Linguistic Listens to Music. Relations between Words and Arts

What can we say about the metaphor in the main title of this article? Listening to music from a linguistic point of view is, for our purposes, an academic exercise consisting of three steps: first, to identify words related to music; second, to propose the internal structure of such words, recognizing their respective root or stem and the other parts that make them up; and third, to organize reflections that can be formulated about their meaning, their etymology. These reflections, drawn from the meaning of the words of this or that particular language, are—or we intend them to be—ways of approaching the worldview of the corresponding indigenous people. Thus, after applying this exercise to the vocabulary of some Mexican indigenous languages, the results of a few cases will be presented. In the following examples, the representation of indigenous languages has been simplified in order to make the exposition easier, and what is offered here are not the only possible reflections; the materials are open to whatever approach our kind readers may wish to make.

NAHUATL
In Nahuatl language, we is a root glossed as ‘ancient, big,’ which we find in expressions such as wewetlahtolli (huehuetlahtolli in the old orthography) ‘ancient word, big word,’ by extension also ‘wise word.’ One of the words in the musical field built from the root we is wéwetl, the name Nahuatl-speaking societies of central Mexico give to the vertical drum with a single drumhead. The analysis of this word is the following:

wé	we	tl
reduplication	old	noun-nonpossessed
‘(vertical) drum (with a single drumhead)’

From left to right, we identify that wé- comes from the initial reduplication of the root we ‘ancient.’ This kind of reduplication serves the function of denoting repetition, one of the characteristics of music. It also denotes intensity, which emphasizes the notion of “bigness.” The third element is the suffix -tl, which indicates that such a word is a non-possessed noun (a noun without a mark of belonging, a thing that does not belong to someone or something). Thus, the etymology of wéwetl is ‘the ancient,’ and being a sonorous artifact: ‘the ancient instrument, with a big, wise voice.’

In turn, on account of the variety of occasions in which the wéwetl was used in pre-Hispanic times, it is implied that this word, in addition to referring to a type of percussion instrument, acquired the generic meaning of ‘musical instrument.’ So, when instruments with multiple strings arrived from Europe to what is now Mexico, the Nahuatlspeaking societies generated a neologism: mekawéwetl ‘guitar, harp, vihuela, lute…’, a compound word in which the term meka ‘rope’ is placed before wéwetl, which in this case no longer denotes a drum but a musical instrument. The following sequence is the evolutionary sequence of this series of words and their meanings:

wéwetl	wéwetl	mekawéwetl
‘drum’	‘musical instrument’	‘guitar, harp…’ (string instrument)

The word mekawéwetl, coined in the 16^th century, is still in use. At the same time, it alternates with others, such as kwatlatsotsona, another way of referring to the guitar in some modern variants of the Nahuatl language. For this other word, once the root tsona is recognized, to which we can attribute the meaning ‘sound,’ the applicable analysis is as follows:

kwa	tla	tso	tsona
wood	indefinite	reduplication	sound
‘guitar’

Once we identify that the root tsona is at the end of the word, the element tso- placed immediately before, results from partial reduplication of the root; just as it was illustrated in example 1, reduplication is used to denote repetition as characteristic of music. The prefix tla- indicates that the stem tsotsona generates something indefinite, in this case, an indefinite sound. The term kwa ‘wood,’ which comes at the beginning, refers to the raw material used to make that which generates an indefinite sound. This is, therefore, the etymological proposal of the voice kwatlatsotsona: ‘(instrument made of) wood that makes sounds.’

We can also find in the Nahuatl language the stem pitsa, glossed as ‘to be thin, wiry, lean…’ This stem is used in words such as xochipitsawak ‘thin flower’ or ‘wiry flower,’ a widespread translation in several Nahua communities’ musical, dance and literary traditions. Within the musical field, a word that contains that stem is tlapitsalli ‘flute,’ which admits the following analysis:

tla	pitsa	l	li
indefinite	to be thin	nominalizer	noun-nonpossessed
‘flute’

The word begins with the prefix tla- which, as in example 3, indicates that the stem generates something indefinite. Then we find the stem pitsa ‘to be thin…’ followed by the suffix -l, which transforms a root or verb stem into a noun. The word ends with the suffix -li, one of the forms adopted by the marker that indicates that the noun is not possessed. Therefore, the word tlapitsalli ‘flute’ has as its etymological basis the notion of something thin, wiry; the fact that this applies to a wind musical instrument is entirely a matter of the logic of the cultural thinking of the Nahua.

Another word containing the stem pitsa is matlapitsa ‘to whistle using one’s fingers.’ Using what was just said, it will be easy to move on to the analysis of this word:

ma	tla	pitsa
hand	indefinite	to be thin
‘to whistle using one’s fingers’

The word begins with ma- ‘hand,’ a component necessary to understand why this is the type of whistling produced by placing one or more fingers in the mouth. The prefix tla- and the stem pitsa, as explained in example 4, refer to the production of something thin; in these two cases—the flute and the whistle produced by the fingers—the notion of ‘thin’ is applied to the air column, which is conceived as a thin, wiry, lean, etcetera.

These words of the Nahuatl language allow us to appreciate several strategies of a particular way of thinking, in which certain roots or stems, such as wé, ‘ancient’ or pitsa, ‘to be thin,’ form unitary expressions when combined with ideas that denote elements of a different nature, such as meka ‘rope,’ kwa ‘wood,’ or ma ‘hand,’ whose referents are specific entities of the field of musical sonority.

PUREPECHA
The Purepecha language, spoken in several communities in the current state of Michoacán, is considered a polysynthetic language since the same word contains more than one element with lexical meaning, not only one element with lexical meaning, and one or more grammatical ones (a property shared with the Nahuatl language, as is evident in the words analyzed in examples 2, 3 and 5). Let us consider the following contrasts:

p’á-	mu	-ni
touch	mouth	infinitive
to touch one’s mouth’

p’á-	rhu	-ni
touch	nose	infinitive
‘to touch one’s nose’

kara	-ni
write	infinitive
‘to write’

kara	-ra	-ni
write	causative	infinitive
‘to make (someone or something) write’

In example 6a, the two words have in common the lexical root p’á, ‘to touch;’ and each of them is differentiated by a lexical suffix referring, respectively, to mouth (-mu) and nose (-rhu). Furthermore, both words also have in common a grammatical suffix, the -ni marker of the infinitive mode. In contrast, in example 6b the shared lexical root is kara, ‘to write,’ but the rest of the suffixes are exclusively grammatical: -ni, the infinitive mode marker, and -ra, the causativity marker.

Let us now analyze several Purepecha words from the musical field. To do so, let us take as a starting point the word pireni, ‘to sing,’ clearly formed by the verb stem pire and -ni, the suffix that marks the infinitive mode. Let us look at a few words in which other suffixes may be employed between said stem and said ending, some clearly lexical and others of a grammatical nature, which results in the expression of different precisions and nuances on the general notion of singing.
The suffix -nhi, which denotes an abstract interior space—which in this context corresponds to the chest—generates meanings related to the emotional sensations of singing: singing and feeling the heartbeat inside; singing alone, without pronouncing the words, but feeling; feeling the singing in the chest, with emotion.
The suffix -nt’a adds an iterative aspectual meaning to the notion of singing that can correspond to the fact of testing a song that has been composed; also singing again or repeating a song; singing a song that was already being forgotten or singing about a recently discussed topic.

The suffix -nharhi denotes an abstract frontal space; in this case the reference is the face of the verbal subject. Therefore, this word corresponds to a person whose facial gestures reflect that they are singing; this can be exemplified with a photograph in which the person portrayed was captured at the moment when they were emitting a song.
This other sequence of suffixes, -ntu -rhi, refers to singing as a complement to performing another activity; an alternative translation corresponds to the phrase ‘to do things while singing.’
The suffix -mi, which expresses water as an abstract space, is part of a set of more than twenty suffixes that encode spatial notions. Therefore, when this element is added to the general notion of singing, it results in performing this action in water.
The sequence of suffixes -nu -nkwa adds the notion of movement to the notion of singing; this movement is directed towards where the subject is or towards a reference point, which corresponds to the utterance ‘to arrive at one’s house singing.’
A desiderative meaning can be added to any verbal notion by suffixing -kweka to its stem, considering the general notion of singing that has been the constant in these words of the Purepecha language, we have then the expression ‘the desire to sing.’ As illustrated in example 6b, the suffix -ra functions to mark causativity, so this word is used when one person requests or compels another to sing; it is also applied in cases where a song is played on electronic equipment, such as a radio.
The sequence of suffixes -k -pera indicates that the action is performed reciprocally between two or more persons; this is the word used in a situation where one person sings to another and the latter, usually immediately, sings to the former.
This triad of suffixes -ku -ta -tara indicates that the action is performed with the help of some instrument or that it is carried out by means of an explicitly referred helping element; the word is used when it is desired to emphasize that someone sings or is accompanied with a guitar, an accordion, etc.
The suffix -ts’ï expresses the notion of an abstract relatively elevated surface; in conjunction with the suffix -ta, it forms the sequence -ts’ï -ta denoting that the verbal action takes place on a surface. Thus, this word is applied, for example, to a situation in which a pianist gives an excellent performance, of which it is said that ‘their fingers sing on the keyboard.’

TOTONAC
Finally, let us look at some words from two variants of the Totonac language. In both cases what is interesting to show, in general terms, is that there are particular verbs for the action of playing a certain instrument, for example a violin e in contrast to a guitar or other instruments. This contrasts with the expressive strategy of Spanish or English, where, in addition to the verb to play, it is necessary to state in a separate word the instrument in question, for example: ‘to play the violin,’ ‘to play the guitar,’ etc.

In the Sierra variant of the Totonac (spoken in Zapotitlán de Méndez, Puebla), the following contrast is present:
It is clear that both verbs share the root pa, which is possible to gloss as ‘to play a musical instrument.’ And, in particular, for example 18a, it can be proposed that the rest of the word is an element related to chu’cuy ‘to cut it, saw it, slice it,’ motivated by the type of movement made with the bow on the violin strings. In turn, for example 18b, the hypothesis is that the element that comes after the root p is related with the voice tl ’na’ ‘singer;’ it follows that the guitar is an instrument played by a singer.

The variant of the Totonac language spoken in Xicotepec de Juárez, Puebla, has the following four contrasts that differentiate when an equal number of musical instruments are played and one more contrast referring to the sound emission of a radio:
For this word set, there is no clearly identified common root or stem that can be recognized as such in all words; perhaps the sequences ma and ma could be proposed as candidates for this. But the analysis of these words remains unsettled, and it is enough for us now to know of their existence, with the explicit invitation to study their respective formation and etymology.

SINGULARITY
Finally, it only has to be added that the conceptual and expressive strategies manifested in the words analyzed above, coming from three very different indigenous languages from Mexico, should not be placed above nor below any other mental or linguistic strategy that could be spotted in any other Mexican culture or in any other part of the world. They are evidence of thoughts that must be understood and appreciated in their uniqueness, within the framework of a relativism that invites us to be more and more sensitive to intercultural understanding and dialogue.

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