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Anybody got a pronunciation key?
I think nobody would complain if you pronounced it “Cha Cha cat”
@Sal@mander.xyz - Do you know? I couldn’t find many sources but I only speak English.
Hah, sure, let’s investigate 🕵️♂️
The term ‘Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl’ was added as a potential Aztec name to the English wikipedia page on February 15, 2025, by user ‘Mxn’.
The description of the edit is the following:
Frum says the Aztecs had no specific name for the gulf, which is plausible in a practical sense, but Fernández gives a specific religious name and is more of a reliable source on this topic
If we investigate a bit further, we can see that the term Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl is described to be a name for the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ in the spanish Wikipedia: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl
This page was updated to include the description of Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl as the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ in September 16, 2018. I don’t have access to the citation so I don’t know if the citation specifies if this term is still known/used.
If you check the history you will find that the same ‘Mxn’ fixed a typo in this page on February 15, 2025.
So, from this sequence of events it is highly likely that the term ‘Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl’ was included into the Gulf of Mexico wiki page as a result of the user Mxn performing an active search for Aztec names for the Gulf of Mexico.
I can find no evidence of native people referring to the gulf of Mexico as ‘Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl’. I can find no mention of this becoming viral in Mexico.
I find it highly unlikely that:
- User Mxn added an obscure Aztec term to the Wiki page two weeks ago AND
- This same obscure Aztec term coincidentally began being used by Mexican natives, and this trend became popular enough to be noticed by foreign media but not by Mexican media
More likely…
- Mxn actively looked for a term and updated the English wiki
- Someone read the English wiki, thought this would be a nice story, made the meme
And this concludes my little investigation 🧐
Haha, fantastic. Thank you for your work. ALAS! We have uncovered a deeper mystery! 🔍🔎🔎🔍🔎 🤔
Is this the book? https://annas-archive.org/md5/fb8569c405991107b987fda775f49ba2
Yes, but that version is in German. That website also has one in English: https://annas-archive.org/slow_download/24154814bfe1e676d79509c3db1f74a4/0/0
Let’s see…
Woah, interesting. The author is José López Portillo. I thought he shared the name with a former Mexican president, but, nope, the author is a former Mexican president.
The title of the English version is a bit different, but the text appears to be the same. It is a novel, and I can find no mention of the gulf of Mexico or of Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl in this book. To me it looks like a mistake in the citation.
The claim appears to come from this text (citation 1): https://www.scribd.com/document/703207646/Dioses-prehispanicos-de-Mexico-mitos-y-deidades-del-panteon-Fernandez-Adela-1992-Mexico-D-F-Panorama-Editorial-9789683803061-cbee5
Unfortunately, that book does not contain references nor is it stated where this claim comes from.
Neat!!! Thank you.
Cuando quieras! 😁
The post in the screen shot is dated February 14, 2025 though?
How did I miss that?!
My timeline is incorrect then. Since the post from sassymetischick.bsky predates the wiki edit, it is more likely that the wiki edit was made in response to this meme, and not the other way around. This pretty invalidates what I said above…
I still can’t find any evidence of this being an actual trend, but I no longer have a good guess about the origin.
Looking through the archived history of the talk page, I can confirm that the claim on the wiki page is derived from the viral post, and not the other way around: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gulf_of_Mexico/Archive_3#Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl
Could that just be a timezone difference?
I think the difference in time is too big. Also, in the talk page’s archive it is stated that the wikipedia was updated because of this meme, and not the other way around. This is from the talk page:
Damn, look at you being awesome!
Looks like “not exactly,” but it’s cool nonetheless:
https://davidbowles.medium.com/pre-invasion-nahuas-and-the-gulf-of-mexico-22f30c515724
Pfft. Lousy historians and their stupid . . research.
I’m just happy that this semi-true fact led me to learn a whole lot about the nahuatl and their history!
Somebody teach me the basic pronounciation, so I can make a slightly less fool of myself when trying to say it, and I’m on board with that.
t͡ʃaːɬt͡ʃiwˈt͡ɬikʷeː
this is somehow harder to pronounce
Damn, those are some crazy phonetics
I’m practicing the pronunciation right now.
No problem, I’m Welsh
I’ve said for decades that in order to cope with an insane world, people take up unjustifiable positions. Some people turn to God, others believe in causes, or whatever.
Mine is that Wales isn’t real and your language is a psyop. I’m sorry.
How are you coping with the over abundance of vowels?
When every letter is a vowel, none of them are.
I don’t know if the name is too long or too short …
Anyone else seeing the part about licking cats?
google maps is showing Chaacosiano for me
No because it’s not a homogeneous people so it would have many different names
My gal spelt out “Chalchiuhtlicueyecati” but abbreviated “associated with.”
Never heard of this goddess before but im glad i did. She’s got some really awesome depictions!
Reminds me of Kali
Like Kali’s grandmother even. She handled the death and life since before there were even animals let alone people.
Yep… She’s got some great ‘depictions’ 👉😏👉
Always wanted a woman with a snake moustache!
I need to understand the snake moustache. Is it a water breather so she can breathe above water while she feeds her children. She’s really pulling that overtime.
Also, who skinned the baby? He seems pretty unperturbed though.
She of the Jade Skirt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalchiuhtlicue
When I lived in Panama City Beach a lot of people called it The Emerald Coast. I’m not the best with colors but if someone asked me the difference between Jade and Emerald I wouldn’t know
“Gulf of the Jade Skirt” sounds kinda badass.
Where and when was this decided by the Indigenous people of North America?
I’m interested to learn more about this. I’ve never heard this name when I studied the history of North America,
I really wish we could actually “rename” places as their original indigenous names across all America(
s). For example my country had an internal turmoil just to keep the original name of its capital city because we love our native people, and yet we keep the incredibly stupid name of “Land of Colon” (imho most probably the most stupid name of any country, ever) because fuck our native people.Like, just the most recent indigenous names, or from one of them before that? It seems arbitrary to fixate on just one civilization just to avoid fixating on exactly one other.
I mean, not that there have been tons of successive civilizations around here, so… And yet if that was the case, you’ll need to take in account that oral lore may have had a hand in the names of places, so it’s mostly improbable that a place has had completely different names with each civilization.
I like that we call it Denali nowadays instead of Mount McKinley. I’m all for this.
Now if I could just get South Dakota to issue me a new license plate without those faces carved into the mountain…
At this point, I don’t know if America can heal with Mt Rushmore still there. I’m not saying we would blow it up, but I do think it might be good if it was blown up.
Damn I definitely did miss this. What the fuck is wrong with this country?
If we want to rename things (Mexico was a LOT larger in the olden times) why don’t we call it “Gulf of the Americas?”
Oh because it doesn’t support imperial single minded nationalism and isn’t USA centered
You are doing it the wong way. The wight way to do it is to acknowledge the victory of the colonizers. Take Denali for example.
I’m not up to speed on this I guess. I thought bringing back the name Denali was a good thing. Is there some more to the story that I’m missing?
