Tetelcingo Nahuatl, called ''Mösiehuali̱'' by its speakers, is a
Nahuatl variety of central Mexico. It is one of the core varieties closely related to
Classical Nahuatl. It is spoken in the town of Tetelcingo, Morelos, and the adjacent ''
Colonia'' Cuauhtémoc and Colonia Lázaro Cárdenas. These three population centers lie to the north of
Cuautla, Morelos and have been largely absorbed into its urban area; as a result the Tetelcingo language and culture are under intense pressure.
In 1935
William Cameron Townsend
William Cameron Townsend (July 9, 1896 – April 23, 1982) was an American Christian missionary-linguist who founded Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute of Linguistics (now SIL International), both of which emphasized transla ...
published a study of Mösiehuali̱, and a number of other studies have been published since then.
Phonology
Vowels
Tetelcingo Nahuatl has converted the distinction of
vowel quantity found in more conservative varieties into one of
vowel quality
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
. The short vowels are reflected as (orthographically ''i̱ e a o'') in Tetelcingo, while the long vowels become (orthographically ''i, ie, ö, u'').
Consonants
Tetelcingo Nahuatl, like many dialects of Nahuatl, does not have voiced
obstruent consonants (with one clear exception: the stem /maga/, meaning 'fight' is derived from /maka/ 'give, hit'). Voiced obstruents and other non-native consonants do occur in
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s from
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
, however, and there are many such words in the language.
[ ]
Honorifics
Another striking characteristic of Tetelcingo Nahuatl is the pervasiveness and complexity of its
honorific
An honorific is a title that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for position or rank when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term "honorific" is used in a more specific sense to refer to an honorary academic title. It ...
s. Generally every 2nd or 3rd person verb, pronoun, postposition or possessed noun must be marked honorifically if its subject or object, designatum, object or possessor (respectively) is a living adult (the speaker's wife or adult children being exceptions). Extra-honorific forms of several kinds exist, especially for addressing or referring to godparental relations, high officials or God. Many third person honorifics use morphemes that in Classical Nahuatl were used to mark non-active (passive) verbs or unspecified or plural participants. Not infrequently a different (
suppletive In linguistics and etymology, suppletion is traditionally understood as the use of one word as the inflected form of another word when the two words are not cognate. For those learning a language, suppletive forms will be seen as "irregular" or even ...
) stem is used for honorifics, or the honorific form is in some other way irregular.
A few examples are given below, using the orthography of Brewer and Brewer 1962. Where more than one form is listed, the second is more highly honorific.
References
External links
(SIL Mexico)– includes sound recordings
Mösiehuali̱ Honorifics– includes sound recordings
Spanish loans in Mösiehuali̱– includes sound recordings
Texts in Mösiehuali̱
Literature
*Brewer, Forrest, y Jean G. Brewer. 1962. ''Vocabulario mexicano de Tetelcingo''. Vocabularios indígenas “Mariano Silva y Aceves” 8. México: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.
*Pittman, Richard S. 1948. “Nahuatl honorifics”. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 14:236-39.
*Pittman, Richard S. 1954. A grammar of Tetelcingo (Morelos) Nahuatl. ''Language Dissertation 50'' (supplement to ''Language'' 30).
*Tuggy, David. 1979. “Tetelcingo Nahuatl”. ''Modern Aztec Grammatical Sketches'', 1-140, Ronald W. Langacker, ed. ''Studies in Uto-Aztecan Grammar'', vol. 2. Arlington, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics and University of Texas at Arlington.
*Tuggy, David. 1981
''The transitivity-related verbal morphology of Tetelcingo Nahuatl: an exploration in Space
ognitivegrammar.'' UC San Diego doctoral dissertation.
{{Uto-Aztecan languages
Nahuatl