Toponyms/quotes/notes/1/17/2024

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Toponyms

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quote

Perhaps the most striking examples in compound words in Nahuatl are in toponyms, or place names. For example just limiting ourselves to the state of Puebla in Mexico, we have the town of Papaloapan which comes from papalotl/butterfly and apan/river so the colorful translation of the place name is “River of butterflies.” Coacalco is composed of coatl/serpent, calli/house and –co which is a suffix that indicates “place of.” All together we get the poetic image: “Place of the house of the serpent.” While we are on the subject of serpents there is another town with the name Mazacoatlan which comes from mazatl/deer, coatl/serpent and the suffix –tlan/among. Put it all together and you get: “Among the deer snakes.” It is important to add for the unfamiliar reader that a mazacoatl is a species of boa constrictor found in Mexico and they are quite harmless in spite of their immense size!!
The amazing thing about these toponyms is that with a limited vocabulary in Nahuatl you can translate a limitless number of place names and at the same time learn about the characteristics and history of each town or city.

from Mexiclore

Here on facebook posted in group a Longfellow poem, the one about shooting an arrow into the sky, it caught my eye browsing after posting-I left a comment...go figure!

The Arrow and Song

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,

That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak

I found the arrow, still unbroke;

And the song, from beginning to end,

I found again in the heart of a friend.

Longfellow

Poetry Foundation

Oh, a compound poem, my coin, a portmanteu-at Mexiclore on the web there's the notion of compound words used by the Aztecs, especially toponyms, to express sentiments, conceits, things read between the lines, like this poem...🙂

Notes: attempts to make up a language have gone the route of using compound words...for sometime how the pre columbian Americans would use compound words, two different words together, to suggest, infer, a third unspoken meaning-a read between the lines language, a read between the lines culture!

Aloha,

:)

DavidDavid