cuix. | Nahuatl Dictionary

Headword:

cuix.

Principal English Translation:

is it the...? could it be...? it is by chance...? (question indicator); this is a good clue that what follows is a quote of an oral statement/question

IPAspelling:

kwiʃ

Alonso de Molina:

cuix. por ventura? adverbio. Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 27v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

CUIX introductory particle for questions which can be appropriately answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is it the case that… ? / ¿por ventura? (M) T and Z have the variant form COX. Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 74.

Horacio Carochi / English:

cuix = question word Horacio Carochi, S.J., Grammar of the Mexican language with an explanation of its adverbs (1645), translated and edited with commentary by James Lockhart, UCLA Latin American Studies Volume 89 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2001), 500.

Andrés de Olmos:

Cuix? por ventura? Andrés de Olmos, Arte para aprender la lengua Mexicana, ed. Rémi Siméon, facsimile edition ed. Miguel León-Portilla (Guadalajara: Edmundo Aviña Levy, 1972), 182.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:

particle. literally perhaps; generally creates a question to which the answer is yes or no James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 37, 216.

Attestations from sources in English:

Auh cuix hamo çenca tetlapololti, yhuā cuix hamo tetzauitl = And it is not confusing and is it not a scandal (central Mexico, early seventeenth century) Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 2, 214–215. cuix ic oppa niquittaz y nohuic y nomecapal = Am I a second time to look for my digging stick and my tump line? Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahuatl Altepetl in Central Mexico; The Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), vol. 2, 46–47. cuix vel mochivaz cuix noço avelli = Could it be done? Was it possible? (central Mexico, sixteenth century) Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros Memoriales, ed. Thelma D. Sullivan, et al. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 249. cuix ... cuix anomo? = is ... or not? Cuix coyōtl = Is it a coyote? Cuix timēxicatl = Are you (singular) a Mexica? Cuix cochi in Pedro = Is Pedro sleeping? Cuix mēxìcatl in cochi = Is it a Mexica who is sleeping? Or: The person who is sleeping, is he a Mexica? Michel Launey, An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, translated and adapted by Christopher MacKay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 23.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

cuix melahuac ynic tlanahuatita = ¿acaso es verdad lo que había ordenado...? (Tlaxcala, 1609) Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos en náhuatl y castellano del siglo XVII, vol. 3, Teresa Rojas Rabiela, et al, eds. (México: CIESAS, 2002), 64–65.niman oncaquitiloque yn petiçion auh ynoquicaque otlananquilique oquihtoque tleynictechmoteilhuilitinemi yn tocnihuã yn totiachcauã cuix tictoltlaltia cuix tictotlatquitia ynin tlaltzin yn oncan concui = Luego presentaron una petición. Oyeron, respondieron hablaron nuestros amigos y primos. Conversaron con nosotros: “¿Acaso le daremos la tierra? ¿Acaso le daremos la propiedad, la tierra que coge sus macehualtin. Que consultemos” (Tetzcoco 1585)
Benjamin Daniel Johnson, “Transcripción de los documentos Nahuas de Tezcoco en los Papeles de la Embajada Americana resguardados en el Archivo Histórico de la Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia de México”, en Documentos nahuas de Tezcoco, Vol. 1, ed. Javier Eduardo Ramírez López (Texcoco: Diócesis de Texcoco, 2018), 85–86.ca ye nelli yn intlal yn ipial tlahtocatlanlli yn iuh caquiztitica ypan yn petiçion = Realmente es su tierra; es su título, es tierra del tlatoani. Así respondieron a la petición (Tetzcoco, 1585)
Benjamin Daniel Johnson, “Transcripción de los documentos Nahuas de Tezcoco en los Papeles de la Embajada Americana resguardados en el Archivo Histórico de la Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia de México”, en Documentos nahuas de Tezcoco, Vol. 1, ed. Javier Eduardo Ramírez López (Texcoco: Diócesis de Texcoco, 2018), 86–87.