Date:    Mon, 23 Feb 1998 09:54:00 +0000
<br>From:    Jim Rader  jrader[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]M-W.COM 
<br>Subject: Re: hurache
<br>
<br>  I have been told that the English word hurache, which came into US
<br>  English through Mexican Spanish, originates in the Japanese word
<br>  *waraji* 'straw sandals', but I have no substantiating evidence.  OED
<br>  indicate the word was in use in Mexican Spanish in 1887, and this is not
<br>  long after the first Japanese immigrants went to Mexico.  That doesn't
<br>  leave much time for a borrowing to catch on and spread, but it may not
<br>  be impossible.  I do not have easy access to a Mexican Spanish
<br>  etymological dictionary.  Does anyone have any ideas on the origin of
<br>  this word.
<br> 
<br>  The OED's listing for hurache begins thus:
<br> 
<br>  huarache. Also guaracha, guarache, guarachi, huaracho.  [Mex.-Sp.]
<br>  A leather-thonged sandal, orig. worn by Mexican Indians.
<br>  1887 F. C. Gooch Face to Face with Mexicans xii. 433 Leathern aprons and
<br>  sandals of the same, called guarachi.
<br>  1892 Dialect Notes I. 190 Huaracho, -s, a kind of sandals worn by
<br>  Indians and the lower classes generally. Used generally in the plural
<br>  only.
<br> 
<br>  --
<br>  Daniel Long, Associate Professor     tel  +81-6-723-8297
<br>  Japanese Language Research Center    fax  +81-6-723-8302
<br>  Osaka Shoin Women's College         dlong[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]joho.osaka-shoin.ac.jp
<br>  4-2-26 Hishiyanishi                 http://www.age.ne.jp/x/oswcjlrc/
<br>  Higashi-Osaka-shi, Osaka Japan 577-8550
<br> 
<br>
<br>Mexican Spanish _huarache_ or _gaurache_ is borrowed
<br>from Tarascan _kwar.a'c^i_ (initial labiovelar, retroflex r, stress
<br>on second syllable, c^ is dental affricate); the retroflex flap does
<br>not occur in loanwords from Spanish, so the word is almost certainly
<br>native, not borrowed (per William Bright).  The Tarascans (native name is
<br> _pure'pecha_, I
<br>think) are an important Indian people of Michoacan--though I don't
<br>offhand know of any other generally used word in Mexican Spanish that
<br>was borrowed from Tarascan.  Seems this etymology has been known for
<br>a long time; it's given by Santamaria (_Diccionario de mejicanismos-,
<br>1959) who cites as a source Eustaquio Buelna, a 19th century scholar.
<br>
<br>Sandals made out of one material or other were worn by Mexican Indians
<br>before Cortes; a Japanese origin for such a word is wildly
<br>improbable.
<br>
<br>Jim Rader
<br>