[Aztlan] Ball game question

[Campbell, R. Joe]

  Further, the verb "tlachiya" (or, in its frequent spelling, 
"tlachia") is not related to the noun "tlachtli".  Word pieces are 
assumed to be the 'same' piece (morphemes) when they share enough in 
both form (phonological composition) and content (meaning).  A proposed 
relationship should also be credible within observed formal variations 
of both members of a morpheme.

  "tlachiya" never loses enough of its basic shape to allow us to 
identify it with "tlach(tli)".  While it *does* lose the /y/ segment in 
most Nahuatl dialects (after /i/ -- just as /w/ is lost after /o/) and 
the /a/ sometimes lost, the /i/ is never lost (i.e., the stem never 
shortens to "tlach...".
The fact that "tlachiya" actually *does* have an underlying /y/ is 
obvious in the preterite where the /y/ shows up as 'x' "(o)nitlachix" 
'I saw' and the nominal derivation "tlachixqui" 'sentinel', where the 
/y/ undergoes a general syllable-final change to 'x' (pronounced sh).

  This fact about the form of "tlachiya" is fatal to its proposed 
relationship with "tlachtli", but on the semantic/content side, it 
would also fail.  Where could we find evidence for the relationship 
between 'seeing' and 'contest'?
Obviously, in modern cultures, 'spectators' are tightly associated with 
'games'.
There wouldn't be nearly as many contestants as there are in all our 
modern contests if the pool of spectators disappeared.  But that's not 
the point --
the question is whether we can identify a relationship between 'seeing' 
and 'contest' in the community where "tlachiya" might have given rise 
to "tlachtli'.

Iztayohmeh,

Joe



Quoting "John F. Schwaller" <schwallr at potsdam.edu>:

> You have the words somewhat reversed:
>
> Tlachtli is the ball game
>
> Tlachco is the place where it is played.
>
>
>
> Pedro de Eguiluz wrote:
>> Ball Game in classic nawatl is Tlachko, in the middle of
>> Tenochtitlan there was one called Teotlachko "Divine Game court".
>>
>>
>>
>> One of the clues that lead us to the origins of this game being
>> astronomic observation, comes from the verbal form of the word
>> Tlachtli "Ball game", Tlachia "Observe, see". It was used to say
>> Ilwikakpa nitlachia "I look at the sky". "Observation post" was
>> Tlachialoyan.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>>
>>
>> Pedro
>>
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>
>
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