Contextualising
According to the phylogenetic linguistic theory known
as the "Chibcha Theory," proposed by Professor Samir A. Sánchez, a
language history researcher, in his scientific article "Táchira: An
Archaeology of Voices and Words" (Revista Procesos Históricos,
Universidad de Los Andes, 2018), the term "Táchira" is
contextualised morphologically, culturally, and geographically within the
agglutinative or predominantly agglutinative languages of the aboriginal
peoples of the Americas.
This means that words are formed by joining or concatenating
independent morphemes, allowing the roots and affixes of individual words to be
isolated and identified to indicate a particular inflection or derivation.
Geographically, agglutinated words used to designate place names were notable
for describing the most characteristic condition of the place's nature or
space, based on a permanent or constant basic root (which could be 'earth',
'water', 'rock', 'cliff', among others).
The names assigned to places referred to the primitive
reality of the terrain. Due to this ancient origin, their toponyms were
not typically based on variable or changing elements but rather on fixed
elements or those closely linked to the land. This fact appears to corroborate
that those who bestowed these names were the earliest or original inhabitants
of these lands.
Thus, their toponyms were not usually based on variable or
changing elements but on fixed ones or those intimately tied to the land. A
clear example of this can be seen with the original name of the present-day
city of Caracas. The original name of the place where what would become the
current capital city was founded was "Catuchacao," a Caribbean
Arawakan term meaning "Guanabanal (place populated by soursop trees) by
the river" or "The River of the Soursops." This was recorded in
the geographical report sent to King Philip II by the governor of the Province
of Venezuela, Captain Juan de Pimentel, in 1578.
This same governor also documented in his report the
essential characteristics that gave rise to most aboriginal toponyms in that
province or region – elements that, as initially stated, were common in
aboriginal American cultures. Juan de Pimentel, writing in 16th-century
Castilian, stated: "Chapter thirteen. The districts and settlements of the
Indians derive their names from some tree, ravine, stream, rock, or other
notable feature found in or near their settlements, or from some event that
occurred nearby."
As an interesting but illustrative point, which can be drawn
from the same geographical report, the name "Caracas"
originated from and belonged to another location distant from the current city.
The first Spanish conquistadors, arriving from Margarita Island, landed on the
Central Coast, west of Cabo Codera, where a ravine or stream flowing down from
the northern foothills of the Coastal Range met the sea. This stream was given
the name its aboriginal inhabitants used for that place: "Caracas,"
meaning "site or place covered or planted with ‘bledos’ (amaranthus)."
In this way, the conquistadors began to refer to this spot as "the ravine
of the Caracases," using it as a reference point for exploring the
surrounding mainland. Thus, they extended this local identifying name to the
entire region as "Province of the Caracases" or "of
Caracas." Years later, in 1567, inland across the Coastal Range, in the
valley and at the site and ravine of Catuchacao as it was called by its
natives, the city of Santiago de León of the Province of Caracas was founded,
later known in its simplified form as Caracas.
Currently, the ravine on the coast is still called "Los Caracas," and at its mouth, what remains of the former Los Caracas Vacation City Tourist Complex, a work carried out by the then President of the Republic of Venezuela, Division General Marcos Pérez Jiménez, a native of Táchira, can be found.
Macro Linguistic Context: Proto-Chibcha and Meso-Context:
Chitarero
Turning to the elevated crests of the southwestern Andes, which is our case study, the Tachiran people have a word that, following the sequence or placing it within the region's phylogenetic linguistic relationship to trace its evolution and establish a degree of kinship between different languages from a common origin or root, originates from the Chibcha (or Muisca)/Proto-Chibcha language. It arrived via the aboriginal Chitarero peoples who were settled and inhabited one or both banks of the Táchira River (current San Antonio del Táchira) in the 16th-century, at the time of their encounter with the conquistadors. This is the mythical, ancestral, and patrimonial word: "Táchira."
Micro Context: The Valley and Banks of the Táchira River
Spanish chronicles from the 16th-century (dating from 1550) identified the word "Táchira" as the name of an aboriginal place and village with Chitarero affiliation and lexicon, located in the middle course of the present-day Táchira River (San Antonio del Táchira-Villa del Rosario, a border region between Venezuela and Colombia). Later, other documents referred to the "Táchira River" in the "Táchira Plain" (current towns of San Antonio del Táchira and Ureña) as being so named because it passed through the site and settlement of the Táchiras, from which it took its name. It was distinct from the "Cúcuta River" [current Pamplonita River], which received its name from the aboriginal designation for "some trees found in abundance on its banks" (judicial testimony from a jurisdictional dispute between the Villa de San Cristóbal and the city of Pamplona, 1621). Similarly, in that trial, it was emphasised that "the Indians of Abriaca called that river 'Táchira' because it passed through the Táchira site." Therefore, the origin of the word that names our federal entity harks back to an unwritten, agglutinative aboriginal American word and language spoken by the Chitarero aboriginal groups.
For the identification of the Chitarero nation's subdivisions in the studied region, we refer back to 1575, when a lawsuit arose between Spanish settlers of Pamplona and San Cristóbal over the possession of encomiendas (grants of indigenous labour) between the Cúcuta and Táchira rivers. One of the allegations reads: "I do not claim the Chitareros of Cúcuta but those of Abriaca." Abriaca was and currently remains a hamlet (offering panoramic views of the middle course of the Táchira River valley) in the village of Las Cumbres, Pedro María Ureña Municipality, Táchira State.
Meaning of the Word "Táchira"
Consequently, based on the aforementioned evidence,
understood as contextual references of place, and using dictionaries compiled
by Jesuit and Augustinian missionaries of the general Chibcha or Muisca
language from the early 17th-century as a communicative code (whose bilingual
texts in Castilian and Muisca resemble a Rosetta Stone), the meaning of the
word "Táchira" can be deciphered and understood with logical
rigour and theoretical foundation. It is a profoundly telluric name,
deeply rooted in the land.
The word is formed by the Muisca or Chibcha substrate etymons:
ta [a noun lexeme meaning 'cultivation' or 'tillage'], chi [a
possessive determinant suffix in the first person plural, meaning 'our'], and ra
[a suffix functioning as a modifying morpheme or particle that indicates a
continuous present tense and confers a greater sense, in this case, that the
possessed object is permanent or has permanence over time, not changing
ownership]. This literally means "The land under cultivation that is
and will be ours" [< Ch. ta+chi+ra], and
translated into contemporary formal Castilian, it would be: "Land of
our inheritance" or "Our inherited land."
Its original pronunciation, as an aboriginal ethnonym, was
similar to the Castilian form, differing only in the sound of the 'ch', which
was pronounced approximately as /tʃ/ – that is, like the French 'ch' or English
'sh' – and a soft 'r.'
[Reference: Phylogenetic linguistic theory known as the
"Chibcha Theory," proposed by Professor Samir A. Sánchez, language
history researcher. Offprint of his article: "Táchira: an Archaeology of Voices and
Words." Revista Procesos Históricos, Universidad de Los Andes, 2018].
"Capítulo treze. Los barrios e poblazones de los indios tienen sus nombres derivados de algún árbol, quebrada, arroyo, peña, u otra cosa señalada que esté en sus asientos o cerca dellos, o de alguna cosa acaescida allí cerca".
ta [lexema de nombre sustantivo]: que significa 'labranza' (tierra labrada).chi [sufijo determinante posesivo en primera persona del plural]: que significa 'nuestra'.ra [sufijo con función de morfema o partícula modificadora]: que indica un tiempo presente continuo y otorga un sentido de permanencia o constancia al objeto poseído (no cambia de dueño).