Talk:Classical Nahuatl grammar

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Nahuatl vs Classical?[edit]

Does the article discuss Nahuatl grammar or Classical Nahuatl grammar? Some of the information has been taken word for word from the original Nahuatl language article. Jobber 07:42, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Nahuatl is agroup of languages that doesnt share the same grammar. The former page nahuatl grammar discussed only classical nahuatl grammar. There is no such thing as an "overall" nahuatl grammar and a variety must be specified when describing its grammatical features, so classical nahuatl grammar is more precise. Classical nahuatl grammar is the best described variety of nahuatl and representative as giving a basic idea of the grammar of a nahuan language. --Maunus 20:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Saltillo[edit]

The main article makes reference to a sound known to the Spaniards as a saltillo but there does not seem to be an article in Wikipedia about a "saltillo" per se. In what way does the Spanish saltillo depart from a German glottal stop? Is the Spanish saltillo similar to some other kind of a stop, such as a velar stop? Does the glottal stop sometimes sound like an Arabic 'q' sound, uttered somewhat farther back in the throat? Although I have had the advantage of having talked to real Nawatl speakers, that was some time in the past, and I no longer have the opportunity to resolve the differences. Other readers of Wikipedia are likely to be in the same boat as I am. The article could be improved if a word or two were added, explaining the intended use of the Spanish 'saltillo' term.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.177.27.22 (talk • contribs)

Classical Nahuatl poetry?[edit]

Is there an article on Classical Nahuatl poetry somewhere in Wikipedia?

I am working on it. Untill now there is only mesoamerican literature and Aztec codices.

Orthography[edit]

I propose changing this article to use h rather than `/^ for the saltillo. The reasons being:

  • It recognises the glottal stop as a consonant in its own right. The diacritic makes it look as though it's somehow a variation on the vowel. This is especially handy when you want to talk about the plural suffix, which consists of just a glottal stop.
  • It's the closest thing to a standard orthography for Classical Nahuatl: it's used in J. Richard Andrews' Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, Francis Karttunen's Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl, Alexis Wimmer's online Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl classique, and David K. Jordan's online Nahuatl lessons.

--Ptcamn 07:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I oppose that suggestion for reasons I have stated several places already.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 10:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I support Ptcamn as that is the ortography currently used on the Nahuatl Wikipedia to create uniformity on Classical Nahuatl.--Fluence 16:32, 21 June 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Therefore, for example "ten" is written "Mahtlāctli", not "Màtlāctli", "I", is written "Nehhuātl", not "Nèhuātl" and of course "Mixxoh" not "Mixxô". Also, there are some ortography matters I'd like to correct looking forward for a Huiquipedia compability such as "tlācatl" not "tlācātl" and "cihuātl", not "cīhuatl".--Fluence 19:42, 30 June 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
If no objections as of July 3, I shall make the change.--Fluence 19:42, 30 June 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I think we should probably move this discussion to a more central location. How about creating a Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Nahuatl)? --Ptcamn 06:55, 2 July 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
A MoS for Nahuatl sounds a promising idea. At the very least, it would be useful to identify & set out competing orthographical conventions in the absence of any universal standard. --cjllw ʘ TALK 23:23, 2 July 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
NB: a start of sorts on a 'style/terminology guide' for Aztec/Nahuatl articles was made a while ago at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aztec/Terminology, culled from prev. discussions on talkpgs but not much further developed. That may provide at least a platform to begin with.--cjllw ʘ TALK 00:43, 3 July 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
my arguments against h are as follows: 1. it blurs the distinction between nahuatl variants with glottal stop and variants with /h/. 2.it causes confusion with the orthography of hu/uh for /w/ 3. it hinders recognition of words from classical texts that do not mark glottal stop by introducing extra letters into them. 4. I explicitly deny the need for uniformity with the nawatl wikipedia - just because they've made bad decisions we have no need to repeat them here. And otherwise I defer to what I have already stated at: Talk:Aztec#Let.27s_discuss_orthography. The issue with words like tlācatl and cihuātl is simply to not invent long vowels where there aren't any - the spellings cīhuatl and tlācātl should be considered simple spellign mistakes. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 08:14, 3 July 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
It may be confusing for some but it's easier to write. Is complicated enough with the macrons. It's too late to change h in 1824 articles into grave and circumflex accents. The Nāhuatl Huiquipedia should be the basis for the articles. And also, the macron mistakes were marked by the only native-Nahuatl speaker on Huiquipedia, Akapochtli, not by me. I'm not completely against but it would be our work on Huiquipedia to change every article, not yours. What I write there is based on this article, so if it's as "awful" as you said to Node ue, it's not my fault.--Fluence 03:32, 7 July 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There's no need to keep this article in line with the Nahuatl Wikipedia. We don't have to be constrained by the orthography the Nahuatl Wikipedia has chosen, nor they by us. --Ptcamn 06:55, 7 July 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Also, Classical Nahuatl has no native speakers.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 04:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
PS. If a grave or circumflex accent rule should be placed, I think it would be more convenient only when two /h/ are found together. Then, "Mahtlāctli" would be the same and "Nehhuātl" would change to "Nèhuātl".--Fluence 03:37, 7 July 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]
No, of course it's no obbligatory. However, you'll have two different Classical Nahuatl languages and it'd be better a united uniformity with texts on Wikimedia.--Fluence 03:24, 8 July 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Deleting mention of Whorf's conjecture about the typology of the language[edit]

NOT the Whorf hypothesis, but a different conjecture. The commentary links to an article on oligosynthetic language. Right in that short article, it is made clear that the notion of "oligosynthetic language" never gained a following among even a small number of linguists. It is clear that not "a minority of linguists" considered classical Nahuatl "oligosynthetic", but Whorf alone. Benjamin Lee Whorf has been dead for over 60 years, and in that time this conjecture of his as to the existence of an "oligosynthetic" type of word structure in any language has remained in the dustbin of linguistic history. Obviously, to mention it in the lead of this article constitutes undue weight. Indeed, probably any mention of it would constitute undue weight; it's just a distraction.

Agreed. Also the fact that Whorf never published his ideas about oligisynthesis in nahuatl makes it of dubious relevance. And very close to being unsourced. (the microfilmed manuscript exists - but it can't be considered easily verifiable) ·Maunus·ƛ· 15:35, 30 January 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

literal translation[edit]

"ticihuātl, 'you (singular) are a woman' (sentence with a noun predicate cihuātl, 'woman')"
Wouldn't it literally just be "you (sg.) woman", i.e. isn't the "are a" added to make sense in English? If it's added, shouldn't it be marked like "you (sg.) [are a] woman"? -01:57, 23 March 2015 (UTC), comment added by an IP.

Noun inflection[edit]

Accourding to the information in the article one would get a noun inflection table like this (the word for slave uses the possissive form of the word for person accourding to en.wt):

number English
sing. plur.
absol. tlācatl
tlācohtli		 tlatlācah
tlātlācohtin		 person[s]
slave[s]
possessor indef. tētlācauh tētlācahuān somebody's person[s] (slave[s])
I. sing. notlācauh notlācahuān my person[s] (slave[s])
II. sing. motlācauh motlācahuān thy person[s] (slave[s])
III. sing. ītlācauh ītlācahuān his (her, its) person[s] (slave[s])
I. plur. totlācauh totlācahuān our person[s] (slave[s])
II. plur. anmotlācauh anmotlācahuān your person[s] (slave[s])
III. plur. īntlācauh īntlācahuān their person[s] (slave[s])
possessive distinction; inalienable possession
A possessive distinction like "my meat (which I can eat)" and "my meat (which is a part of me)" seems not to make sense with person/slave. But maybe a king or fictional creature could say something like "my persons (which are a part of me)", so maybe that possessive distinction is missing here:
notlācauhyo - my person which also is a part of me [maybe a king's bondman or minion] &c.

But en.wt states that there's also a vocative, which (usually) is a case resp. a inflected form of a noun: [en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pilli#Classical_Nahuatl] & [en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pill%C3%A9#Classical_Nahuatl]. So, either en.wt is wrong/misleading or some inflection related information is missing here. -14:25, 23 March 2015 (UTC), slightly changed 09:52, 24 March 2015 (UTC), comment added by an IP.

Sentences with a noun predicate[edit]

Example in the article: "ticihuātl, 'you (singular) are a woman' (sentence with a noun predicate cihuātl, 'woman')" 1. "sentence with a noun predicate" -- That is not part of inflection, at least not in "normal" European languages. But: Is this viewed differently in case of Nahuatl, i.e. are those one word senteces which might look like an inflected noun viewed as noun inflections or not?
2. Which forms of "sentence with a noun predicate" are possible?

sg. pl. English
subject I. sing. nitlācatl
nitlācohtli		 -? I [am a] person
... slave
II. sing. titlācatl
titlācohtli		 -? thou [are a] person
... slave
III. sing. nitlācatl
nitlācohtli		 -? he (she, it) [is a] person
... slave
  • The forms "-?" (singular person, plural noun) shouldn't exist.
  • Forms like "titlatlācah" (or with h at the end like "titlatlācahh"?) (plural person, plural noun) should exists; meaning: we [are] persons &c.
  • Forms like titlācatl (plural person, singular noun) could exists; meaning: we [are a] (collective noun, e.g. people) &c.
  • Forms with unspecified subject could exist.

So, which forms do exists and which not?
-09:52, 24 March 2015 (UTC), comment added by an IP.

Verb prefixes[edit]

In the article:

Subject Object
Unknown -tē-, 'somebody, something' -tla-, 'somebody, something'
  1. Isn't it "Unspecified" instead of "Unknown"? It's very likely that one can know the subject/object, but that one can also omit it. E.g. in English "He hit the man" can be expressed (in a disguised way) as "He hit someone" or "The man got hit".
  2. In "Michel Launey & Christopher Mackay: An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl (2011)" it is:
    "Nahuatl has two indefinite prefixes:
    -tē- __ for humans (indefinite people)
    -tla __ for non-humans (indefinite things or animals)
    [...]
    nitlacaqui __ I hear (something or things) (caqui 'hear')
    nitēitta __ I see people etc."
    There it is nitlacaqui = ni-tla-qui (first person singular - unspecified object, non-human - verb) and nitēitta = ni-tē-itta (first person singular - unspecified object, human - verb). Accourding to en.wp though, "nitēitta" doesn't exist or is wrong, as there would only be #tlaitta (# = place holder for any subject - unspecified object - verb), e.g. nitlaitta with "subject = first person singular", or tē#itta (unspecified subject - # = place holder for any object - verb).

-15:19, 23 March 2015 (UTC), comment added by an IP.

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