418 UNIT 4 MESOAMERICAN CULTURAL FEATURES
The words for vigesimal units are typically the names of various kinds of con-
tainers, bundles, or packages. For example, up until indigenous expressions for large
numbers were largely replaced by Spanish numerical expressions, the word for
“8,000” often either came from or became used for gunny sacks (or skirts) such as
might have been used to carry large numbers of cacao kernels.Other Typical Characteristics
Also widespread are idiomatic expressions that occur throughout the Mesoameri-
can languages through the process of loan translation.This is a process in which an
idiomatic expression—for example, the use of “mouth of house” to mean “door”—
is translated word for word into other languages and used with the same idiomatic
meaning. In addition, some loan translations consist of the use of a word with one
meaning for another meaning related to the first metaphorically or in an indirect way,
if at all. Several such loan translations are found in Mesoamerica, but are rare beyond
its language borders. Examples are “mother of hand” = “thumb,” “child of hand” =
“finger”; “edge” = “mouth”; “god excrement” or “sun excrement” = “gold” or “sil-
ver”; “water mountain” = “town”; “deer snake” = “boa constrictor”; “awake” = “alive”;
“big star” = “Venus”; and “sun” (= “day”) = “festival,” with derived forms meaning
“shape-shifter.” Some loan translations reflect widespread Mesoamerican practices or
beliefs. For example, the word for “day” often means “name,” because people were
named for the day of the ritual calendar on which they were born; and the ritual cal-
endar day (or god) that named an indigenous year was referred to as the “ruler” of
the year (see Chapter 1).Table 11.3 Other Grammatical Features in Mesoamerican LanguagesSan Dionicio Ocotepec Zapotec:
Zúú béh’cw dèhjts yù’ù.
stand dog back house
“The dog is standing behind the house”
dèhjts Juààny
back Juan
“Juan’s back”
Gááld-bí-tsùù
twenty-with-ten
“thirty”
Kaqchikel:
ru-tz’i’ ri a Xwan.
his-dog the YOUNGER:MALE Juan
“Juan’s dog”
Classical Nahuatl:
o ̄m-po ̄hualli on-caxto ̄lli
two-twenty and-fifteen
“fifty-five”