[Aztlan] Re: 2012: Was there a word for 'repetition'?

[Barb MacLeod]

Sid Hollander asked whether there was a Mayan word for 'repetition'. He 
said:

>You lost me when you spoke about the Maya not having a word for cycle
>(if they did or not is not at question) but you then go to great lengths
>speaking of "repetitions" that they used.  Did they have a word for
>"repetitions".

There is in Yukatek a word for 'repetition', used to reflect the concept of 
'return to a calendric starting point' as well as 'repetition of a prior 
event'. In fact, Landa cited it in reference to the first day of each 
twenty-day period of the haab, and its Ch'olan cognate appears, albeit 
rarely, in the Classic inscriptions to denote a return to the starting point 
of a cycle.

>From the Diccionario Cordemex (Barrera-Vásquez 1980), page 394:

k'eh:    séptimo día, octava

k'einah:  suceder a otro en la muerte o en otra cosa, desastre y trabajo;
u chi'en kan, u kehin in yum: mordióme una culebra, yo me moriré tras mi 
padre que murió,
yo le sucederé así, es agüero de los indios.

The root is analyzable as k'eh, but from cognate examples in the Classic 
inscriptions where is is spelled [k'i-hi], we see that it has a long vowel 
(so is really k'eeh) and that its final consonant is /h/ , in contrast with 
/j/. That contrast was lost in Yukatek during the early colonial period. The 
word k'einah may be analyzed as:

 k'ee(h)  (n.) 'return to starting point' ( /h/ is a weak consonant and is 
often lost in medial or final position)
-in        usative suffix meaning 'take for, use for'
-ah       (formerly -aj)  detransitivizing/nominalizing suffix, typically 
found with dictionary citations to provide a
            concept in gerund form,  as in 'suceder a otro...' , 'following 
someone/something...', 'repeating something that
            has already happened' .

The Maya were apparently disposed to applying the term to the European 
seven-day week, as seen both in 'seventh day' ("and on the seventh day He 
rested") and in 'octave', also reflected in the Spanish term 'ocho días' for 
the week with both return points included.

Landa used the term <uinal hunekeh> to describe the twenty-day "months" of 
the haab.

This can be analyzed as:

winal    'period of twenty days'
hun       (jun) '(the numeral) one'
'e          'the' (definite article)
k'eeh      'return point'

Winal hun-'e-k'eeh: 'a twenty-day period (for which) the numeral One is the 
starting point'. This indigenous marking--which Landa apparently did not 
understand and which has received scarce attention ever since--clearly 
contrasts the twenty-day periods which start with One (as we know the months 
of the haab did in Yucatan during Landa's time) with those of the Short 
Count, which started with zero--a whole 'nother discussion with respect to 
calendric cyclical repetition. And it seems reasonable that this labeling 
may have served to contrast the extant New Year pattern with an earlier one 
in which the first day of each month was the 'seat'. David Stuart has 
provided ample evidence for this pattern in the Classic, and perhaps 
earlier.

We also know from a decipherment of Dave's that the Classic scribes 
occasionally represented the seat of a month as the 'edge/mouth of the haab' 
of the preceding month--i.e. 'u -ti' Yaxk'in on Naranjo St. 19,  rather than 
the common ('u)-chum 'its seat'. So these concepts of 'haab-edge' and 'seat' 
are also bound up with the idea of cyclic repetition.

Finally, have a look at the Lunar Series of Copan Stela I, wherein we know 
that the moon is at conjunction and not visible. The verb which replaces the 
usual '(number of days) since it arrived' of Glyph D is written [k'i-hi-ya] 
: k'iih-iiy-0 'returned to starting point', or 'zeroed'. Here we have an 
observed astronomical phenomenon encoded as k'iih.

Barb MacLeod