Empires of the Word - Nicholas Ostler [5]
* In each chapter, a convenient form of romanised spelling has been adopted, to do justice to the pronunciation of fragments of an unfamiliar language, while not diverging too far from non-linguists’ ideas of how the Roman alphabet is pronounced. In general, vowels are to be pronounced pure and simple, as in Spanish, consonants and clusters as in English, and any peculiarities are announced in the first footnote. Here, for Nahuatl, the traditional (Spanish-like) romanisation has not been followed: instead, č represents English ch, and š English sh; h is used for the glottal stop, like the unheard t in the English and Scots pronunciation of Scotland; z here is closer to English s than z. Long vowels have a macron: ā, ē, … Common words may be simplified: e.g., stricty, it is tlahloāni.
† Ka ōyahkeh motēčīuhkāwān, in tlahtohkeh, in Ilzkōwātzin, in wēweh Motēukzoma, in Āšāyaka, in Tizōzik, in Āwltzōtl, in ō kuēl ačīk mitzommotlaplyalīlikoh, in ōkipačōkoh in ātl in tepetl in Mešihko, in īnkuitlapan, īntepotzko in ōwalyetiyā in momāzēwaltzin.
* Kuix ok wāllamatih in īmonihka, in intepotzko? Mā zēmeh yehwāntin kitztiyānih, kimāwizzōtiānih in nehwātl in āxkān nopan ōmočīuh, in ye nikitta, in zā īmonihka īntepotzko totēukyōwān. Kamo zan nitēmiki, ahmō zan nikočitlēwa, ahmō zan nikkočitta, ahmō zan niklēmiki, ka yē ōnimitznottili, mīštzinko ōnitlačiš.
† Ka ōnnonēntlamattikaatka in ye mākuil, in ye mahtlāk, in ōmpa nonitztikah in kēnamihkān in ātimokīštīko in mištitlan, in ayauhtitlan. Anka yehwātl in in ki tēnēuhtiwih in tlahtohkeh, in tikmomačitikiuh in mātzin, in motepētzin, in īpan timowetzītīkiuh in mpetlazin, in mokpaltzin, in tiwālmowīkaz.
§ Auh in āškān ka ōneltik, ōtiwalmowīkak, ōtikmihiyōwihi, ōtikmoziyawiltih, mā tlāltiteč šimahšīti, mā šimozēwihtzino, mā šokommomačiti in motēkpankaltzin, mā xikmozēwili in monakayōlzin, mā tlāltiteč mahšitikan in totēukyōwān.
* Cortés le respondió con nuestras lenguas, que consigo siempre estaban, especial la dona Marina, y le dijo que no sabe con qué pagar él ni todos nosotros las grandes mercedes recibidas de cada día, y que ciertamente veníamos de donde sale el sol, y somos vasallos y criados de un gran senor que se dice el gran emperador don Carlos, que tiene sujetos a sí muchos y grandes príncipes, y que teniendo noticia de él y de cuán gran seõor es, nos envió a estas partes a le ver a rogar que sean cristianos, como es nuestro emperador y todos nosotros, e que salvarán sus ánimas él y todos sus vasallos, e que adelante le declarará más cómo e de qué manera ha de ser, y como adoramos a un solo Dios verdadero, y quién es, y otras muchas cosas buenas que oirá, como les había dicho a sus embajadores Tendile e Pitalpitoque e Quintalvor cuando estábamos en los arenales. (Díaz del Castillo, lxxxix)
PART I
THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE HISTORY
[King Xerxes] gave Themistocles leave to speak his mind freely on Greek affairs. Themistocles replied that the speech of man was like rich carpets, the patterns of which can only be shown by spreading them out; when the carpets are folded up, the patterns are obscured and lost; and therefore he asked for time. The king was pleased with the simile, and told him to take his time; and so he asked for a year. Then, having learnt the Persian language sufficiently, he spoke with the king on his own …
Plutarch, Themistocles, 29.5
1
Themistocles’ Carpet
The language view of human history
From the language point of view, the present population of the world is not six billion, but something over six thousand.
There are between six and seven thousand communities in the world today identified by the first language that they speak. They are not of equal weight. They range in size from Mandarin Chinese with some 900 million speakers, alone accounting for one sixth of all the people in the world, followed by English and Spanish with approximately 300 million apiece, to a long tail of tiny communities: over half the languages in the world, for example, have fewer than five thousand speakers, and over a thousand