"Help with colloquial Spanish" Topic

In American schools, we learn that many rivers were named by French explorers, either after a nearby tribe of Native Americans or by asking the locals what they called the river. In time, the French were replaced by British and American explorers who mangled the French names to what we know today.
However, at the same time far toto the west, the Spanish were moving up from the south, naming rivers as they came since they had no idea about the French names.
I came across two such Spanish names a few weeks ago. Rio del Napeste, which is the Arkansas and the Rio del Chato which is the Platte. I ran these through several translation programs, and came up with nothing for Napeste. Chato seemingly means "snub-nosed," though I don't understand how "snub-nosed" might apply to a river. Does anybody know what either name means or just how "snub-nosed" might apply to a river?

Grelber

Chato = flat … so a Rio del Chato it seems Like a river named or related to a very short guy… or it is named flat because it has very low flow …

About Napeste… it not an spanish word with significance…

On old Spanish and Mexican maps it appears as Nexpentle (the name Nexpentle seems to have been limited to the upper course and of course is an indian name, before 1820 the Spanish called it Napeste) … which is probably what they understood it meant or sounded in their own language Nexpentle..

Hope it helps you a little…

Armand

I forget where I read this, but….
The French named River, the Purgatoire, or "Purgatory", became the Picketwire. I had two thoughts at the time. What made the original Frenchman name it, meaning "Not quite Hell, but still deserves punishment".
And I wondered why it was renamed. Was it distasteful for the Catholic Papist name, or was it easier to say "Picketwire"? (Spell Check and Autocorrect doesn't like either name, so obviously the Internet had nothing to do with it. 😄)

OFM, think of the pronunciation--"purgatwah"--I think--and how few frontier Americans would even have understood Purgatory. But the southerners would certainly have understood "wah." They used wah for sending telegraph messages. (I once had a customer try to buy a slang in a shop I worked. Eventually, he explained that he needed a slang for the raffle, and I could make the sale. Vowels are particularly prone to linguistic shift.) But there's a fairly detailed etymology on wikipedia.

Grelber, Spanish too is dialect-prone, and more so then than now. Might "Chato" be some variant on "gato?" There are at least two Cat Rivers in North America. The one in Minnesota was named after a cougar population. No one's taking credit for the one in Northwest Ontario.

I remain partial to the Muddy Boggy River of Oklahoma. Truth in geography.

Tango,
"Flat" does have some possibilities. Many years later, a journalist described the Platte as "an inch deep and a mile wide." Of course, that description could be applied several rivers out on the Great Plains.

robert, I wondered if the translation programs might have problems since we are talking about a dialect spoken in Santa Fe, far from Mexico City and even farther from Madrid. Must look up Muddy, Boggy River.

Grelber

The translation of "chato" as 'flat' does suggest a correlation with the meaning of 'Platte' as given by early French explorers,"la rivière plate," describing the wide, shallow course of the river.

What is perhaps misleading is that the Spanish name is "Rio del Chato" not 'Rio Chato,' suggesting a noun or epithet- 'El Chato'- rather than an adjective. I recall there was a Chiricahua Apache warrior named 'El Chato' later in southwestern history. However it seems more likely something is being lost in transmission

42flanker + 1

Armand

Learn to read high Spanish for researching military sources. Everyday Spanish would not help as much. IMO.

The Purgatoire Picketwire nomenclature is a bit more complicated.
So, in the true spirit of 2024 Researchers, I Googled it.
The name got its beginning in Spanish as River of Souls. 🤷. It was then connected to a nearby massacre. Finally, Mountain Men couldn't pronounce it.
link

It is now OFFICIALLY (🙄) the Purgatoire, pending a change in Administration.