suchioa

[Galen Brokaw]

Caroline,
Several things come to mind here, but it would be helpful if you gave
the larger context in which this word appears.
Just based on what you provide, I wouldn't think that this was a loan
word based on "sucio", because the "chioa" portion appears to be the
verb "chihua". In other places, the Florentine expresses the notion of
to pervert or perverted as "teyolcuepa" and "tlacamicqui", but the use
of "chihua" with a preceding, attached noun stem whose meaning was
associated with perversion would also seem to be a viable way to convey
the same idea. Again, just based on the spelling you give of this
isolated word, I would guess that "suchioa" would normalize to
"zochihua", which would seem to break down as "zotl" (cloth) and
"chihua" (to make or do). The problem here is that it is kind of hard to
get from the literal meaning of "cloth" to the sense of "pervert". This
is why the larger context might help. Is there anything preceding the
word which might actually be part of it? It would make more sense if the
word were something like "ahtlazochihua" [to make s.t. worthless or in a
worthless way] or even better "tlazolchihua" [to make s.t. corrupt,
filthy, etc. or in a corrupt, filthy way]. I don't know if these
constructions were actually used, but if they were, either one
(especially the second one: "tlazolchihua") could possibly convey the
notion of "to pervert."
There may be other possibilities, and I may be missing something, but it
is hard to tell with out more context.
Galen





Caroline Dodds wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I have 'lurked' on this list for a long time and found it very
> interesting, although I must confess that many of the discussions go
> over my head! I am struggling, as ever, to improve my Nahuatl and I
> hoped that someone might help me.
>
> I am trying to check the translation of a term from the Florentine
> Codex and am having trouble tracing how it has been derived. The term
> is 'suchioa', which is given by Dibble and Anderson as 'pervert'. I
> have tried every variation I can think of and am now wondering whether
> it may have been drawn from the Spanish 'sucio/cia' (meaning
> dirty/filthy) as this is the only possible derivation I seem to be
> able to find!
>
> Sorry if this is a really stupid question, but I would really
> appreciate any help that people could offer!
>
> Yours,
> Caroline Dodds
> -----
> History Faculty
> University of Cambridge

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