[Aztlan] Water Over the Earth

[Barb MacLeod]

Hello, All,

If David Bolles is reading this thread, hopefully he will join in.
I mentioned the improbability that /jay/ 'thin', 'spread out' could be 
cognate with /hay/ 'destruction' 'flatten (in destruction)' because it is so 
tempting to lump them, and because in modern Yukatek there is no longer a 
/j/ vs. /h/ contrast to distinguish them. But this contrast is registered in 
the Motul (and a cognate /jaay/ occurs on vases in the PSS). I haven't gone 
looking in other languages for cognates; it's worth doing. It also seems 
unlikely that the root /hay/ originated as /ha'/ 'water plus a suffix 
/-i(l)/, though a form /ha'-il/ 'pertaining to water', 'watery', exists, as 
Dave demonstrated. The possessed form, by the way, varies according to 
innateness, such that 'its water (of a river)' is /y-a'-al-(il)/. In any 
case, the other Motul and Cordemex entries I gave earlier strongly suggest 
that /hay/ is a sovereign root and is not directly related to *watery* 
destruction.

S'far as I know, the STAR-OVER-EARTH/yi/ya collocation is still 
undeciphered. Perhaps we'll hear from someone who has considered every known 
context to see what morphological and semantic variations it may have. The 
yi syllable--thought by many to signal a mediopassive--is often superimposed 
on the KAB. But a mediopassive interpretation should not apply to ya, except 
perhaps quite late (and would be a whole 'nother can o' annelids). I don't 
know whether anyone has yet suggested a HAY or HAY KAB reading for the 
STAR-OVER-EARTH glyph, but Prudence, I think it's quite viable, and who 
knows? Perhaps the flanking water droplets on the STAR are there to cue the 
first part (as in ha) of the root. This reading would help explain the 
variation between yi and ya. But of course Tortuguero 6 has to be the 
headbanger.

It is also tempting to suggest that there is some iconic history with the 
thing that links it to the gushing eclipse sign hanging from the belly of 
the crocodile on Dresden p. 74, but as with all iconic temptations, I would 
be cautious. Contexts for STAR-OVER-EARTH make it rather clear that it's not 
about flooding, and probably not about spreading things out nor thinning 
them, but rather about wholesale pillaging and flattening of buildings.

Barb



*******

David Hixson wrote:

>
> This would have been my translation of haiyokocab as well.  Except for the 
> extra /i/ inserted into the word.
>
> I would have expected, based upon standard Maya root formation that there 
> would have been a consonant or a glide
> before or in place of the /i/.
>
> /ha/   /'i[l]/   /yoko[l]/   /cab/
>
> A quick look through the Cordemex resolved this question for me, as there 
> is in fact a word "ha'il" (with the glottal
> stop between the vowels).  This term is glossed as "acuatico, aguadija, 
> secrecion".
>
> Without that glottal stop, I don't think one should ignore that /i/ as 
> possibly changing the meaning of this term.
>
> Therefore, while I still think Michael's transcription of the various 
> roots within this term are absolutely correct, I do
> caution that this seems to assume an insertion of a consonant between the 
> first two vowels, or the the omission
> of the second vowel.
>
> Perhaps there is a linguist on the list who could explain the placement of 
> this /i/, since I welcome any corrections
> to my understanding of Maya orthography.
>
> -Dave
>
********************

Prudence M. Rice wrote:

>
> So could this phrase be the meaning of the so-called "star
> wars"
> glyph that shows droplets over an earth sign?

Michael Grofe wrote:
>
> I submitted my message before I saw all of yours, so my apologies for the
> redundancy.
> Barb, is it possible that we have here a pun for both /ha/ as 'water' and
> /hay/ as 'destruction' over the earth?
>
> Bolles' reading of /hay/ as 'flatten' would seem to be semantically 
> related
> to the root 'stretch thin, make flat', yes? I also found an entry he has
> about /hai/ as 'of or pertaining to water', but this seems to be a
> contraction from /hail/:
> http://www.famsi.org/reports/96072/h/hah_hakzic.htm
>
> Prudence, the iconography in the "Star War" glyph certainly is suggestive 
> of
> this 'water over earth' destruction by flood - albeit with the
> EK'star/Venus sign included. The current tentative reading of this
> collocation,
> proposed by David Stuart (1995:265, 311?13), is /hub'/, meaning 'fall,
> collapse', and elsewhere as 'destroy, knock over'. However, as far as I
> know, the only clues we have regarding the reading are a commonly infixed
> /yi/ that can replace the KAB' component, or follow it as a suffix, 
> whereas
> other examples have a /ya/ suffix. I found one example on the now famous
> Tortuguero Monument 6, G4 which contains both the /yi/ and the /ya/ as
> suffixes following the whole version of the "Star Wars" glyph that 
> includes
> the KAB' component. The /-yi/ would seem to be a completive/past tense 
> form,
> though it may tell us that the root does have a final /-y/. The /-yi-ya/
> combination is less common, but it may read 'since it was
> destroyed/attacked'.
> Barb, any thoughts?
>
> Cheers,
> Michael
>
>