[Aztlan] Ball game or just ball court?

[Gordon Whittaker]

Dear John and Joe,

Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't tlachtli just the ball court, not
the ball game itself? The Spanish use of 'juego' tends to blur the
distinction, but do we actually have clear cases in Nahuatl texts of the
term being used for the game? Tlachtli looks to me like a loan from
Zapotec, as I think I may have argued in my dissertation. My memory's not
what it used to be.

Best,
Gordon

>
> 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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Gordon Whittaker
Professor
Linguistische Anthropologie und Altamerikanistik
Seminar fuer Romanische Philologie
Universitaet Goettingen
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