coyote

[prettygoodword]

Theme weeks: words from Nahuatl, the central-Mexico language of the Aztecs.


coyote (kai-OH-tee, KAI-oht) - n., a North American wild dog (Canis latrans) with a slender build, bushy tail, and large ears.


The second pronunciation is used only in the western US, and is something of a regional shibboleth. It has adapted well to urban habitats, and its range has been expanding. (It's been a couple years since I've seen them in our neighborhood, but I'm not leaving the house as early in the morning as I once did.) Smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and regarded by Anglo-Americans as dangerous but less admirable, thus its reuse in slang senses of a contemptible person (including someone who smuggles immigrants across the border), though it's also used for forest-fire-fighters. In English, earlier form was cayote, from Mexican Spanish coyote, from Nahuatl coyōtl.

---L.

Comments

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

(s/Nahautl/Nahuatl)

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

s/tyop/typo | facepalm

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

I do not understand the ki-yōt vs ki-yo-tee pronunciation borders. I have read both that it's regional and that the two pronunciations indicate different things.

[larryhammer]

My local informants who've use ki-yōt insisted it's regional, though I don't know how they would know.

[mount-oregano.livejournal.com]

Here in Chicago, the city is protecting the coyotes in the Loop on the grounds that they eat rats.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

Heh.