From: "Ricardo J. Salvador" <rjsalvad@iastate.edu>
Subject: Re: Tomate, Aguacate, Chocolate
Reply-To: nahuat-l@ACC.FAU.EDU
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 10:53:53 GMT


>In soc.culture.mexican article <1992Sep11.151125.27005@u.washington.edu>
> david90@milton.u.washington.edu (Ernesto Alvarado) writes:
>>>Daniel German escribe:
>>>
>>>        "Bueno, pues mi pregunta es: si tomatl significa colorado por
>>>        que llamamos Jitomates a los rojos y tomates a los verdes,
>>>        especialmente dado que la palabra es de origen mexicano."

[...]

>>La pregunta es mas general.. En donde se les llama asi?
>>Hasta donde recuerdo (poco) se le llama jitomate y tomate en el centro
>>del pais y tomate al rojo y tomatillo al verde en el norte. A riezgo de
>>que los sabedores me corrijan, la prepocision JI significa rojo en nahuatl.
>>Claro que tambien he oido gente que les llama tomate rojo y tomate verde.

En la sistema'tica moderna estos son dos frutos distintos, _Sechule_ sp.
vienen siendo el tomatillo o tomate verde, y _Lycopersicon_ sp. son los
jitomates o tomates rojos. La "...preposicio'n JI..." no tan so'lo no
significa rojo en mexicano sino que es inexistente.  El sonido es la
transformacio'n castellana de "xitomatl," en do'nde la 'x' adquiri'a el
valor "sh" que se perdio' a favor de la "j," como ha sucedido con
un sinnu'mero de vocablos, incluyendo al mismo nombre de Me'xico.
Rojo se dice 'chichiltic' en mexicano (tlatlauhqui si es rojo oscuro).

Este tema se trato' hace tiempo en mexico-l cuando discutimos algunos 
te'rminos bota'nicos, y en seguida adjunto los pasajes relevantes.

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About the avocado and testicle business, there are a couple more
interesting facts to ponder.  For instance, the avocado fruit is of
a type that botanists refer to as a "drupe."  This means it has a
hard pit, a fleshy middle and a thin skin (I take great liberties
with this definition for the sake of the non-biologists among you.)
Knowing, as you now do, that the Mexicans named the avocado (and
recognize that this is the English corruption of the Spanish
corruption of the Nahuatl original) after the testicle, isn't it
also interesting that European botanists agree and observe that it
'drupes?' ;)

There are some other interesting Mexicanisms a propo of food.
Those of you from central Mexico know the fruit called 'tejocote.'
This is a small yellow fruit (Pomum _saxeum_) that is egg-shaped.
Its juice is astringent and it is fairly typical around Xmas time
(by the way, the tree is of the Rosacea, it is a relative of the
apple.)  Anyway, the Mexican for fruit is "xocotl" (esp. bitter fruit).
So,teotlxocolatl (knowing that teotl means 'god' and 'atl' water)
means literally: divine fruit drink (in prehispanic Mexico this was
a bitter, not a sweet, drink that was considered a delicacy and was
drunk cold and exclusively by royalty; the Europeans added the milk
and sugar to make the modern chocolate (another English corruption
of a Spanish corruption of..etc.) that we now know.)  Matter of
fact, out in the hinterlands chocolate is still the drink that
refreshes (cool and bitter.)   One of the delicacies of the drink is
that it is frothy.  The beating of the liquid until it froths is
done with a special vine that "cuts the fat" (cocolme'catl, which
means more or less "medicinal vine" -"cocoliztli" is malaise;
the Mexicans among you know that in Mexico we still call vines 
"mecates"), and the folks there believe that it is the vine which
makes the drink cool, so if you have chocolate but don't have
cocolme'catl, then it is like that commercial where you put away
all the fixin's for your sandwich 'cause you ran out of Cool Whip.
I have a funny story about some of my relatives who attempted to bring
dry cocolme'catl to Los Angeles for their chocolate (there are probably
more Zapotecs in LA right now than in our original village), and what
happened to them at customs, but I digress.

Coming back to the tejocote, you must first
know that 'tetl' means either pebble or egg, according to what you
need it to mean.  From its roots, tetl and xocotl, the tejocote is
the fruit shaped like a pebble (or egg, if you prefer.)  Tetl is an
exceedingly useful word.  The counting system gives away the fact
that it was derived originally from calculations based on stone
counters (sort of redundant there, as you know same thing applies to
the indoeuropeans, and 'calculus' means stone in high Latin, and so
when we 'calculate' we reckon with stones, and when we extract
mineral accretions from kidneys the doctors tell us, technically,
that they've extracted 'calculi.')  So, when we add 'pebble' to a
number, we come up with the mexican counting quantities.

Now then, if we say nauhtetl tomatl, we have four tomatoes (an
English corruption of...etc.).  If we say mactlactetl ahuacatl, we
have 10 avocados.  And if we say cencetl ayotli, we have one squash.
BTW, to'matl (tomato) means plump or fleshy.  The Aztecs had their
taxonomy of these.  Simeo'n gives: xitomatl ("peeling" tomato),
miltomatl (field tomato), coatomatl (serpent-colored), izuatomatl
(covered by thin leaf/membrane), coztomatl (yellow) and xaltomatl
(grows in sandy soil.)

BTW, the avocado is currently thought to have been domesticated
near the present town of Atlixco, not far from present day
Puebla.  You can go to Atlixco and make yourself sick on the variety
of avocados that exist there.  I used to do just that when I was
a teenager.  Oh, and Atlixco is a very beautiful name, it means:
upon the water (atl=water, ixtli=face, co=upon, thereat).

We could go on, but I abuse your patience.

In contemporary Nahuatl, we combine some Spanish and some Nahuatl to
say until tomorrow:

Hasta moztla.
-Ricardo
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