of the old texts would be clear. But the problem is to enter
inside this source, inside the heart of the communities. To establish true
and reliable relationships with nahuatl-speaking persons (many of them
monolingual). One example: nobody (as well as I know) has been able to
translate correctly the line of the Cuicapeuhcayotl  –in Cantares
Mexicanos-  that says (according to L. Portilla and Brinton): “tla
nitlahuihuiltequi in nican acxoyatzinitzcanquauhtla, manoze
nitlahuihuiltequi in tlauhquecholxochiquauhtla”. For nitlahuihuiltequi
Portilla translates “atravesar” and Brinto “gather”. If we go to the nahuat
of Zacapoaxtla-Cuetzalan we will find that “tahuihhuihtequi means to cut
the bad grass in order that the good  plant can grow” or if the plant (maiz
plant, flower plant) is already covered with the bad grass “to cut the
damaging plant in order that the good plan/flower may be free”. In our case
the singer talks about cutting the forest –grass in order to discover the
flower he is looking for. But just one thing: The word sounds
tahuihhuihtequi i.e. in nahuatl “Central: “tlahuihhuitequi”. Here you have
to pay attention because if you say tahuihhuiLtequi (L before tequi) you
may be meaning “he cuts penises”. All this means: if we pay attention to
the living source, paleography and translation should  be reviewed for
future translations.

3.       The same applies to other expressions I would like to enumerate
but unfortunately I have to go to a family party.

If you are interested I will write more about this in next mails.

Nimitzyoltlapalohua.

Tomas Amaya

2014/1/17 John Sullivan <idiez at me.com>

> Dear listeros,
>         I’m writing from Cholula, where IDIEZ, in partnership with the
> University of Warsaw, is entering the last day of our two-week Nahuatl
> Language and Codex Institute. Tomorrow and Sunday we will hold our second
> Interdialectical Encounter with the participation of 70 native speakers of
> Nahuatl from seven states (and Joe Campbell). I just wanted to share with
> you something particularly surprising that happened last Friday.
>         An interesting aspect of the two-week course is the participation
> of eight young native speakers from the town of Soyatlan, Puebla. Even
> though the schools in Soyatlan are only in Spanish, the people in the town,
> including children speak Nahuatl. So, needless to say, the high school
> students who participated in the course have never read or written anything
> in their native language. Last Friday we transported our Institute to
> Soyatlan and held the advanced Classical Nahuatl component there. We
> projected a manuscript from Chalco, 1564, on the wall of a room used for
> catechism classes, and began to paleograph and interpret it. In attendance
> were high school students and a number of other community members,
> including some of the parents and grandparents of the students. The class
> was conducted monolingually, some of us speaking Huastecan Nahuatl and the
> people from Soyatlan speaking their variant. The surprise is that the high
> school students immediately began reading and understanding the manuscript
> — just like that! And one of the abuelitas picked up a copy of Molina’s
> dictionary and began thumbing through it.
>         We are now planning to formally expand our operations (teaching,
> research and revitalization of Nahuatl) in Puebla and Tlaxcala. And yes,
> the two-week Nahuatl Language and Codex Institute and the Interdialectical
> Encounter will held here again in January of 2015.
> Un abrazo,
> John
>
> John Sullivan, Ph.D.
> Visiting scholar, Faculty of Artes Liberales
> University of Warsaw;
> Professor of Nahua language and culture
> Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas;
> Director, Zacatecas Institute of Teaching and Research in Ethnology
> Tacuba 152, int. 43
> Centro Histórico
> Zacatecas, Zac. 98000
> Mexico
> Work: +52 (492) 925-3415
> Home: +52 (492) 768-6048
> Mobile (Poland): +48 73-380-9876
> Mobile (Mexico): +52 1 (492) 103-0195
> Mobile (US): (203) 823-7790
> idiez at me.com
> www.macehualli.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nahuatl mailing list
> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
>
_______________________________________________
Nahuatl mailing list
Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl