Sep 1, 2012 16:26
11 yrs ago
Spanish term
zorocho (etymology)
Spanish to English
Art/Literary
Linguistics
UK English
This adjective is used in Venezuela and Colombia and the DRAE gives:
1. Dicho de un alimento: A medio cocinar.
2. Dicho de un fruto: Que no está en sazón.
I'd always assumed its derived from an indigenous word.
But somebody said to me they heard it used recently in Andalucia,
and it seems more likely to me that it travelled from there to Latin
America, rather than vice versa.
Does anyone know the origin of the word?
Thanks in advance!
1. Dicho de un alimento: A medio cocinar.
2. Dicho de un fruto: Que no está en sazón.
I'd always assumed its derived from an indigenous word.
But somebody said to me they heard it used recently in Andalucia,
and it seems more likely to me that it travelled from there to Latin
America, rather than vice versa.
Does anyone know the origin of the word?
Thanks in advance!
Proposed translations
(English)
| 3 +4 | possibly Quechua, but quite possibly Peninsular (Basque?) |
Charles Davis
|
| 4 | of Venezuelan origin |
Simon Bruni
|
References
| asorochada |
Rosa Paredes
|
Proposed translations
+4
5 hrs
Selected
possibly Quechua, but quite possibly Peninsular (Basque?)
A very intriguing question, to which I have no authoritative answer. But it seems to me there are two possibilities.
"Zorocho" could be an indigenous Americanism. As the DRAE says, it is used in parts of Colombia and Venezuela to mean half-baked or unripe. In the source cited by Simon, it appears in a list compiled by the Venezuelan writer and politician Mario Briceño Iragorry, entitled "Algunas voces usadas en el Estado Trujillo, no incluidas en los Glosarios de Alvarado". Alvarado is Dr Lisandro Alvarado, compiler of the Glosario de voces indígenas de Venezuela (1921). Briceño, not a professional linguist, set down from memory a list of words used in his native province of Trujillo, in western Venezuela (near Colombia). So this isn't actually evidence that the word is of Venezuelan origin, but simply that it was used in this part of Venezuela.
It's sometimes spelt "sorocho", with the same meaning:
"SOROCHO, CHA. adj. Col. A medio asar. II Ven. Dícese del fruto aún no bien maduro. II m. Amér. del S. Soroche."
http://www.acanomas.com/Diccionario-Espanol/129195/SOROCHO,-...
As the DRAE says, it's also used in Colombia, and some claim it's of Colombian origin:
" Sorocho
Muchos lingüistas consideran esta palabra de origen colombiano, pero al ser una buena región de Colombia por muchos años parte de la provincia de Maracaibo, en lo personal la considero de nuestro dialecto, sobre todo por las características de la misma. Acá en nuestra región algo sorocho es que aun esta medio crudo, por tal razón era costumbre decir cuando los plátanos no estaban asados que estaban sorochos. Ya no se utiliza mucho."
http://maracucholario.blogspot.com.es/2010/08/sorocho.html
There's really no telling whether it spread from Venezuela to Colombia, or vice versa, or neither.
But what's interesting here is that "sorocho" is also (as the "acanomas" definition notes) a variant of "soroche", meaning altitude sickness. This word is claimed as Peruvian, but it's used all over southern Latin America. The standard form is "soroche" (which is in the DRAE), but "sorocho" is a very common variant. It is generally thought to be derived from Quechua (the DRAE says so), possibly from "suruchiq", meaning "el metal que hace deslizar la plata", according to the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. For further details, see here:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:qM_NhR98X08J:gupe... (pp. 7-10)
http://diperu.org/glosario_plus/s
So perhaps the Colombian/Venezuelan word "zorocho" or "sorocho" is from Quechua as well. However, this is not certain. After all, the difference in meaning is pretty radical, and it's not at all easy to see how you get from a metal or altitude sickness to half-baked, uncooked or half-ripe. The coincidence of "sorocho" could be due to convergence from difference sources.
I think there's an alternative possibility. Perhaps "zorocho", as used in Colombia and Venezuela, comes from "zolocho", which is a colloquial Peninsular Spanish word meaning "simple, mentecato, aturdido o poco expedito". It's been used in Spain for a long time; it's in the first RAE dictionary, the Diccionario de Autoridades (1739). What is intriguing is the following entry in Manuel de Larramendi's Diccionario triligüe del castellano, bascuence y latín (1745), 2, p. 390:
"Zolocho, simple, mentacato, es de el Bascuence zorocho, que significa loquillo. Lat. Stolidus"
http://books.google.es/books?id=uhpXXmpodygC&pg=PA390&lpg=PA...
I have not been able to confirm the existence of a Basque word "zorotxo", but Larramendi probably knew what he was talking about.
Anyway, what attracts me about this is that it is a fairly short step from "simple-minded" to "unripe" or "half-cooked". So it seems to me quite possible that the Colombian/Venezuelan usage "zorocho" is actually derived from Basque "zorocho" [?] via Castilian "zolocho".
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 5 hrs (2012-09-01 22:17:41 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Of course, it is possible that what your informant heard in Andalusia was actually "zolocho", rather than "zorocho"!
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 16 hrs (2012-09-02 08:30:42 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
I must stress that the idea of relating "zorocho" (half-cooked, unripe) to "zolocho", suggested to me by Larramendi's claim that the latter comes from Basque "zorocho", is a pure guess, and I wouldn't dare put it higher than that. In any case, I don't know whether Larramendi's claim is correct. "Zolocho" appears as a word of Arabic origin in a "Catálogo de algunas voces castellanas puramente arábigas , ó derivadas de la lengua griega , y de los idiomas orientales , pero introducidas en España por los árabes" (unsigned), published in the Memorias de la Real Academia de la Historia, IV (1805).
http://home.us.archive.org/stream/memorias04real#page/n237/m...
The consonant shift between 'l' and 'r' is quite common, but it's still pure speculation.
On the possible Quechua origin, I agree with you that the importation of a silver-related word from America to Seville is by no means implausible. "Soroche" does indeed mean "galena" as well as "altitude sickness"; that must have been what the Inca Garcilaso was referring to, and in that sense it clearly must be derived from Quechua "suruchiq". So says Julio Calvo and so says the new Diccionario de americanismos:
http://diperu.org/glosario_plus/s
As to how you get from galena to altitude sickness (also "soroche" or "sorocho", and from the same Quechua root, according to the distinguished Peruvian Quechua specialist Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino), it has been argued that the link is the feeling of nausea produced by inhaling the vapour in the mines, and "asorocharse" was "intoxicarse por las emanaciones de una veta de mineral". See here, pp. 7-8:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/41306476/ARCHIVO-3
So what about Colombian/Venezuelan "zorocho"? Could this use of the word be related to the same semantic field? I very much like your suggestion of "half-cooked" silver! I would just add that the meaning of "suruchiq" in Quechua is apparently the effect of the metal rather than the metal itself. The Inca Garcilaso said "el metal que hace deslizar la plata". Calvo says "suruchiq" means "el que hace gotear" ( http://diperu.org/glosario_plus/s ), and in this Quechua-Spanish dictionary it is defined as:
" Suruchiq.
adj. y s. Que hace chorrear o emanar líquidos. EJEM: upi aqha suruchiq, que hace chorrear la chicha mosta."
http://www.cuscocultural.com/listadiccionario.php?letra=S&in...
"Chicha mosta" is unfermented "chicha" (maize juice from which an alcoholic drink is made, I believe). This suggests an interesting possible connection.
I would love to know who was using "zorocho" in Andalusia and in what sense: whether it was a native Andalusian who had spent time in Colombia or Venezuela, for example, or perhaps an immigrant from those parts, for example, and whether he/she was using the word in that sense of "unripe" or "half-cooked". I can't find "zorocho" attested as a Peninsular usage, but one should really look at printed sources on Andalusian dialectology, which I haven't got at home.
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 17 hrs (2012-09-02 10:17:31 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
By the way, I forgot to mention your reference to Arte de los metales. This really is interesting. It proves that "soroche" in the sense of galena was known in Spain by 1770 (which is not surprising, really). And Andalusia was the obvious and inevitable channel for the commerce in words between America and Spain, as in other things. But it remains intriguing, because the meaning of "zorocho" we are considering is so localised in Latin America: apparently just the northern Venezuela/Colombia border area. I would very much like to know, if possible, in what sense the word was being used when your informant heard it in Andalusia.
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 18 hrs (2012-09-02 10:41:28 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Great, and thanks for a very enjoyable little puzzle! Meanwhile, I would now say that the best answer to your original question is "Probably Quechua".
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 18 hrs (2012-09-02 10:49:56 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
It has been suggested that "zolocho" comes from Latin "stultus", but this is apparently very doubtful
http://www.robertexto.com/archivo17/insultos_t_u_v_y_z.htm
Sarmiento thought that "zolocho", like Galician "relouca", came from "lux"
http://sli.uvigo.es/ddd/ddd_pescuda.php?pescuda=reloucar&tip...
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 18 hrs (2012-09-02 10:51:10 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
But yes, a connection with "zorollo" does look like an interesting possibility, given its meaning.
"Zorocho" could be an indigenous Americanism. As the DRAE says, it is used in parts of Colombia and Venezuela to mean half-baked or unripe. In the source cited by Simon, it appears in a list compiled by the Venezuelan writer and politician Mario Briceño Iragorry, entitled "Algunas voces usadas en el Estado Trujillo, no incluidas en los Glosarios de Alvarado". Alvarado is Dr Lisandro Alvarado, compiler of the Glosario de voces indígenas de Venezuela (1921). Briceño, not a professional linguist, set down from memory a list of words used in his native province of Trujillo, in western Venezuela (near Colombia). So this isn't actually evidence that the word is of Venezuelan origin, but simply that it was used in this part of Venezuela.
It's sometimes spelt "sorocho", with the same meaning:
"SOROCHO, CHA. adj. Col. A medio asar. II Ven. Dícese del fruto aún no bien maduro. II m. Amér. del S. Soroche."
http://www.acanomas.com/Diccionario-Espanol/129195/SOROCHO,-...
As the DRAE says, it's also used in Colombia, and some claim it's of Colombian origin:
" Sorocho
Muchos lingüistas consideran esta palabra de origen colombiano, pero al ser una buena región de Colombia por muchos años parte de la provincia de Maracaibo, en lo personal la considero de nuestro dialecto, sobre todo por las características de la misma. Acá en nuestra región algo sorocho es que aun esta medio crudo, por tal razón era costumbre decir cuando los plátanos no estaban asados que estaban sorochos. Ya no se utiliza mucho."
http://maracucholario.blogspot.com.es/2010/08/sorocho.html
There's really no telling whether it spread from Venezuela to Colombia, or vice versa, or neither.
But what's interesting here is that "sorocho" is also (as the "acanomas" definition notes) a variant of "soroche", meaning altitude sickness. This word is claimed as Peruvian, but it's used all over southern Latin America. The standard form is "soroche" (which is in the DRAE), but "sorocho" is a very common variant. It is generally thought to be derived from Quechua (the DRAE says so), possibly from "suruchiq", meaning "el metal que hace deslizar la plata", according to the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. For further details, see here:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:qM_NhR98X08J:gupe... (pp. 7-10)
http://diperu.org/glosario_plus/s
So perhaps the Colombian/Venezuelan word "zorocho" or "sorocho" is from Quechua as well. However, this is not certain. After all, the difference in meaning is pretty radical, and it's not at all easy to see how you get from a metal or altitude sickness to half-baked, uncooked or half-ripe. The coincidence of "sorocho" could be due to convergence from difference sources.
I think there's an alternative possibility. Perhaps "zorocho", as used in Colombia and Venezuela, comes from "zolocho", which is a colloquial Peninsular Spanish word meaning "simple, mentecato, aturdido o poco expedito". It's been used in Spain for a long time; it's in the first RAE dictionary, the Diccionario de Autoridades (1739). What is intriguing is the following entry in Manuel de Larramendi's Diccionario triligüe del castellano, bascuence y latín (1745), 2, p. 390:
"Zolocho, simple, mentacato, es de el Bascuence zorocho, que significa loquillo. Lat. Stolidus"
http://books.google.es/books?id=uhpXXmpodygC&pg=PA390&lpg=PA...
I have not been able to confirm the existence of a Basque word "zorotxo", but Larramendi probably knew what he was talking about.
Anyway, what attracts me about this is that it is a fairly short step from "simple-minded" to "unripe" or "half-cooked". So it seems to me quite possible that the Colombian/Venezuelan usage "zorocho" is actually derived from Basque "zorocho" [?] via Castilian "zolocho".
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 5 hrs (2012-09-01 22:17:41 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Of course, it is possible that what your informant heard in Andalusia was actually "zolocho", rather than "zorocho"!
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 16 hrs (2012-09-02 08:30:42 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
I must stress that the idea of relating "zorocho" (half-cooked, unripe) to "zolocho", suggested to me by Larramendi's claim that the latter comes from Basque "zorocho", is a pure guess, and I wouldn't dare put it higher than that. In any case, I don't know whether Larramendi's claim is correct. "Zolocho" appears as a word of Arabic origin in a "Catálogo de algunas voces castellanas puramente arábigas , ó derivadas de la lengua griega , y de los idiomas orientales , pero introducidas en España por los árabes" (unsigned), published in the Memorias de la Real Academia de la Historia, IV (1805).
http://home.us.archive.org/stream/memorias04real#page/n237/m...
The consonant shift between 'l' and 'r' is quite common, but it's still pure speculation.
On the possible Quechua origin, I agree with you that the importation of a silver-related word from America to Seville is by no means implausible. "Soroche" does indeed mean "galena" as well as "altitude sickness"; that must have been what the Inca Garcilaso was referring to, and in that sense it clearly must be derived from Quechua "suruchiq". So says Julio Calvo and so says the new Diccionario de americanismos:
http://diperu.org/glosario_plus/s
As to how you get from galena to altitude sickness (also "soroche" or "sorocho", and from the same Quechua root, according to the distinguished Peruvian Quechua specialist Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino), it has been argued that the link is the feeling of nausea produced by inhaling the vapour in the mines, and "asorocharse" was "intoxicarse por las emanaciones de una veta de mineral". See here, pp. 7-8:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/41306476/ARCHIVO-3
So what about Colombian/Venezuelan "zorocho"? Could this use of the word be related to the same semantic field? I very much like your suggestion of "half-cooked" silver! I would just add that the meaning of "suruchiq" in Quechua is apparently the effect of the metal rather than the metal itself. The Inca Garcilaso said "el metal que hace deslizar la plata". Calvo says "suruchiq" means "el que hace gotear" ( http://diperu.org/glosario_plus/s ), and in this Quechua-Spanish dictionary it is defined as:
" Suruchiq.
adj. y s. Que hace chorrear o emanar líquidos. EJEM: upi aqha suruchiq, que hace chorrear la chicha mosta."
http://www.cuscocultural.com/listadiccionario.php?letra=S&in...
"Chicha mosta" is unfermented "chicha" (maize juice from which an alcoholic drink is made, I believe). This suggests an interesting possible connection.
I would love to know who was using "zorocho" in Andalusia and in what sense: whether it was a native Andalusian who had spent time in Colombia or Venezuela, for example, or perhaps an immigrant from those parts, for example, and whether he/she was using the word in that sense of "unripe" or "half-cooked". I can't find "zorocho" attested as a Peninsular usage, but one should really look at printed sources on Andalusian dialectology, which I haven't got at home.
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 17 hrs (2012-09-02 10:17:31 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
By the way, I forgot to mention your reference to Arte de los metales. This really is interesting. It proves that "soroche" in the sense of galena was known in Spain by 1770 (which is not surprising, really). And Andalusia was the obvious and inevitable channel for the commerce in words between America and Spain, as in other things. But it remains intriguing, because the meaning of "zorocho" we are considering is so localised in Latin America: apparently just the northern Venezuela/Colombia border area. I would very much like to know, if possible, in what sense the word was being used when your informant heard it in Andalusia.
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 18 hrs (2012-09-02 10:41:28 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Great, and thanks for a very enjoyable little puzzle! Meanwhile, I would now say that the best answer to your original question is "Probably Quechua".
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 18 hrs (2012-09-02 10:49:56 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
It has been suggested that "zolocho" comes from Latin "stultus", but this is apparently very doubtful
http://www.robertexto.com/archivo17/insultos_t_u_v_y_z.htm
Sarmiento thought that "zolocho", like Galician "relouca", came from "lux"
http://sli.uvigo.es/ddd/ddd_pescuda.php?pescuda=reloucar&tip...
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 18 hrs (2012-09-02 10:51:10 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
But yes, a connection with "zorollo" does look like an interesting possibility, given its meaning.
Note from asker:
| Thanks Charles - beautifully researched (as always). My informant is a "word person" so it's unlikely she misheard "zolocho". I like your suggestion of "simple-minded" taking on the sense of "half-baked"! Your references suggest a rather fanciful idea to me: soroche (Bol, Chi) is galena, a lead ore associated with silver and the two were melted together to separate them. In that scenario, the silver would be the "fully-cooked" end product and the "sorocho" would be poured off "half-cooked". I have no actual evidence to support this, but it would imply a Quechua origin and an importation back to Andalucia. |
| P.S. The author of http://books.google.ie/books?id=Jua9DLwv15UC&pg=PA161 was from Andalucia. Since silver was such an important import from the mines in S America, it seems natural enough that a word of Quechua origin relating to silver refining might make its way back. |
| In fact it was the silver which was poured off - "El que es metal rico se beneficia por fundición en aquellos hornillos que llaman guairas; este es el metal que es más plomoso, y el plomo le hace derretir, y aun para mejor derretirlo, echan los indios el que llaman soroche, que es un metal muy plomizo. Con el fuego, la escoria corre abajo, el plomo y la plata se derriten, y la plata anda nadando sobre el plomo hasta que se apura; tornan después a refinar más y más la plata." |
| I'll ask her in what context she heard it - she mentioned it as a word that was new to her, so it's apparently not common even in very educated sectors of Galicia. I must ask my extended Venezuelan family about this. I have the impression (and that's all it is) that there "zorocho" spelling = half-cooked and that the "sorocho" spelling is usually reserved for a partly-ripe fruit. |
| Now here's an interesting possibility: "zorollo" deriving from Latin serucŭlus, de serus, tardío. Or from Arabic zarura! http://enciclopedia_universal.esacademic.com/201497/zorollo |
| Words slip, slide, perish / Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place :-) |
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "Many thanks Charles. I think uncertain is the safest summary."
11 mins
Simon Bruni
United Kingdom
United Kingdom
Native in English
Works in field
United Kingdom
Related KudoZ points
:
40
of Venezuelan origin
It appears in a list of words of indigenous Venezuelan origin here:
Note from asker:
| Thanks Simon. It could well be - seems unlikely anyone will ever know for certain. |
Reference comments
1 day 8 hrs
Rosa Paredes
Canada
Canada
Native in Spanish
&
English
Works in field
Canada
Criminal, Civil and Immigration Law
Native in: English 
, Spanish (Variants: Latin American, Chilean, Standard-Spain, Mexican)
Works in: Spanish to English, English to Spanish, French to English, and 3 more.
Related KudoZ points
:
16
Reference:
asorochada
I have heard "asorochada" (with an 's' instead of a 'z') meaning having shortness of breath.
https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/20835/1/gupea_2077_208...
https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/20835/1/gupea_2077_208...
Peer comments on this reference comment:
| agree |
Charles Davis
: Yes, and this is certainly from "soroche" (or "sorocho"), which the experts agree is derived from Quechua. Thanks for the extra reference (and the personal testimony).
7 hrs
|
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