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Chiricahua Loan-Words from Spanish

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Harry Hoijer
Harry Hoijer*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

The Chiricahua Apache, in aboriginal times, occupied the territory centering about the junction of the Arizona-New Mexico state line with the international boundary. Since this region was explored and colonized by the Spaniards as early as the sixteenth century, the Chiricahua have probably been in contact with Spanish-speaking peoples for more than three hundred years.

However, the influence of Spanish on the language of the Chiricahua has been a slight one. In my dictionary, there are but nineteen words of indisputable Spanish origin. All other linguistic innovations which can be attributed to Spanish contact are either changes or extensions of meaning of older linguistic elements or recently formed descriptive compounds.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 15 , Issue 2-Part1: April-June , June 1939 , pp. 110 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © 1939 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 An abstract of this paper was presented to the Summer Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America at Ann Arbor, Michigan, July 19, 1938.

2 For a complete definition of the symbols employed, see my Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache Texts 3–4 (1938).

3 This compound is probably formed on the analogy of the American English ‘two bits’.

4 Chiricahua t and k are heavily aspirated sounds quite unlike the unaspirated Spanish t and k.

5 The 3a person is employed when it is necessary to distinguish between two third persons or when referring to a relative by marriage with whom a respect relationship is maintained.

6 The exceptions to this rule are those Spanish words in which the accented syllable (also the final syllable) terminates with an -n. In such cases, the -n, becoming syllabic and high-toned in Chiricahua, prevents the lengthening of the preceding vowel.

7 As a matter of fact, one of my informants did conjugate ‘to be crazy’ in the other four modes exactly as if it had been an active verb. He was, however, uncertain as to the validity of all but the imperfective forms and I did not succeed in getting anyone else either to repeat his performance or to acknowledge the validity of the other four paradigms.