Nahuatl Digest, Vol 338, Issue 3
Juan Adrián Pérez Rivera
jadrian.perezr at gmail.com
Fri Jun 13 18:19:59 UTC 2014
Seth
Have you heard the nahuatl of Mexico City (Santa Ana Tlacotenco)? It's
almost equal to Classical Nahuatl, maybe 90% the same. What about them?
They are wrong because they speak the language of tlahtoqueh, of XVI
century?? Nobody forced them to speak like that, it's just that they
actually speak well their language.
We have to understand that most of the 'mahcehualmeh' of other areas
(Veracruz, Morelos, etc) don't know to speak their language correctly. We
believe that just because they are native speakers, they know everything
and they are never wrong about nahuatl grammar.
Even Librado Silva Galeana, who was 'mahcehualli', studied his language at
UNAM. He didn't feel he knew everything about nahuatl just because he was
native speaker. He understood he needed to study more to master his
knowledge in nahuatl. So, if you don't like classical nahuatl, then take
the nahuatl of Santa Ana Tlacotenco as reference. I don't 'hate' other
dialects, but we need standardization to save nahuatl, in order to have
millions and millions of nahuatl speakers :)
2014-06-13 12:00 GMT-05:00 <nahuatl-request at lists.famsi.org>:
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Standardization of Nahuatl (John Schwaller)
> 2. Re: Standardization of Nahuatl (Mario E. Aguilar)
> 3. Mass in Nahuatl (Magnus Pharao Hansen)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 23:43:56 -0400
> From: John Schwaller <jfschwaller at gmail.com>
> To: "nahuatl at lists.famsi.org" <nahuatl at lists.famsi.org>
> Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Standardization of Nahuatl
> Message-ID: <77E2C3B5-0D14-4D02-AEFD-96BE546BAB49 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
> While the Inquisition was charged with monitoring the activity, it was
> Church policy that the Bible only be in Latin, the Vulgate. Scripture was
> not translated into any local language, Spanish, English, Chinese, etc.
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
> John Schwaller
> Professor of History
> University at Albany
>
> > On Jun 12, 2014, at 10:00 PM, Edward Polanco <e.a.polanco at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Dear all,
> >
> > The Inquisition censored the translation of Scripture into indigenous
> > languages in the late 16th century (1580s). High probability for
> > mistranslation and thus heterodoxy was used as a justification for this
> > decree. Sahagún and Molina were both consulted on the matter by the Holy
> > office in Mexico.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Edward
> > Sent from a wireless device
> > El jun 12, 2014 8:53 PM, "seth wolitz" <slwolitz at earthlink.net>
> escribió:
> >
> >> Dear John: Your main position ia of course well taken and I support it
> >> fully but frankly you did not make a strong case. You needed to present
> it
> >> with a point by point logical linearity that eschews the clearly
> >> colonialist misguided persuasion of the Church to create a nahuatl mass
> in
> >> some concocted standard nahuatl.. It is astounding that there is no
> copy of
> >> the mass in nahautal form the 16th century when they were so busy
> >> prosetyzing? Can this be? Check on that! In any case, you have your
> hands
> >> full here and a clear polemic i before you. Good Luck!
> >> Seth
> >>> On Jun 12, 2014, at 6:32 PM, John Sullivan wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Notequixpoyohuan,
> >>> The importante thing is not to create a standard version of
> >> Nahuatl. Rather, we need to promote communication among native speakers
> of
> >> all variants. A standardized orthography for all variants across space
> and
> >> time would go a long way toward facilitating this. Carochi is a good
> >> staring point here, but his system has been improved by
> >> Andrew/Campbell/Karttunen.
> >>> As native speakers communicate across variants, they will begin to
> >> understand each other and slowly share words and structures with each
> >> other. A small, multi-variant manual of common words and structures
> would
> >> also promote inter variant communication.
> >>> There is no such thing as a variant called Classical Nahuatl.
> >> This. There were at least as many variants in the past as there are now.
> >> Classical Nahuatl refers to the corpus of documents composed in Nahuatl
> >> using alphabetic writing during the colonial period (which in turn
> doesn´t
> >> make too much sense because the writing continued after Mexican
> >> Independence). As we progress in our study of this corpus we become more
> >> and more aware of these varietal differences. So?.. Classical Nahuatl is
> >> not what the four tlahtoqueh you speak of spoke. And even if they did,
> >> would this justify their variant substituting for all others? I hope we
> >> understand today that multilingualism/multiculturalism (read
> >> multi-variant-ism) is good for humanity: ethnocide is not.
> >>> I heard this argument (that Classical Nahuatl be used as a modern
> >> lingua franca) proposed by a European friend of Miguel León Portilla a
> few
> >> years ago at the 50th anniversary of his seminario, and it sounded as
> >> ridiculous then as it does now. And even if it had any academic merits,
> >> Nahuas themselves would not accept it, and they should´t. It would be
> >> viewed as the most recent in a long tradition of impositions by
> outsiders.
> >>> Hmm, notequixpoh Adrián, ¿por qué deberíamos consultar a tres
> >> académicos no-nativohablantes de náhuatl para poder traducir la misa? Y
> por
> >> último, ¿por qué crees tan importante traducir la misa al náhuatl? Ya
> >> estuvo con el trabajo misionero (y eso que soy católico), ¿no crees?
> >>> John
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> On Jun 12, 2014, at 19:49, Juan Adrián Pérez Rivera <
> >>> jadrian.perezr at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> About the translation of a Nahuatl Catholic Mass and more things
> >>>>
> >>>> I think it's great for nahuatl to receive attention from Rome. I'm
> >>>> catholic, and I think it would be great to translate many catholic
> >>>> texts to nahuatl. BUT, I'm afraid I don't like the way things are
> >>>> being done.
> >>>>
> >>>> You talk about create a 'simple' and 'unified nahuatl', in order to
> >>>> make a mass that every nahuatl speaker can easily understand. NAHUATL
> >>>> doesn't need this kind of changes. If you do this, you would make
> >>>> serious damage to this beautiful language.
> >>>>
> >>>> In my opinion, if you want to make a 'unified nahuatl', you should
> >>>> take classical nahuatl as reference. This is the original, the nahuatl
> >>>> that Cuauhtemoc, Tlacaelel, Itzcoatl and Motecuhzoma spoke. And in my
> >>>> opinion, if someday in the very far future, we have an agreement,
> >>>> Classical Nahuatl should be the standard nahuatl. Padre Horacio
> >>>> Carochi's grammar is the best book available to settle the nahuatl
> >>>> rules and correct writing and meanings and pronunciation. Also, you
> >>>> may go to Milpa Alta, in Mexico City. In the town of Santa Ana
> >>>> Tlacotenco, they speak a kind of nahuatl that is very close to
> >>>> classical nahuatl.
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm sorry if I sound aggressive, but this is a problem that should be
> >>>> consulted with expert people, not with bishops. Many groups around
> >>>> Mexico claim to have created their unified nahuatl, and the result is
> >>>> that we have dozens of 'correct' nahuatl idioms. I insist, we need to
> >>>> consult with people like Dr. León Portilla, Dr. López Austin, Dr.
> >>>> Launey, etc. etc. in order to have an excellent translation of
> >>>> catholic mass, I would really like that.
> >>>>
> >>>> If you speak spanish, I recommend this article from the serious
> >>>> magazine Estudios de cultura nahuatl:
> >>
> http://www.historicas.unam.mx/publicaciones/revistas/nahuatl/pdf/ecn42/874.pdf
> >>>>
> >>>> Here the author recommends to use classical nahuatl as the standard
> >>>> and explain the reasons why we should do this.
> >>>>
> >>>> We need to teach people form little towns the correct grammar of their
> >>>> own language, because many of them don't know how to write it
> >>>> correctly, and that's why there are many dialects nowadays. Regards.
> >>>>
> >>>> Achcauhtli
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> 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
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> 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
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 05:01:46 -0700
> From: "Mario E. Aguilar" <micc2 at cox.net>
> To: "'seth wolitz'" <slwolitz at earthlink.net>, "'John Sullivan'"
> <idiez at me.com>
> Cc: 'list nahuatl discussion' <nahuatl at lists.famsi.org>, 'Juan Adrián
> Pérez Rivera' <jadrian.perezr at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Standardization of Nahuatl
> Message-ID: <000701cf86ff$40f16ca0$c2d445e0$@cox.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I believe that forcing modern day Nahuatlahtoh to write....speak.... think
> in "the Classical Nahuatl" of Moctekwzuma and Sahagun would be akin to
> forcing Mexicans, Peruvians, and Colombians to speak, write and think in
> the
> Castilian of Cervantes..... or forcing Brits, Aussies, and Yanks, to do the
> same in Shakespeare's English.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nahuatl-bounces at lists.famsi.org
> [mailto:nahuatl-bounces at lists.famsi.org] On Behalf Of seth wolitz
> Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2014 5:29 PM
> To: John Sullivan
> Cc: list nahuatl discussion; Juan Adrián Pérez Rivera
> Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Standardization of Nahuatl
>
> Dear John: Your main position ia of course well taken and I support it
> fully
> but frankly you did not make a strong case. You needed to present it with a
> point by point logical linearity that eschews the clearly colonialist
> misguided persuasion of the Church to create a nahuatl mass in some
> concocted standard nahuatl.. It is astounding that there is no copy of the
> mass in nahautal form the 16th century when they were so busy prosetyzing?
> Can this be? Check on that! In any case, you have your hands full here and
> a
> clear polemic i before you. Good Luck!
> Seth
> On Jun 12, 2014, at 6:32 PM, John Sullivan wrote:
>
> > Notequixpoyohuan,
> > The importante thing is not to create a standard version of
> Nahuatl.
> Rather, we need to promote communication among native speakers of all
> variants. A standardized orthography for all variants across space and time
> would go a long way toward facilitating this. Carochi is a good staring
> point here, but his system has been improved by Andrew/Campbell/Karttunen.
> > As native speakers communicate across variants, they will begin to
> understand each other and slowly share words and structures with each
> other.
> A small, multi-variant manual of common words and structures would also
> promote inter variant communication.
> > There is no such thing as a variant called Classical Nahuatl. This.
> There were at least as many variants in the past as there are now.
> Classical
> Nahuatl refers to the corpus of documents composed in Nahuatl using
> alphabetic writing during the colonial period (which in turn doesn´t make
> too much sense because the writing continued after Mexican Independence).
> As
> we progress in our study of this corpus we become more and more aware of
> these varietal differences. So….. Classical Nahuatl is not what the four
> tlahtoqueh you speak of spoke. And even if they did, would this justify
> their variant substituting for all others? I hope we understand today that
> multilingualism/multiculturalism (read multi-variant-ism) is good for
> humanity: ethnocide is not.
> > I heard this argument (that Classical Nahuatl be used as a modern
> lingua franca) proposed by a European friend of Miguel León Portilla a few
> years ago at the 50th anniversary of his seminario, and it sounded as
> ridiculous then as it does now. And even if it had any academic merits,
> Nahuas themselves would not accept it, and they should´t. It would be
> viewed
> as the most recent in a long tradition of impositions by outsiders.
> > Hmm, notequixpoh Adrián, ¿por qué deberíamos consultar a tres
> académicos no-nativohablantes de náhuatl para poder traducir la misa? Y por
> último, ¿por qué crees tan importante traducir la misa al náhuatl? Ya
> estuvo
> con el trabajo misionero (y eso que soy católico), ¿no crees?
> > John
> >
> >
> > On Jun 12, 2014, at 19:49, Juan Adrián Pérez Rivera
> <jadrian.perezr at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> About the translation of a Nahuatl Catholic Mass and more things
> >>
> >> I think it's great for nahuatl to receive attention from Rome. I'm
> >> catholic, and I think it would be great to translate many catholic
> >> texts to nahuatl. BUT, I'm afraid I don't like the way things are
> >> being done.
> >>
> >> You talk about create a 'simple' and 'unified nahuatl', in order to
> >> make a mass that every nahuatl speaker can easily understand. NAHUATL
> >> doesn't need this kind of changes. If you do this, you would make
> >> serious damage to this beautiful language.
> >>
> >> In my opinion, if you want to make a 'unified nahuatl', you should
> >> take classical nahuatl as reference. This is the original, the
> >> nahuatl that Cuauhtemoc, Tlacaelel, Itzcoatl and Motecuhzoma spoke.
> >> And in my opinion, if someday in the very far future, we have an
> >> agreement, Classical Nahuatl should be the standard nahuatl. Padre
> >> Horacio Carochi's grammar is the best book available to settle the
> >> nahuatl rules and correct writing and meanings and pronunciation.
> >> Also, you may go to Milpa Alta, in Mexico City. In the town of Santa
> >> Ana Tlacotenco, they speak a kind of nahuatl that is very close to
> >> classical nahuatl.
> >>
> >> I'm sorry if I sound aggressive, but this is a problem that should be
> >> consulted with expert people, not with bishops. Many groups around
> >> Mexico claim to have created their unified nahuatl, and the result is
> >> that we have dozens of 'correct' nahuatl idioms. I insist, we need to
> >> consult with people like Dr. León Portilla, Dr. López Austin, Dr.
> >> Launey, etc. etc. in order to have an excellent translation of
> >> catholic mass, I would really like that.
> >>
> >> If you speak spanish, I recommend this article from the serious
> >> magazine Estudios de cultura nahuatl:
> >> http://www.historicas.unam.mx/publicaciones/revistas/nahuatl/pdf/ecn4
> >> 2/874.pdf
> >>
> >> Here the author recommends to use classical nahuatl as the standard
> >> and explain the reasons why we should do this.
> >>
> >> We need to teach people form little towns the correct grammar of
> >> their own language, because many of them don't know how to write it
> >> correctly, and that's why there are many dialects nowadays. Regards.
> >>
> >> Achcauhtli
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nahuatl mailing list
> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 10:08:14 -0500
> From: Magnus Pharao Hansen <magnuspharao at gmail.com>
> To: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> Subject: [Nahuat-l] Mass in Nahuatl
> Message-ID:
> <CAEj69cze1rf4SCKFa7ZZxf2FjxRscOam6d6U3cQ=
> mfS0S9BB3Q at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Dear Listeros,
>
> Thanks for all your responses, I agree entirely with your worries, but
> would like to clarify a couple of points that were perhaps not clear in the
> original mail. The first is that I am not participating in the work, but
> was simply invited as an observer. The second is that the majority of the
> participating priests are macehualme, i.e. native speakers, and that also
> the process of translation exactly includes the priests taking the
> translations to the people in their parishes to get input on how to improve
> it.It was exactly the Bishops point that it should be the community and not
> academic linguists that shsould decide what translations are or arent
> acceptable. Also the Bishop does not personally participate in the
> translatin but simply organizes and leads the effort and mediates with Rome
> and the other Mexican Bishops. And Third, it is not the´case that Rome is
> invested in creating a standardized nahuatl, they are only creatng a
> satndardized mass (which still allows for local variations to suit
> lingustic needs specific to individual cmmunities of speakers) - they do
> not intend for this Unified Nahuatl to have any linguistic impact outside
> of the sphere of the Catholic church (though in my opinion it undoubtedly
> will have).
>
> I will keep you informed about any further developments thhat I become
> aware of.
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
> --
> Magnus Pharao Hansen
> PhD. candidate
> Department of Anthropology
>
> Brown University
> 128 Hope St.
> Providence, RI 02906
>
> *magnus_pharao_hansen at brown.edu <magnus_pharao_hansen at brown.edu>*
> US: 001 401 651 8413
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nahuatl mailing list
> Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
> http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl
>
>
> End of Nahuatl Digest, Vol 338, Issue 3
> ***************************************
>
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