Mexican X Part XIV: Xingona Power

In recent years, many Chicanas and Mexicanas I admire have begun calling themselves “Xingonas,” a tweak of the Mexican Spanish word “chingona.”

To me, this “reclaiming” is awesome. Other folks, however, are offended by the root word, “chingar.”

Why? What does it mean? Where did it come from?

Let’s investigate!

At the risk of angering the same neo-Mexicanists I always provoke, “chingar” does NOT derive from Nahuatl, as Octavio Paz purports in the otherwise shocking and important fourth chapter of his book The Labyrinth of Solitude. The supposed original word Paz suggests, “xināchtli,” couldn’t have evolved phonologically into “chingar.” Also, though “xināchtli” means “seed” (or tantalizingly, “semen”), none of its derivatives connote the violence and violation of “chingar.”

The other folk etymology involving Nahuatl claims that “chingar” comes from “tzinco,” which ill-informed people translate as “anus.” Actually, “tzinco” is a locative (something like an adverb) meaning “at/near the butt” from the noun “tzintli” (butt, haunches, lower half, foundation).

There is no evidence that this adverb became “chingo” and then the verb “chingar.” It would be highly unusual (and I can think of no other example of a locative becoming a verb).

In place names, this locative suffix just meant “on a low hill.” Like Huexotzinco (“where the willow’s on a low hill”). Check out its name glyph, a willow tree coming out of…