chichimeca (false etymology/mnemonic/rude joke)
John F. Schwaller
schwallr at potsdam.edu
Fri Oct 27 15:39:18 UTC 2006
I didn't do all my home work when I first posted and inadvertently
reaffirmed a false assumption. Going back to Karttunen's Dictionary,
I now see that the word "chichimeca" has long vowels, I hadn't
realized. In fact the word is : chi:chi:me:catl She goes on to note
that as a result of the vowel length the word is NOT related to words
for dog, rags, or bitter. "It is possibly derivationally related to
chi:chi:- 'to suckle.'"
So in fact the word is NOT derived from dog, but from something else,
possibly "to suckle."
John F. Schwaller
President
SUNY Potsdam
44 Pierrepont Ave.
Potsdam, NY 13676
315-267-2100
315-267-2496 fax
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