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Not as much as you'd think! In many places in the yucatan peninsula topsoil is only a few inches deep; it's not rare to see no topsoil at all! The limestone bed
by el_nahual 3y ago
Not as much as you'd think! In many places in the yucatan peninsula topsoil is only a few inches deep; it's not rare to see no topsoil at all! The limestone bedrock is exposed to air.
Most mayan ruins have vast sections that are un-execavated, and you can just see the shape of walls/buildings/roads under the plants and foliage.
In the words of Fray Diego de Landa, a spanish bishop (and monster) that was in charge of the church in Yucatan in the 16th century:
Yucatán es una tierra la de menos tierra que yo he visto
("Yucatán is a land with the least amount of land I've ever seen", where in spanish "tierra" means both "land" and "dirt/soil")
- bedobi 3y ago> Yucatán es una tierra la de menos tierra que yo he visto complete side note but is that what he would have said verbatim or a rendition in modern Spanish? super curious
- neodypsis 3y agoDoesn't sound like modern Spanish
- slicktux 3y agoDefinitely modern Spanish…
- as_bntd 3y agoNot a modern Spanish sentence structure.
- empyrrhicist 3y agoCan you expand?
- as_bntd 3y agoYes. The sentence in question is "Yucatán es una tierra la de menos tierra que yo he visto". The section "la de menos tierra" sounds fine in isolation, as do the preceding and following sections. But together they give off a very archaic feeling. Understandable since it was written almost 500 years ago. A modern version, might be: Yucatán es la tierra de/con menos tierra que (yo) he visto. If you know Spanish and you read that sentence and the following ones here: https://www.wayeb.org/download/resources/landa.pdf https://www.wayeb.org/download/resources/landa.pdf (cmd+f or go to page 101) you'll notice that every single sentence is rendered differently as it would be in modern Spanish. An example: Yucatán es una tierra la de menos tierra que yo he visto, porque toda ella es una viva laja, y tiene a maravilla poca tierra, tanto que habrá pocas partes donde se pueda cavar un estado sin dar en grandes bancos de lajas muy grandes. La piedra no es muy buena para labores delicadas, porque es dura y tosca; empero, tal cual es, ha sido para que de ella hayan hecho la muchedumbre de edificios que en aquella tierra hay; es muy buena para cal, de que hay mucha, y es cosa maravillosa que sea tanta la fertilidad de esta tierra sobre las piedras y entre ellas. And a quickly made conversion into modern Spanish, trying to preserve certain things while excising others haphazardly: Yucatán es la tierra con menos tierra que yo he visto, porque toda ella es piedra viva, y tiene maravillosamente poca tierra, a tal grado que habrá pocas partes donde se pueda cavar (4-5 metros cuadrados) sin dar con grandes bancos de lajas muy grandes. La piedra no es muy buena para labores delicadas, porque es dura y tosca; pero, tal cual es, ha sido usada para construir los numerosos edificios que en aquella tierra hay; es muy buena para cal, de la cual hay mucha, y es cosa maravillosa que esta tierra sea tan fértil, sobre las piedras y entre ellas. EDIT: so everything is understandable really, but some things, like the phrasal adverb (?) (locuciónes adverbial) "a maravilla" has become less used than using -mente to convert an adjective into an adverb. And some articles are used strangely, and some words aren't used anymore (estado as a unit of area), empero instead of pero, etc.
- empyrrhicist 3y agoThanks, that helps. I think I have some trouble distinguishing formal from archaic. I do find it much easier to parse the modern versions you made.
- empyrrhicist 3y agoNot a native speaker, but it sounds almost spoken/informal in my mind. "Yucatan is a land (place/territory) - it's the one with the least land that I have seen." Doesn't seem that weird to me, but I hear a pause before "la"- curious what makes you think it is.
- empyrrhicist 3y agoFor the interested, relative pronouns: https://studyspanish.com/grammar/lessons/relproelque https://studyspanish.com/grammar/lessons/relproelque
- veave 3y agoIt is verbatim, Spanish from the 16th century. It doesn't sound right to a modern Spanish speaker.
- sosodev 3y agoIt seems fairly close to modern Spanish at least. Totally intelligible.
- lisasays 3y ago"Intelligible" and "sounds right" are very different things.
- empyrrhicist 3y agoCan you expand about why it doesn't sound right? Are you a native speaker?
- lisasays 3y agoNo - you'll have to ask the commenter a few notches above about that. I was referring the general distinction between the terms. In general - just because a phrase is easily understood doesn't mean it is idiomatically correct or natural-sounding to a native speaker. As to the phrase itself: from my limited knowledge of the language, it does sound to be very close to correct -- so I'd be curious also as to what the sticking point is.
- elpakal 3y agoSounds fine to me. Maybe depends on your kind of Spanish
- el_nahual 3y agoVerbatim, from his diaries.
- UberFly 3y agoGreat info. Thanks! I wonder if that contributed to their susceptibility to drought.
- c420 3y agoThe topography is also extremely level so if you see anything mound-ish, there's likely something man-made in there.
- distortionfield 3y agoYeah, this surprised me a lot when I was in Mexico, it was so much more flat than I thought it would be. Dense, thick, flat carpet of jungle as far as the eye can see.
- interactivecode 3y agoDoes that mean it has clearly been cultivated to be that flat?
- corinroyal 3y agoNo. It's undeformed limestone karst, meaning old uplifted seabed that was not crunched up.
- dimmke 3y agoIt’s because that’s where the asteroid hit right? The one that killed the dinosaurs
- 29athrowaway 3y agoThat was the guy that collected all the manuscripts from Mesoamerican civilizations and burned them all. This event is comparable to the destruction of the Great library of Alexandria, or the destruction of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad.
- elpakal 3y agoI remember flying over some parts of Chiapas as a young boy thinking for sure that every mound or hill was an undiscovered temple of some kind, waiting for someone to stumble on. There’s a lot of uncovered magic there, a lot like all of the wild dinosaur bones being accidentally found in the construction debris of booming humanity.
- incomplete 3y agoone of my many majors in college (mid 1990s) was archaeology, specializing in central/south america. i recall one of my profs telling us that if you see a hill in the yucatan, it's a buried ruin.