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Ritual and conversational discourse in Nahuatl.

From “There is no drink as sweet and fragrant as this” to “eat your meal!”

José Antonio Flores Farfán

CIESAS

Key words

Nahuatl conversational and ritual discourse, discourse markers, Nahuatl (internal) linguistic

variability, sociolinguistic competence in (Balsas) Nahuatl, Nahuatl contact and purism.

Abstract

Linked to a series of sociolinguistic differentials (e.g. power, cultural, conversational)

materialized in specific linguistic phenomena, this paper analyzes a couple of discourse

markers in Nahuatl linguistics; namely, the presence/absence of epenthetic /i/, its metathesis,

and the marked use of pronominal prefixes. All these resources indexicalize different

discourse genres and types of interaction together with different social positions in ritual and

conversational discourse. Epenthetic /i/ has mostly been described as an obligatory segment to

maintain the structure of the Nahuatl syllable, which according to existent grammatical

descriptions does not allow consonant clusters. Yet as documented by this and other few

works this restriction only holds for written discourse. As an overall trend, in actual oral

practice the presence or absence of epenthetic /i/ manifests two different types of discourse,

ranging from a highly formal (i.e. ritual) to an informal (i.e. extemporaneous) discourse.

Metathesis of epenthetic /i/ is also interpreted by speakers as a marked choice towards a

Nahuatl de iksaan, “ancient Nahuatl”, especially with the imperative, xi-/ ix-, whereas its

deletion is conceived as the unmarked choice indexing more conversational, informal

(referential or not) practices. Regarding pronouns, the shift between the first person singular

bound morphemes ni- to the second person singular ti-, while addressing a second person

singular, mits-, which from an external point of view could be thought as ungrammatical, also

indexes different interactional treatments and power differentials, such as those concomitant

to generational, gender differences and different types of discourse and interaction. All this is

succinctly analyzed in this paper for the first time, theoretically advancing an interpretation

that goes beyond quantitative paradigms in sociolinguistics, postulating more than for

example an audience oriented (Bell 1984) a conversational and power approach to the

variable use of language, particularly in the case of Nahuatl.

1 Introduction

In this paper the contemporary sociolinguistic complexity of Nahuatl1 is explored. Nahuatl

heterogeneity has historically manifested itself in a number of forms, such as the existence of

an honorific system and sophisticated forms of High speech indexing social stratification

since Prehispanic Mexico. As becomes clear considering the contemporary situation of

Nahuatl as a number of languages the idea of Nahuatl as a homogenous single unity

constitutes part of a colonial monolingual legacy. Moreover, the diversity not only of the

Nahuatl language, but of most Mesoamerican languages constitutes an eloquent expression of

the multilingual ethos that prevailed at the time of the Spanish invasion which still prevails up

to this day even when often highly endangered.

Nahuatl has been one of the most documented and studied languages of the Americas both

diachronically and synchronically. Yet the more we know of the language the more we

realize that several aspects not only of its structure but most of all of its use still have to be

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unraveled (cf. for example Flores Farfán 2004), such as those described in this contribution.

For instance, contrary to what is thought, both by the layman and even by several linguists

(cf. for example Canger 1988) Nahuatl is not a single language, but rather a still

undetermined number of languages or better a continuum of Nahuatl varieties. The idea of

Nahuatl as a single language stems from a predominant (monolingual) ideology that goes

way back into prehispanic times, when Nahuatl had high prestige in a diglossic spectrum

both internally; i.e., within the Nahuatl dialects or languages and externally; i.e., with

respect to other genetically unrelated languages (cf. Flores Farfán 2004, 2007a, 2007b).

Before Aztec invasion of the Mexican plateau a number of Nahuatl speaking populations

already dwelled in what today is the Mexico City area. While expanding military dominance

to the whole Mesoamerican territory Aztecs or Mexicas imposed their own varieties as the

prestige ones. This becomes evident when considering the status of Nahuatl as lingua

franca, among other facts, such as the existence of clear cut varieties linked to internal

social stratification; the Pillatolli “(High: H) Speech of the ruling class” (with other varieties

indexing such differences, such as the Tecpanlatolli, “(High) Palace speech” and the

Macehualatolli “(Low: L) Speech of the commoners” (for a more detailed analysis on this

topic see Flores Farfán 2007a).

Although scarcely investigated, Nahuatl variability has historically manifested itself in a

number of forms. The most well known is the Nahuatl honorific system materialized in a

series of sophisticated markers of most of all High speech genres and varieties. Its very

existence indexes social stratification since Pre-Hispanic Mexico, which even when

significantly reduced, is still in use up to this day (see for example Hill and Hill 1986).

Organized in a diglossic Nahuatl internal spectrum most clearly expressed in prehispanic

and early colonial times, sociolinguistic variability manifested itself in a number of forms

pinpointing to social differentiation; indexing the existence of different social groups in a

hierarchical structure which included warriors and priests at the top of the social pyramid,

passing through a number of artisans and specialists such as magicians and physicians,

reaching the lower strata of society where peasants or Macehualme dwelled. Internal

Nahuatl variability expressed itself in the existence of a native terminology such as the one

alluded to above, including the existence of series of High speech varieties and genres such

as sacred oratory, “poetry”, which were of exclusive use of the Piltin, “the ruling class”.

Such clearly differentiated Nahuatl varieties included as part of their repertoire marked

choices in terms of the morphology conveying different social identities, outstandingly the

High forms. Just consider the plural markers indexing the two main poles of the prehispanic

Nahuatl society just mentioned: -me for the Macehual-me and –tin for the Pil-tin. Notice

that while the form Macehual-tin is indeed possible, probably only when uttered by a

member of the ruling class, such as the Tlatoani “THE speaker, i.e., the ruler”, the form

*Pil-me is never attested. This is consonant with the original Fergusonian definition of

diglossia, in which High varieties are grammatically more complex and include Low forms,

yet not the other way around. Moreover, this is further confirmed by the fact that High

varieties present other plural markers (tlaca-h, “, persons, men”) while Low varieties are

limited to just one (tlaca-me), together with the pejorative overtones that –me also conveys,

as stated by Simeon (1981: 113) in his Nahuatl dictionary for the plural form of female,

cihua-me.

Along the same lines, in the early periods other socio-morphological marked choices

included the use of differentiated absolutive forms such as –tl and –tli, as in xochi-tl (L) vs.

xochi-tli (H) “flower” (which from a conventional view have been reduced to “stylistic”

differences). This is clearly expressed in that the use of xochitli was restricted to the

expression of sacred oratory “poetry”, as suggested an exclusive part of the linguistic

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repertoire of the ruling class. In passing, notice that [i] in xochitli resembles the epenthetic

process treated in this contribution, echoing a similar actor centered-perspective

interpretation.

All this, together with the use of archaisms, highly elaborated metaphors and the above

mentioned use of sophisticated honorific speech, favored Nahuatl central varieties which

were superimposed by the Mexica as the prestige modalities of the language, the dialectal

varieties of Mexico Tenochtitlan and Tezcoco (for a summary of these features see Table 1).

High and Low Varieties Characteristics

High varieties Low varieties Examples

1 Use of

absolutives –tl

and –tli for the

same noun

+ - Xochi-tl (H/L)

Xochi-tli (H)

“Flower”

2 Use of plural

-meh

- + Cihua-meh

(L)

“(Despicable)

Women”

3 Use of plurals

-h

–tin

+ - Tlaca-h (H)

Tlaca-tin (H)

“Men, people”

4 More use of

archaisms

+ - Otlacua-qui

(H)

Otlacuac

(H/L)

“He eat”

4

5 More use of

honorifics

+ - T-on-tlaca-h

(H)

Ti-tlaca-meh

(L)

“We are

persons,

men”

6 Central

dialectological

varieties

(Mexico-

Tenochtitlan and

Tezcoco)

+ - Tlacatl (H)

Tacat (L)

“Person,

man”

7 More

grammatical

complexity

+ -

See 1, 3, 4, 5

These High varieties were actually the documentation target of missionaries who

recovered them for their own purposes of evangelization. Thus, Nahuatl variability has

always been an outstanding index of the power relationships prevalent way back in the

history of Pre-, colonial and contemporary Mexico (see Hill and Hill 1986, Flores Farfán

2004, etc).

As suggested, at contact with Spanish invaders, the colonial power realized that it was

functionally and politically convenient to recast Nahuatl lingua franca for purposes of

evangelization and administration of the new imposed social order. This entailed not only

continuity and consequent maintenance of the use of Nahuatl in different realms but even its

expansion to new domains of use, outstandingly in its written form. In this respect, a written

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Nahuatl tradition for such colonial purposes arose; often times appropriated by Nahuas

themselves to defend their interests, producing the vastest written documentation of any

Indo-American language which rivals with any Classical tradition of the world (cf. Lockhart

1992, Flores Farfán 2004).

The history of Nahuatl-Spanish contact variability is an area which in the last analysis has to

do with the tension between language shift and retention. In this respect, to put it in a

nutshell, in its history Nahuatl has undergone processes of hybridization with Spanish

leading to a continuum of syncretic Nahuatl (see e.g. Hill and Hill 1986). One of its

expressions are several Nahuatl varieties conceived in a continuum ranging from more

conservative to innovative (more Hispanized) forms (see Flores Farfán, 1999, etc.). In turn,

these varieties are evaluated in an ambivalent ideological frame basically related to

linguistic purism, revealing a number of sociolinguistic processes. In the long run, these

include the passage from a polysynthetic to an analytic language, bringing the indigenous

language closer to the hegemonic one in terms of its linguistic typological features (compare

for example kaliitik to iitik kahli, “Inside the house”). As an overall effect, this passage

entails the reduction of Nahuatl expressive resources, outstandingly lexical coinage, which

often times is evaluated as an index of Nahuatl “inferiority” by speakers themselves.

The history of the Nahuatl-Spanish contact and conflict is a whole rich separate chapter on

its own (se Hill and Hill 1986; Lockhart 1992, Flores Farfán 2004, 2007a, 2007b). Even

when not the direct topic of this contribution, I will briefly summarize it inasmuch

contemporary Nahuatl sociolinguistic competence in the Balsas region confronts itself to

contact variability. This is to say that “internal” Nahuatl variability is an actor perspective

use of the language defined in contradistinction to contact phenomena. In other words, the

Nahuatl de iksaan, “ancient Nahuatl”, is almost naturally opposed to the very existence of

Nahuatl-Spanish phenomena. Outstandingly expressed in resistance to Spanish borrowings,

loans are the most frequent targets of purist expression. Favorite purist shibboleths include

numerals (rarely used over five, makwihli, the traditional twentieth numeral based system

has been practically displaced, as in most if not all Mexican indigenous languages), personal

names and other forms for objects not formerly existing in Nahuatl material culture such as

trains and the like (e.g. tepostoonaltlamachiiwa, “watch”). Nahuatl purism develops a

highly complex expression materialized in a series of facets, including theoretical,

methodological and empirical issues (cf. Flores Farfán 2003). Thus, together with the

emergence of continua of Nahuatl linguistic varieties regionally and socially differentiated,

the overall effect of purist ideologies produces ambivalent forces revolving around the

dilemma of language shift or retention, expressed in the existence of for instance the

abovementioned innovative versus conservative varieties of the language which in turn are

ideologically valued.

In practice, all this allows to identify, a highly paralyzing purist trend which plays in favor

of Nahuatl displacement. This is a form of negative purism inhibiting Nahuatl continuity

and viability, unfortunately the most common purist manifestation in indigenous

communities or at least the most visible one. These include several written varieties (e.g.

translations of the Mexican constitution with no readers) carrying among others a series of

paradoxes such as purists’ less active oral competence or Nahuatl proficiency. Thus

ideologies of legitimo Mexicano (Hill and Hill 1986), the “real”, “authentic”, postulated

mythical ideal Nahuatl, reinforces itself in any form of internal variability, one of the less

investigated expressions of Nahuatl variation which is the case in point analyzed in the

present contribution ---the socio-cognitive use of epenthesis and other morphological facts

in actual interaction. As part of this Nahuatl sociolinguistic competence in the Balsas region,

internal Nahuatl variability is also nurtured by lexical coinage as for instance expressed in

language games close to the purist creation, yet evaluated in much more positive terms,

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resembling local favorite tongue twisters or riddles (e.g. tsintsiinkiriantsintsoonkwaakwaa,

“scissor”, tsintsinkirianteenpiitskoontsiin, “bottle”). Such Nahuatl verbal art also points to a

series of resources ranging from extemporaneous to ritual speech, even expanding the

Nahuatl repertoire in terms of incorporating Spanish materials subject to processes of

nativization and reanalysis (e.g. opposing forms such as miichin “Fish”, to peskaados,

“Wooden fish as crafts for the tourist market” cf. Flores Farfán 1992). All these genres and

resources contribute to the vitality of the language, a part less examined by Nahuatl

scholars, to which this paper intends to at least partially advance for the Balsas region (see

map).

With this context in mind, an outline of the overall organization of Nahuatl talk in the

Balsas Nahuatl speaking area, a place about a three hour drive south of today’s Mexico City,

heading towards Acapulco, in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, will be discussed. Although it

became subordinated to the Aztec “empire”, and consequently paid tribute to the dominant

group, it was relatively independent. Its distinctiveness is pinpointed by a number of facts. It

received a specific denomination by the Aztecs, Cohuixca, a word translated as “lizard”.

This gives an idea of the way the Aztec dominant group treated other Nahuatl varieties and

their speakers, implying both an allusion to the hot and arid conditions of the region,

together with a pejorative name for speakers which were probably mostly considered

Macehualtin, “commoners, peasants, members of the lower class”.

Today the Balsas region comprises about 20 communities with a total of around 50

thousand people disseminated along the banks of the river of the same name (see map).

[MAP NEAR HERE]

Regarding the language itself some of the most outstanding characteristics that distinguish

Balsas Nahuatl from other Nahuatl (or Nahua-t with t cf. Canger 1988) languages include

the use of ka “no” for the free standing negation and x(i)- for the bound negation as in

xtlaakatl, siwaatl “it is not a man, it is a female”. Other features comprise the use of specific

lexicon that differs with respect to the Classical forms, such as koontli “water recipient”,

instead of koomitl; kuhtli “tree” instead of kwawtli (cf. Canger 1988; Flores Farfán 1999),

together with the low productivity of honorific forms, in contrast to for instance Classical

Nahuatl. Balsas Nahuatl has only one honorific layer, mostly present in ritual speech such as

the Huehuetlatohli “The elders, bride petition speech”2. This ritual genre, briefly analyzed in

this contribution, will be contrasted with conversational or spontaneous Nahuatl speech

below. For this purpose, let us take a look at the use of some Nahuatl discourse markers in

these communities.

2 Discourse markers in Balsas Nahuatl

We know relatively little of Nahuatl variability, especially in prehispanic and colonial times

(for efforts in this sense see Karttunen and Lockhart 1976; Lockhart 1992, Flores Farfán

2004, 2005, 2007b). Some of the few remarks that refer to Nahuatl variability in colonial

times are due to missionaries such as the Franciscan Friar Alonso de Molina in his 1977/1571

Vocabulario en la Lengua Mexicana (cf. Flores Farfán 2007a) and outstandingly the

seventeenth century Jesuit Horacio Carochi’s, Arte de la Lengua Mexicana 1983/1645. The

latter provides some examples of the differences between males’ and females’ speech. For

instance, Carochi notes that:

Some women, when speaking affectionately, say

notelpochticatzin instead of notelpochtzin [my young man];

it is a decent expression, although it shows love… Men do

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not use these flattering expressions. (Carochi

2001/1645:311, quoted in Wright 2008:6)

Even when not directly linked to a female/male speech difference, this is the type of

morphological variation that we will be looking at in contemporary speech, considering social

deixis in two poles of a continuum that inform the overall Nahuatl (formal) ritual versus

(informal) conversational speech continuum as part of the overall sociolinguistic Balsas

Nahuatl competence.

In this paper instead of analyzing the most obvious realm of discourse markers in Nahuatl

(or any language), the lexical ones3, I will discuss a couple of not at all evident issues which

have been largely unanalyzed in Nahuatl linguistics; namely:

- the use (or not) of epenthetic /i/ in specific morphological paradigms,

- the use of ti- and mits-, two pronoun shifters referred to second persons in Nahuatl.

These two morphological segments are here interpreted recasting an actors’ perspective

approach, against an external point of view that could or even would consider them “errors”,

“ungrammatical”, “non-acceptable” or at best “forms in free variation” --without any social

meaning whatsoever (cf. e.g. Andrews 1975).

The only study that has faced the use of epenthesis is that of Tuggy (1981). The author’s

work is based on a cognitive approach to language which conceives epenthesis as a way of

dealing and solving internal linguistic “conflicts”. This is at least partially based on

recovering actors’ perspectives, inasmuch it acknowledges the possibility of epenthesis as a

multiple analyses approach. Even when opening up space for speakers use in a state of

cognitive flux which allow multiple choices, Tuggy’s work does not deal with the

sociolinguistic (cognitive or not) significance of the use of epenthesis, one of the main

objectives of this paper, together with the analysis of the accompanying abovementioned

discourse markers.

Canonically, i.e. from a received (grammatical) perspective, the use of epenthesis is

described by all Nahuatl grammars as an obligatory condition to warrant the inexistence of cc

clusters in the Nahuatl syllable (cf. e.g. Andrews 1975; Launey 1981), which are considered

problematic. Consider (1), in which all is are epenthetic:

(1) ni-hkwaa nakatl “I eat meat”

ti-hkwaa nakatl “You eat meat”

ki-kwaa nakatl “(S)he eats meat”

ti-hkwaan nakatl “We eat meat”

nan-ki-kwaan nakatl “You (pl) eat meat”

ki-kwaan nakatl “They eat meat”

Yet, from the point of view of the oral use of the language by contemporary Balsas Nahuatl

speakers, the use of epenthesis constitutes a resource that indexes different types of

interactions, discourse and textual effects; probably metaphorically and at times also

explicitly indexing different social positions and interactional effects. Take for instance the

presence of i in the bound negative form xi-, which is a characteristic feature of ritual

discourse as witnessed in (2). This is a text derived from a fragment of a ritual discourse

showing this specific use of epenthesis. The text itself is known as a Huehuetlatohli, “Bride’s

petition”. It was collected by Ramírez Celestino in the 70s (cf. Ramirez Celestino and Flores

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Farfán 2008), when it was still in use in several Balsas Nahuatl communities.4 Today it is an

endangered if not an almost extinct genre in most Balsas or several other Nahuatl

communities. Its presence can be considered a Nahuatl vitality index. Consider the following

fragment of this text:

(2) Kas ye melaak oonogeerraro, kas melaak saan

oomitsonmaatilaantikiiskeh mokoneetsiin, kaampa kaan momaatsiin

tikonpixtoya keeitlaa un see xoochitl.

Peeroh nooihke nikitowa nikwaahki see tlahtlakoolaatl, xitlah tliin

tsopelik awiaak.

(Ramírez Celestino and Flores Farfán 2008:58)

Maybe it is true that you have already fought, maybe it is

true that they have only come to stole away your beloved

daughter from your honorable hands, away from where with your

honorable hands you have been taking care of her as a flower.

But at the same time I state that I bring the water of sin

[ritual drink]. There is no [drink] as sweet and fragrant as

this.

This fragment is produced after a long ritual greeting, filled with honorific morphology. The

Huehue or bride petitioner utters xitlah tliin tsopelik awiaak, “There is no [drink] as sweet

and fragrant as this”, where the negative form xitlah surfaces, instead of the unmarked

conversational form xtlah, “nothing”, typical of informal, colloquial discourse. If epenthetic i

is found in more colloquial speech, it is either associated with an issue of reflexivity exerted

by the speaker with respect to his / her own discourse production, as is the case of elicitation,

which in a way is also a form of ritual speech reminiscent of a type of foreign talk, a “genre”

designed to please an audience (cf. Bell 1984). Such speaker oriented perspective invites

reconsidering attention to speech not so much linked to speech itself, but to participants’

power differentials in interaction. For instance in the text as a whole, epenthesis is exploited

as a resource linked to a generational differential, indicated by the fact that speakers consider

forms as the imperative xi-, where epenthesis surfaces, Mexicano de iksaan “ancient, old

Mexicano”, as in (3). Just as is the case with honorific morphology young speakers would not

dare utilize the imperative nor the High forms, as when a grandmother orders his grandson,

also conveying an emphatic effect:

(3) xi-tla-kwaa!

imp-obj5-eat

Eat your meal!

Occasionally, even some other features as the metathesis of the epenthetic /i/ are conceived

as Mexicano de iksaan “ancient, old speech”, as when a Nahua leader of the Consejo de

Pueblos Nahuas del Alto Balsas, a grassroot movement against the construction of an

hydroelectric dam in the region, in an assembly, while coordinating it, asks someone near him

in the audience to lend him a chair6:

(4) ixneechtlanewti mosilletita

“lend me your chair (to sit down)”

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Thus the presence or absence of epenthetic /i/ in such forms as xtlah vs. xitlah “nothing”,

and its metathesis, constitutes a resource to mark different registers and, as we will see,

interactional strategies, not an arbitrary or random choice. As a suggested general trend in a

state of flux, the equation presence vs. absence of epenthesis corresponds to two varieties,

oscillating in a continuum from a more ritual speech to a colloquial, extemporaneous, more

spontaneous speech.

Even in old Nahuatl texts from the sixteenth century, epenthesis is precisely stylistically

exploited to mark poetic, sacred chants, as exemplified in (5):

(5) in puyuma xochi-tli, in cacahua xochi-tli

“Flowers of ecstasy, cacao flowers” (Garibay 2000:93).

All this suggests that Nahuatl variation is a highly marked behavior, part of a highly

sophisticated sociolinguistic historical and cognitive competence that is not until now that we

are starting to unravel. This is not only due to geographical differences, as it has usually been

(mostly eurocentrically) conceived from a dialectological point of view (Canger 1988), but

constrained by ideological and pragmatic reasons, of course linked to old and new social

stratifications (cf. Flores Farfán 2004, 2007a, 2007b).

Notice that against prescriptive Nahuatl grammars, (5) violates the complementary

distribution stating that every noun which root ends with a vowel will take the absolutive

suffix –tl, while roots ending in a consonant will take –tli, as in:

(5)(1)

tooch-tli “Rabbit” -abs

Yet in contrast to prescriptive grammars which are based on written sources or elicited, de-

contextualized forms, deletion of epenthetic /i/ and further morphology, including complete

personal markers as in (6), is in deed possible in all tenses, modes and persons in

extemporaneous discourse, as exemplified in the following verbal paradigms:

(6) Indicative mode

Present

In the context of a drinking session among friends one man

said, justifying a nasty comment of one of his partners:

tooa de relajo (vs. kitoowa de relajo) “He says it as a joke”

Future

In the same context, while referring to contrasting ways of

behavior that distinguish Balsas Nahuatl speakers from

Mestizos (mainstream Mexican people) in terms of greeting

females with a kiss, one man said:

teeh itoos urbano (vs. teeh kitoos urbano) “He will say it is

(a custom) of the city”

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Perfect

In the context of an interaction of a grandmother with her

granddaughter while calling her to eat:

ootkak? (vs. ootihkak?) “Do you listen, i.e. pay

attention?”

Imperfect

In the context of a seller that buys crafts facing a

potential buyer who invited him to a party that the seller

could not attend:

newa hnekia yaas (vs. newa niknekia yaas) “I wanted to go”

Optative mode

Exhortative

In the context of a mother-son interaction in the household

while the mother is cooking dinner:

maa nteki (vs. maa nikteki) “Let me cut it (the onions)”

Imperative

In the context of a party while addressing the musicians to

start playing:

peewa! vs. xpeewa! “Start!”

Therefore in general as can be seen it can be stated that the presence versus absence of

markers such as object, epenthesis and even personal prefixes allows different contextual

interpretations, ranging from more formal registers and genres to informal ones, respectively.7

Presence or absence of epenthetic /i/ as well as the presence or absence of the object prefix

is also exploited to produce textual effects, such as emphasis:

(7) uumpa ka mota, xta “Your father is there, look”

uumpa ka mota, xkita! “Your father is there, watch out!”

Thus deletion not only of epenthesis but of the whole object morphology, implicitly

forbidden in (prescriptive) Nahuatl grammar descriptions, has not been really understood and

only alluded to, especially from the stance of a more conversational approach to Nahuatl

grammar (cf. nevertheless Flores Farfán 1992) as suggested here.

Moreover, under certain circumstances, via deletion as an expressive resource, a speaker

may in fact simultaneously allude to the social position of an addressee, while at the same

time producing an effect of familiarity with him / her / them. For instance, in the process of a

bride petition which is part of the historical Nahuatl genres known as Huehuetlatōlli, “Elders

speech”, as suggested above, by addressing the young groom with forms that present deletion

of epenthetic /i/ and specific object prefix k-, the speaker, a Huehue, the specialist in charge of

developing the whole petition ritual, indexes his social position in the face of the groom’s

elders, while at the same time looking to reduce the social distance between him and the

groom, a resource exemplified in:

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(8) Ye tpia [instead of ye tikpia] monaamik aaman saa tliin

tikteteemoos?

You (familiar, affectionate) already have your partner, what

are you looking for now?

Notice that tpia is a form that the Huehue would never utilize to address the father’s groom,

but used exclusively to appeal to the young man’s responsibility to develop a proper behavior

in his marriage.

Yet not only deletion is exploited in terms of social deixis. Let us turn to another interesting

instance, which has also only marginally been reported in the literature, let alone explained in

terms of its social meaning; namely, the simultaneous use of resources that morphologically

indicate the same person.

3 The simultaneous use of the second persons and its social meaning

A conversational resource marking a familiar conversational treatment is witnessed in (9), in

which the second singular personal form ti- is used together with the second object prefix,

mits-, literally “you to you”; grammatically corresponding to the same person:

(9) Sepa ooneechwaahtiitlankeh saan kwaaltsiin aaman. Dekeh

kitoowaya yewa xkineki, saaihkoon konkaawaaskeh. Hkinekian

saan kwaaltsiin yeektli konyeektlaaliiskian iipan tlatoohle,

Señor, keechkitsiin nooihki tewatsiin timonekiitis. Aaman

nooihki señor xkita xneechmaka motlatooltsiin, nooihki

nikmati mogracia Dios nooihki tewatsiin niknekiiskia xkita

xneechmalkochowili iikoneew Dios niknekiiskia saan

kwaaltsiin. Maaka xkito saan oo-ti-mits-tlaatla-t-ako!

perf-2sg-2obj-burn-lig-aux

(Ramírez Celestino and Flores Farfán 2008: 56-57)

He is the one who hired me as Huehue, from whose honorable

breath I conform myself. I only come to life due to peoples’

heart. Now your honorable foot is the same as mine. Once

again I was sent here in the most beautiful way. If he said

that she does not want to [get married], in the same way they

would leave her alone [i.e. won’t bother her]. They only

wanted to beautifully and correctly reach an agreement with

respect to the proper discourse, Sir, just as with respect to

the amount that Thou would be willing [to contribute for the

wedding]. Now in this same way, Sir, look! Enable me your

honorable word, just as I know the grace of God, in the same

way that I would like for Thou to see in the most beautiful

way. May it not be that you would say that I just came to

turn you on fire! [to provoke your anger] (lit. you-to-you-

burn-stand).

Such elements have been only marginally recorded in Nahuatl linguistics, and not at all

understood from the point of view of the native interpretation and use, i.e. explained.

12

The use of ti-mits- 2sg-2obj “you to you”8 are not only not ungrammatical forms, but in

interactional practice marks a strong reduction of social distance between the speaker and his

addresses, implying familiarity and an affectionate treatment, even manipulated as a discourse

marker to pinpoint to the power structure in specific interactions, as is the case in point

analyzed here. For example while addressing the groom the Huehue admonishes him on how

to properly behave after been married, using timits-:

(10) Aaman newa nikitowa: iihoh, xkonita keenon tiyaas. Maaka

ihkoon tikchiiwas keen sekimeh kichiiwan. Xkonita xkoowa

mohaboontsiin tikwaalneextis motomiintsiin yootimotlaaniliito

keechkitsiin xwaalmokowiiili mohaboontsiin, moistatsiin. Ya

ye tpiyas mokoneewaan. Iika mokoneetsiin xkwaahkwiilis see

frutita. Aaman keemah hijo ihkoon ti-mits-ih-lia.

2sg-2obj-say-apl

(Ramírez Celestino and Flores Farfán 2008:89)

Now I say: Son, go and see how you are doing [i.e. behaving].

Let it not be that you do things as others do. Go and buy

your soap. You will come and encounter the sacred money that

you already have earned. You will come to buy for yourself a

small portion of your soap, of your salt. Now you will have

your children. For your small child bring some fruit. This is

the way I’m telling you now, son.

In another passage in which the Huehue was asked about his potential conflicts as a Huehue

by Cleofas Ramírez Celestino (CR), who collected this text in the early 70s, at the time in her

20s, the Huehue (Bonifacio Bárcenas BB) addresses her with timits-, again implying such a

familiar treatment as in (11):

(11) CR. Kwaakon tewa xkaaana mitspatlan?

BB. Ka’. Newa xkaana neechpatlan, bendito sea Dios.

Xkaana neechpatlan. Astaah naan ye nitlaantiw.

Timitsihlia iipan 1952 nimomaamaxti. Aaman iipan in fecha

niaw, yeen,xkiixtiili kweentah.

(Ramírez Celestino and Flores Farfán 2008: 74)

CR. Hence in your case you never got replaced?

BB. No. Nowhere I got dismissed. Nowhere I’ve been dismissed.

Up until now I have been successful.

As I tell you I taught myself in 1952. Up until this very

day I go on, just make your numbers.

It is worthwhile noting that, as far as I can see, together with few communities in Morelos

and a few others (e.g. Tetelcingo, Morelos, Tuggy personal communication) it is mostly in

Balsas Nahuatl in which the simultaneous use of ti-mits-2Sg-2Ob- is not only allowed, but

conversationally exploited. In other words, we witness the concurrent use of a morphology

that normally establishes a paradigmatic relationship, that of a second person agent (you) with

a second person object (to you). This would apparently turn out to be ungrammatical,

inasmuch as a reflexive relationship (which in this Nahuatl variety is marked with the

13

reflexive pronoun no-) does not emerge either. Nevertheless, in conversational practice such

use is not only totally acceptable, but, as I have outlined in this paper, conveys a powerful

meaning in terms of social deixis, both in conversational and ritual discourse. Thus such

variability it is not a matter of a meaningless or arbitrary variation between e.g. ni- and ti-

prefixes. Rather it implies a conversational treatment in which the Huehue, the “bride

petitioner” creates empathy with his addressee, while at the same time indexing his social

position; utilizing a number of other resources as the ones depicted here in a dynamic state of

conversational flux which we have only started to understand.

4 Final remarks

It is an irony that Mesoamerican languages, which have received a great deal of attention,

especially Nahuatl, are still very poorly understood from the stance of a more conversational

approach to the language (cf. nevertheless Flores Farfán 1992). In this paper I have explained

some features of this conversational or sociolinguistic competence, such as the use and

interpretation of the deletion of specific morphology, which has not really being understood

and only incidentally alluded to by former works, and at least implicitly forbidden in received

Nahuatl grammar descriptions. In fact via such expressive resources; for example by

addressing the young couple in the Huehuetlatolli “brides petition”, that we have briefly

analyzed, with forms that present deletion of epenthetic i and specific object prefix k-, the

speaker indexes their social (“lower”) position in the face of their elders and the Huehue

himself.

In turn, we have seen that the use of epenthesis in the negative form xi- can be considered a

characteristic feature of ritual discourse. If found in more colloquial speech, it is either

associated to an issue of reflexivity exerted by the speaker with respect to his / her own

discourse production and power relationships, as in the case of elicitation situations, together

with being linked to a generational differential or even manipulated to produce discursive

effects. In the same vein, it is worthwhile recalling that in the Balsas region the simultaneous

use of ti-mits-2Sg-2Ob- is allowed as a concurrent use of a morphology that normally

establishes a paradigmatic relationship, that of a second person agent (you) with a second

person object (to you), the patient, establishing not only a transitive but a differentiated

trajectory in terms of the participants of the speech act.

Such uses cannot be judged in terms of a close knit (grammatical) approach and it is also

beyond simple acceptability. In practice speakers interpret this usage not as an insignificant

variation between the ni- and ti- prefixes, but rather as a conversational marked choices and

emerging relational strategies in which for instance the bride petitioner is trying to create

empathy with his addressee, something that is perfectly the case in point in the bride petition

situation that has been analyzed. The use of the second person ti-“you” plus the second object

mits- “to you” precisely by “violating” Nahuatl combinatory rules constitutes a form of

addressing which indexicalizes familiarity and an affectionate treatment not exempt of a

power differential with the addressee, something that is not until now that we are really

starting to unravel.

Along the fact that we have only have started to understand Nahuatl conversational

structure, works which have investigated Nahuatl sociolinguistics are still few and based in

instruments such as surveys or interviews, which allow only marginal access to the

communicative competence in the language as deployed in everyday practices even when

speakers themselves infiltrate the interview with their own verbal culture, often times

interrupting the discursive hegemony conveyed by such instruments (cf. Briggs 1986), as

eloquently shown by Hill and Hill (1986).

14

Recall that ideologically forms where epenthesis surfaces, specifically with the imperative

xi-, are conceived by speakers themselves as Mexicano de iksaan “ancient, old (legitimo)

Mexicano” (Hill and Hill, 1986) an internal fact (i.e. not due to contact) that is also linked to

the topic of purism as a form to position oneself as the “real, legitimate, authentic” speaker, a

true possessor or owner of the language (cf. Flores Farfán 2003). Notice that purism as an

extreme reaction to contact varieties of the language produces a background against which

internal variability is judged and defined, at least indirectly favoring the reassurance and

productivity of a series of internal linguistic resources as the ones briefly depicted in this

contribution. In this respect, from the point of view of speakers themselves, the range of

variability that has been alluded to here constitute critical features of Nahuatl native theory

and practice, particularly amounting to the retention of the language not only in terms of the

range and socio-cognitive productivity of the Nahuatl linguistic repertoire but emotionally

speaking as well. In this sense, Balsas Nahuatl sociolinguistic competence, particularly in its

complex expression as multiple varieties of the language, constitutes a stream of Nahuatl

maintenance and resistance on which speakers invest quite a deal of reflexivity, including

producing specific linguistic ideologies not necessarily negatively oriented, such as purists

trends also positively conceived, favoring the vitality and thus viability of the language. This

runs along the lines of the Hills conclusion of their book Speaking Mexicano (1986) in which

they also identified the possibility of purism playing a constructive and crucial role to

reinforce the use of and the ultimate survival of the indigenous languages.

Notes

1 Nahuatl is a denomination that stems from the Aztecs (see below) use of the term in

prehispanic times, meaning the “pristine, audible, clear language”, a language with capital

letters, apt for poetry and science. This is the term recovered in the academic world, and

therefore will be the name utilized in this paper, in contrast to Mexicano, which is the most

common denomination that most contemporary speakers use.

2 Studies of the Huehuetlatolli include among others: Guerrero (2005), León-Portilla and

Silva Galeana (2003), García Quintana (1988), Ramírez Celestino and Dakin (1980);

Celestino Solís (1994), Díaz Cíntora (1993), Garibay (2000), and Ramírez Celestino and

Flores Farfán (2008).

3 As a topic for a separate paper in Balsas Nahuatl these include: iiwe, “Really, no doubt”

ye(n) “Yes”, (x)teh?, “No?”, “Well”, kas, “Maybe” bah, “Of course” diay, “Then”, kwakoon?

“What then if not?”

4 Since the whole text comprises more than 100 hundred pages, I will only utilize some

fragments of the alluded Huehuetlatohli to illustrate the cases in point. For the full text see

Ramírez Celestino and Flores Farfán (2008).

5 Abbreviations are as follows: - abs: absolutive, apl: applicative aux: auxiliar, imp:

imperative, lig: ligature, obj: object, perf: perfect, sg: singular.

6 It is interesting noticing that the speaker who utters this expression is a pseudo speaker of

Nahuatl; i.e. someone who pretends to speak the language in search of empathy with his

audience, the case in point since most of the members of the audience in this assembly, which

was against the construction of a dam in the late 80s, are Nahuatl-dominant or plentiful

speakers. For more details see Flores Farfán (1999).

7 Deletions are also related to contact with Spanish, but I am not directly dealing with this

type of phenomena here but rather concentrating on the internal conversational system and its

sociolinguistic meaning. For extensive contact studies of Balsas Nahuatl cf. Flores Farfán

(1999, 2005. etc.).

8 Cf. Michel Launey (1981: 362) based in Pittman, Brewer, and Dakin (quoted in Launey

1981, 361), where a mention of the use of Morelos ti-mitz- in Morelos can be found.

15

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