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The Bible in Classical Nahuatl

Since the first time I heard the Nahuatl language spoken in a country church in San Luis Potosi, Mexico when I was a teenager, I have been fascinated by this language. Despite all odds, Nahuatl has held its own for over 500 years since the Spanish conquest, and continues to be spoken in many parts of Mexico to this day.

In modern times, American missionaries have translated the New Testament (as well as the Old Testament in a handful of cases) into a number of modern dialects of Nahuatl. However, until up to a few years ago, I was unaware that the Scriptures had already been translated into Nahuatl centuries before, during a time when the Catholic Church was a bit more tolerant towards native languages than it later became.

This translation is known as the Evangeliarium, and it was compiled in the mid 16th century. It is worth mentioning that it is not a complete translation of the Bible—in fact, it could be more accurately described as a lectionary, a book containing readings of Scripture organised according to the liturgical calendar. I don’t know whether or not the Nahuatl Evangeliarium was actually used in Catholic mass in times past, but that was clearly its original purpose. It is attributed to Bernardino de Sahag煤n, a Franciscan friar who took a great interest in Aztec language and culture, although it is very likely that he worked with a number of Nahuatl speakers to produce this book.

Despite the fact that the Evangeliarium does not contain the complete Bible, the more I looked at it the more I thought it would be worthwhile to reorganise the scriptures into books, chapters, and verses as in conventional Bibles. I took an edited version of the Evangeliarium which was published in 1858, and over the span of almost a year (15 minutes a day!) I copied, pasted, and proof-read the text verse-by-verse using Google Books and Archive.org. I used the Bibledit software to compile the text, and I am happy to report that the final result may be browsed and searched at this website:

teoamoxtli.nawatl.org

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John 3:3 in Greek and Nahuatl, demonstrating the use of macrons on long vowels

Adventures in Vowel Length

There was a time, not so long ago, when I fancied myself somewhat of an expert in the ancient Greek language. I learned the Greek alphabet shortly after learning the Roman one, and throughout childhood I studied the language slowly but surely. Upon arriving at university, the Greek professors graciously allowed me to test out of the first year of Greek, which is how I ended up taking Greek 3 during my first semester, and went on to take every Greek class that was available. So imagine my surprise, when, after all those years of acquainting myself with the language, for the first time I recently came across the fact that ancient Greek has phonemic vowel length. I had a foggy notion of Eta and Omega being “long” vowels and Epsilon and Omicron being “short” vowels, but I had chalked it up to being a weak attempt at explaining how they should be pronounced, something akin to how in my native English they say that the A in “apple” is short, whereas the “A” in “acorn” is long. Phonologically speaking, the difference between these two is a difference in quality, not quantity—in fact, the A in “acorn” is a diphthong; not even a simple vowel!

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Skinning Cats With AI

Playing with artificial intelligence seems to be the cool thing to do these days, despite the world-changing implications that such technology may bring. And as I was playing around with ChatGPT last night, trying to think of things to ask it, it occurred to me that perhaps it might know the answer to an age-old question: What is the best way to skin a cat? Obviously everyone knows that there is more than one way, but enquiring minds want to know: which is the best? Surely AI would have an answer to this great conundrum.

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My Foray Into Cryptocurrency / 饜懃饜懖 饜憮饜應饜懏饜懕 饜懄饜懐饜憫饜懙 饜憭饜懏饜懄饜憪饜憫饜懘饜憭饜懟饜懇饜懐饜憰饜懄

Today was a normal day. I saw that some of my domain names were about to expire, so I went on Namecheap, clicked “Top-up funds”, and within a few minutes had transferred enough dogecoin to pay for my domain renewals. It always makes me smile when I see the burst of colourful phrases in Comic Sans fly across the screen telling me that my payment went through.

What, not everyone pays for domain names with dogecoin? OK, maybe I am weird after all.

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How to buy a car in Mexico with cash

I am a US citizen living in Mexico as a temporary resident, and after going through quite an ordeal trying to buy a vehicle here, I thought I would share what I learned in case someone else in a similar situation is about to go through the same process.

First of all, I use TransferWise to move money from my US bank account to my Mexican bank account, and when I found a vehicle I wanted to buy, I thought I had all my ducks in a row. I live in a fairly small town, so when I went to the big city to buy a car, I just located the nearest branch of my bank and told the seller to meet me there.

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