[Aztlan] Taking Liberties with Mexican Spellings??

[kim Goldsmith]

I want to thank everyone who wrote to me personally
with their opinions.  I also want to thank Dave for
clearing some of that up for us......like I say, I'm
out of the loop on a lot of things since I can hardly
ever go to meetings outside of Mexico, etc.  I agree
whole-heartedly with his statement that:

> "Therefore, I agree with Kim and John that these
> spellings should not be widely applied in Mexico,
> and
> I personally believe they should never be applied to
> proper nouns (especially governmental designations
> like "Yukatan").  It is an over-application of a
> very
> valid indigenous language convention ratified in
> Guatemala."

Dave also talks about the accents on the words.  This
is another thing that I'm sure takes some creative
working with by all of us at one time or another when
we are writing up articles, reports, etc.  Because I
work and live at Teotihuacan, that word in particular
is a problem for me.  Since it is, of course, a
Nahuatl word, the accent is by nature meant to fall on
the penultimate syllable, so it seems redundant to me
to use it.  To complicate matters further, the natives
of the area do NOT call the town OR the site
"Teotihuácan"....we all call it "Teotihuacán".  It
makes it very difficult to know what to do.  Again,
thanks to everybody for their opinions and help.

And on another note.......WHEN ARE YOU ALL COMING TO
VISIT ME???  Spring break is almost here and summer is
not far away.  My summer agenda is pretty booked, but
if any of you are planning a trip out this way be SURE
and let me know.  My husband and I would love to have
you out to the site!

Hope to see you soon!

KIM





--- David Hixson <aztlandave at yahoo.com> wrote:

> In Mesoamerica, especially in the Maya area, this
> movement is stemming from a NATIVE linguistic
> movement, not a foreign movement, nor a governmental
> movement.  So, Kim's criticism of foreign
> researchers
> imposing these new spellings is not quite accurate.
> 
> A meeting of indigenous (and non-indigenous)
> linguists
> and native speakers met in Guatemala (the Academia
> de
> las Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala) to attempt to
> standardize what were very diverse orthographic
> conventions for the southern Maya area.  These were
> codified into law by the Guatemalan government and
> are
> becoming the standard spellings for native words in
> the southern Maya area.  Representatives from 22
> Mayan
> languages ratified the accords, but Tzeltal, Tzotzil
> and Yucatec Maya are not included in the documents.
> 
> Therefore, I agree with Kim and John that these
> spellings should not be widely applied in Mexico,
> and
> I personally believe they should never be applied to
> proper nouns (especially governmental designations
> like "Yukatan").  It is an over-application of a
> very
> valid indigenous language convention ratified in
> Guatemala.
> 
> For instance, I've been working on an illustration
> (a
> Map of Mesoamerica showing the sites mentioned in
> the
> text) for an upcoming edited volume.  The
> contributing
> authors from Guatemala insist upon not using accents
> on site names (since this practice stems from the
> Spanish need for accents to sign when a word does
> not
> have an accent on the penultimate syllable, not a
> reflection of native Maya pronunciation).  Those
> authors from Mexico are all insisting that I spell
> their sites with the standard Spanish accents
> marked.
> 
> There is also a good discussion of this in the front
> matter of "Ruins of the Past: The Use and Perception
> of Abandoned Structures in the Maya Lowlands" edited
> by Stanton and Magnoni, where they likewise found a
> middle ground that differentiated between what
> Guatemalan activists desired for spellings
> pertaining
> to their own country and cultures, and those
> spellings
> pertaining to Mexican-Mayan terms.
> 
> For some references and another synopsis, see:
> 
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_languages#Modern_orthography
> 
> -Dave
> 
> 
>      
>
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Never miss a thing.  Make Yahoo your home page. 
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