Bat

Scenario 1 for relation between "bat" etyma. Here the Coracholan form is derived from proto-corachol-Nahua *tsoi, uniting all of Minor SUA (i.e. SUA minus Tepima)

Scenario 2 for relation between "bat" etyma. Here Coracholan retains the PUA form *patsi. Here minor Sonoran is united with Nahuan, while Tepima and Corachol are distinct

Southern Uto-Aztecan words for "bat" (order Chiroptera) fall into relatively neat groupings of Nahuan, Coracholan, Tepiman, and Minor Sonoran, with a sub-distinction between Tarahumara-Guarijío-Ópatan vs. Cahitan. But a thorough analysis suggests that the forms in Nahuan and Minor Sonoran are derived from a single PSUA form *sopitsi (or potentially just *sopi, depending on whether the -tsi is lost in Nahuan or added in Sonoran).

Nahuan: The relationship between the Nahuan form and the Minor Sonoran forms is obscured by two things: 1. That soundchanges has reduced *sopi to the syllable tsi- and tso- (intermediary steps *tsoi < *tsohi) which only appears in compound forms tsina:ka, tsona:ka and tsotso. 2. That the forms with tso are limited to a handful of dialects, and the best known form is the one with tsi-, which looks less likely to be related to *sopi than *tso. Nevertheless, the changes follow regular patterns, and even explain the unexpected lack of palatalization in the Nahuan root tsi. Recognizing these facts allows us to see the Nahuan and Sonoran form as deriving from a single proto-form.

Coracholan: The proto-Coracholan form *'átsi may be derived from this same form, or may potentially be a reflex of the PUA form *patsi/*paCti reconstructed by Stubbs (2011#124; #125).

Tepiman: The proto-Tepiman form *na:kamɨri seems to be part of another pattern of "bat" words, derived by compounding two roots, one of which means "mouse" and the other of which either means "butterfly", "to fly" or simply "bat".

Calque: "butterfly-mouse": The fact that SUA words for 'bat' seem to frequently include the root for "mouse" is not surprising (this also happens in other languages, e.g. Danish flagermus, German Fledermaus both meaning "flutter-mouse"), especially not given that the literature describes a folk belief among some Sonoran peoples (specifically Raramuri) that bats are really mice that are transformed into flying creatures as they age. According to Jesús Villalpando (personal communication 2024), the Raramuri phrase chikuli sopetukame (clearly cognate Ópatan sikur sopits) means "transformed mouse" (chikuri "mouse"), and Brambila's Raramuri diccionario has the example so'pechí rorí najítuami u “los murciélagos son ratas metamorfoseadas” (Brambila 1976:346). According to Villalpando so'pima means "to turn", and he sees this as the likely origin of the word sopichi in Raramuri, as a kind of abbreviation of chikuli sopetukame. Since "sopi" does not appear to mean "transformed" in other contexts this may however be a folk etymology playing on the sound similarity between sopi and the verb ropi "to transform", interacting with the folk belief. In Ópata, the root sopits on its own means "butterfly", suggesting that potentially this was the original meaning of the PSUA root.

Nahuan

In Nahuan languages there are two basic types of words for "bat". Some are derived from the PSUA root *sopi(tsi), and others are coined as a compound of words for "mouse" (kimichin) with words meaning either "to fly" or "butterfly". Interestingly the words, derived from the PSUA root are also in most cases compounds with the root *na:ka, which appears related to the Corachol word for "mouse" naika (which also appears in the proto-Tepiman root for "bat" *naakamɨri). The compounds of "mouse" + "fly/butterfly" seem a likely calque, as this compound is also found in Ópatan sikur sopits "bat" (lit. "mouse-butterfly").

An important argument for seeing the element tsi-/tso- as being derived from *sopi(tsi), is that tsi- is an unexpected sequence in Nahuan, as it would be expected to palatalize. In most cases where a non-palatal sibilant precedes the vowel /i/, this is because at the time when the palatalization process was active, the vowel was a different quality that did not cause palatalization (e.g. o, a, ɨ), and that the vowel /i/ is a subsequent innovation. Alternatively such words may be a borrowing from another language entering the language after the palatalization process was no longer active. In this case however, the fact that some Nahuan varieties have o in this word strongly suggests that o is the original vowel, and the form *sópi would regularly become *tsoi in Corachol-Nahuan (ts being fortis variant of s in stressed syllable and h begin lenis variant of p in unstressed syllables, which is later elided entirely). Diphthong leveling is an important and well-attested process in Nahuan, and we know it may result in different vowel qualities apparently depending on the stress pattern of the word in a given variety. The diphthong /ai/ in naika would be expected to become /e/, but it may have been leveled to /a:/ before the /ai/>/e/ change took place, and the long vowel in -naaka suggests an origin as a diphthong.

The calque compounds are found primarily in the Central dialect area, whereas the Eastern varieties tend to have the forms derived from PSUA, although these are also found in some varieties in the Center. It is not clear that there is a dialect pattern to the variation between tsina:ka/tsona:ka, both forms may have existed in (free) variation in proto-Nahuatl.

An alternative etymology has been proposed by Karen Dakin (1996) who suggests PN *tsina:kan was coined as a compound of PUA *tsu "bone" and PUA *naka "ear". Her argument comes from her realization that some instances of PN *tsi (wihout the expected palatalization) comes from PUA *tsu, since palatalization did not take place before PUA *u (PCN *ɨ). However, the root *naka(s) "ear" does not fit with -na:ka(n) in vowel length. Another proposal, suggested to me by Fortino Ramirez of Zaragoza, is that in Zaragoza Nawa' tsinaaga comes from tsin- "butt, anus" and aagah "canoe" (from PN /a:kal/ "canoe"). This proposal also doesn't work since it does not fit the phonetics of other dialects where the root for "canoe" ends in -l, while the word for bat ends in -n.

Forms derived from *sopi(tsi)

Pre-Nahua: *tsoinaikamɨ from *tsohi-naika from PSUA *tsópi "bat" + PSUA *naika "mouse"

Proto-Nahuatl: tsona:ka, tsina:ka.

tsina:ka (also tsina:kantli from Pre-Nahua *tsoina:ka +mɨ-tɨ). This form is derived by the /oi/ diphthong leveling to /i/

tsona:ka derived by leveling the /oi/ diphthong to /o/.

tsotso derived by reduplicating the root *tso from *tsoi.

Calques of "butterfly/flying mouse"

kimichpapatla:n from kimichin "mouse" + patla:ni "to fly".

kimichpapalo:tl from kimichin "mouse" + papalo:tl "butterfly".

Tepiman

*nakamɨri from PSUA *naika "mouse" (bat?) + mɨri "mouse"

naakmɨlh

Tarahumara-Guarijío-Ópata

PSUA *sópitsi

sopíchi

so'péchi

sikur-sopits from Ópatan sikuri "mouse" + Ópatan sopits "butterfly"

sopi

Cahitan

sochik

Corachol

'átsi

How to cite:
Pharao Hansen, Magnus. 2026. Bat. In SUALEX: A Southern Uto-Aztecan Etymological Dictionary. https://sualex.cenzontle.org/index.php?title=Bat (accessed 19 April 2026).

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