Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-r5zm4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-02T10:05:38.127Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

17 - The Ethnographic Context of Some Traditional Mayan Speech Genres

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Get access

Summary

It is a well documented fact that during the Colonial period, the Indians of Middle America often expressed their thoughts in semantic couplets (and occasionally, triplets). The largest corpus of such materials is in the Nahuatl language, but other languages such as Otomí, Quiché and Yucatec Maya are also represented. Garibay (1953) has documented the use of couplets by the Nahuas and Otomís of central Mexico. Edmonson (1971) has shown that the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Quiché Maya of highland Guatemala, is written in semantic couplets; so too are the Chilam Balam of Chumayel and the Ritual of the Bacabs, both of which are written in Yucatec Maya (Edmonson 1968).

The essence of such couplet poetry is that ideas are expressed in parallel form.

Sometimes a thought will be complemented or emphasized through the use of different metaphors which arouse the same intuitive feeling, or two phrases will present the same idea in opposite form … Another device used in lyric poetry, as well as in discourses and other forms of composition, consists of uniting two words which also complement each other, either because they are synonyms or because they evoke a third idea, usually a metaphor … Examples of this are the following: flower-and-song which metaphorically means poetry, art, and symbolism; skirt-and-blouse which implies woman in her sexual aspect; seat-and-mat which suggests the idea of authority and power; face-and-heart which means personality.

(León Portilla 1969:76–7)
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×