The meaning of "Tegucigalpa."

[Michael Swanton]

Membreño’s
study of indigenous Central American toponyms (originally dating to the
beginning of the 20th century, but re-edited in 1994) has the
following entry for Tegucigalpa:

 

“Se ha creído por mucho tiempo que aquella palabra es una
corrupción de Taguzgalpa, que
significa “cerro de plata”. Pero no hay tal. Esta población no formó parte de la Taguzgalpa;
y cuando la conquista de la provincia de este nombre, ya Tegucigalpa existía. Don Pedro de Alvarado, en 1536, escribe en el
Repartimiento Teguycegalpa, forma que
creemos se acerca más a su origen azteca. Tegucigalpa
significa “en las casas de las piedras puntiagudas”, por componerse de tell,
[sic] piedra, huitztli, espina, calli, casa y pan, en. Este nombre se lo pusieron or la multitud de piedras en la
forma dicha que habían y aun hay en el cerro de Zapusuca, al pied del cual está
la población” (1994: 195).

 

Membreño’s
approach seems to be characteristic in the study of Central American toponyms,
namely seek etymologies in Nahuatl first. Since Nahuatl is so well known, that
is probably a good modus operandi. But with such unsatisfying
etymologies, I wonder if we can really exclude the possibilities of other
languages.

 

There are
many place names which end in –galpa in Central America, but they all seem to
cluster around southern Honduras
and central Nicaragua (e.g.
Mayogalpa, Juigalpa, Totagalpa, Tegucigalpa…).
Other toponyms in the region end in –lí (sometimes –le), -guina and –apa, which
can be translated respectively as ‘water’, ‘pueblo’ and ‘rock’ in the now
extinct Misumalpan language Matagalpa (there it is again!), formerly spoken in
this region. Perhaps then it’s worth considering a Matagalpa as a possible
source language.

 



--- On Mon, 10/26/09, Rafael Benavides <rbenavides05 at hotmail.com> wrote:

From: Rafael Benavides <rbenavides05 at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Nahuat-l] The meaning of "Tegucigalpa."
To: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
Date: Monday, October 26, 2009, 10:47 PM




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
 		 	   		  
Windows 7: I wanted more reliable, now it's more reliable. Wow! 

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