[Aztlan] Translation of honesty

[David Hixson]

I have an old worm-eaten dictionary that I find very
useful when it comes to colloquialisms.  This
Maya-English dictionary ("Vocabulario de Mayathan")
was compiled by Dorothy Andrews Heath de Zapata
(Undergrad from U. Pitt [1951] degree of Philology,
[1967] and a degree in archaeology [1971] from
University of Yucatan).

The dictionary was composed while she was living in
Merida, using various source books, along with local
informants.  It is certainly not an exhaustive (nor
always authoritative) source, but it can be extremely
useful when it comes to terms that she felt would
properly convey an english term or phrase.

She gives the Yucatec translation:

Honest: tohol

[now, "tohol" really means "straight" but clearly the
meaning is properly translated - such as in the phrase
"toh a wool" (straight is your heart)]

She also has:

Honesty: zac lemil

Which is clearly an idiomatic expression.

-Dave


--- Nick Hopkins <nhopkins at mailer.fsu.edu> wrote:

> Henry et al.-- The only place I can find an
> translation is in Carlos  
> Lenkersdorf's Spanish-Tojolab'al dictionary. 
> Lenkersdorf has gone  
> beyond the usual dictionary by not limiting himself
> to words in  
> common usage but trying to find (or create)
> Tojolab'al expressions  
> that more or less match the meanings of commonly
> used Spanish words.   
> His equivalents are:
> 
>      honestidad; stojolil
>      honesto/a; tojol
>      Hombre honesto; tojol winik
>      Su conducta no es honesta; mi tojuk la smodo
> 'i.
> 
> The root in all these is "toj" and Kaufman's
> Etymological Dictionary  
> (FAMSI) glosses this as "straight," and the entries
> across the family  
> cover the range of "straight, correct, right, good,
> true, just."   
> Probably as close as you can get.
> 
> Nick Hopkins
> Tojol Winik 
>     
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> 



       
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