Talk:zapalotl

RFV discussion: November 2019–May 2022

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

zapalotl

Classical Nahuatl. This word is not found in either of the cited dictionaries. There is a word tzapalotl in Morelos Nahuatl, but that's spelled differently. Alexis Wimmer's Dictionnaire de la langue nahuatl classique has an entry for zapalotl citing Clavigero's Historia antigua de Megico, but as far as I can see it only includes the Spanish loan zapalote, and not the Nahuatl word. (Plus I'm not sure if the Nahuatl of Clavigero's time would be considered Classical.) --Lvovmauro (talk) 09:30, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

This string of letters, with some meaning, is mentioned as a Nahuatl word in a number of texts, one of which asserts it as a word in Sinaloa:

• 2010, Daniel F. Austin, Baboquivari Mountain Plants: Identification, Ecology, and Ethnobotany, University of Arizona Press (→ISBN), page 30:

  SPANISH: lechuguilla (little lettuce), maguey (see A. parviflora for derivation), zapalote (from Náhuatl zapalotl, the name for A. tequilana farther south, Sinaloa);

And others place it as a word in Honduras, if that helps narrow down what varieties of Nahuatl to search in:

• 1907, Alberto Membreño, Aztequismos de Honduras:

  Zapalotl, plátano. Color moreno de una clase de maíz. / Zapoyolo. Tzapoyollotl, centro del zapote. El hueso del mamey mexicano y del zapotillo.

• 1982, Alberto Membreño, Hondureñismos:

  En azteca, zapalotl significa banano, plátano.

• 1989, Alessandra Foletti-Castegnaro, Alfarería lenca contemporánea de Honduras:

  […] zapote, y "yolotl", corazón. maíz de color oscuro, negro veteado con rojo. Del nahua "zapalotl", plátano.

I can only find one string of running text, and the bibliographic details of it are unclear:

• (on Google Books as "1958, Proceedings":)

  Sen tonali icuac notscaltili hueyi oquili nantzin nejua nicnequi nicmatis catlejua onquinosa tlacal tecuanantli oquili tlacal cuy hueyi san zapalotl quinopialia miec mañas Totecuiyo Dios mispiali. oquito tecuanconetl nejua niau nictetemos nana  ...

- -sche (discuss) 21:50, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

@Lvovmauro do any of the books above (narrowing down where it's supposedly used), or your own knowledge, help identify what Nahuan lect the one citation above might be in? (Is it just someone's late "conlang Nahuatl" like neo-Gothic?) - -sche (discuss) 21:47, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Striking; it was detagged in October 2021 and there's a citation of use, which no-one has deigned to assert is any other Nahuan language. - -sche (discuss) 19:18, 16 May 2022 (UTC)