Etymology
The word "Chuy", according to most scholars, comes from the Tupi–Guarani language. The Indians had designated the small brook on whose banks the town would emerge with the same name. According to Daniel Granada, "Chui" was also the name the Indians gave a yellow-breasted bird, native and common in the marshes of the area. According to Tancredo Blotta, chuy is a compound word which should be translated as "river of brown water".
The Brazilian historian Péricles Azambuja alludes to a rumor that the word (originally Chyu) would have been brought by former tribes who migrated from the Andes. A Quechua word, achuy had the meaning of "teaching" through storytelling, thus chuy'o would be "master " or "narrator." In a different context, chuy can be seen to mean a small frog or toad in the water, a small turtle or small horse. Advocates of some of these theories base their beliefs on the fact that the stream, and watercourse, is insignificant compared to others in the area.
Read more about this topic: Chuy
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)