The meaning of "Tegucigalpa."

[Michael McCafferty]

Dear Rafael,

I had a chance a few years ago to work on a Pipil language project here 
at I.U.
and I understand where you're coming from when you mention the sound 
changes. But, if your analysis were to come close to the original Pipil 
term, the "someone's" seems a little strange for a place name. I would 
tend to think that that initial "Te-" might be /te-/ 'stone', giving 
theoretically 'stone jewel-house place'.

However, a greater obstacle to your /te:ku:skikalpa(n)/is explaining 
the disappearance of the /k/ of /ku:ski/. If /sk/ was a challenging 
consonant pair
for early Spanish speakers, then you may be home free. But I don't know 
about that. Others on the list may have a thing or two to say about 
this.


All best,

Michael

Quoting Rafael Benavides <rbenavides05 at hotmail.com>:

>
> Hello everyone,
>
>
>
> I'm a Nahuatl student and I am looking for help with breaking down
> "Tegucigalpa." There is a popular translation that says it means
> "place of silver hills." I'm not sure how they have come up with that
> definition.
>
>
>
> Here's what I've been looking at:
>
>
>
> Tegucigalpa> Te. coz-qui. cal-li. Pan. Pipil-Nawat has a 'u' variant,
> turning "cozqui" to "cuzqui."
>
>
>
>> From that we can now get Tecuzquicalpan. 'S/C' sounds give way to
>> 'g' and the final 'n' becomes completely silent, leading to the
>> hispanicized name, "Teguz'igalpa'" -- place of (someone's)
>> jewel-houses?
>
>
>
> I'd appreciate the help. Tlazocamati.
>
>
>
>
>
> Rafael Benavides
>
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