Quisqueya, a Real Island

There are two aboriginal names attributed to Hispaniola: Quisqueya and Haiti. Other names such as Bohío and Babeque (or Baneque), cited by Christopher Columbus, seem to be confusions of the Admiral caused by the difficulties in communicating with the natives and are not confirmed by any other chronicler of the Indies. In particular, Bohío is not a place name, but the name of the aboriginal house “made of palm leaf roof and walls of fiber from royal palms”, as José Juan Arrom¹ points out.

The name Haiti is related to the existence of mountainous regions on the island, particularly the western part. Peter Martyr D’Anghiera records: “The name Haití in their language means altitude, and because it describes a part, was given to the entire island. The country rise in many places into lofty mountain-ranges, is covered with dense forest, or broken into profound valleys which because of the height of the mountains, are gloomy…”². Pedro Henríquez Ureña in his work, El español en Santo Domingo, refers to the use of haitises with the meaning of ‘mountains’³.

In a previous work⁴, using comparative linguistic analysis of Taíno or Island Arawak with other languages ​​of the Arawak family, especially Lokono, we demonstrated that this word is composed of the morphemes hai and –ti. The former is a non-identical cognate of the Lokono ayo, which means ‘up’ and denotes direction in the vertical dimension⁵, while the suffix –ti is an identical cognate of the Lokono –ti, ‘to want’ ‘to desire’⁶ and in terms of spatial location means ‘desired location’⁷. Thus, hai, ‘height’ + -ti, ‘to desire’ = haití, ‘longing for the heights’, ‘yearning for the heights’, the literal meaning of the Island Arawak word that designated mountains and mountainous regions.

Some scholars, such as José Juan Arrom, consider that the aboriginal name of Haiti was applied only to the western part of the island⁸. We do not share this opinion. Martyr d’Anghiera emphasizes: “and thus they called the whole island Haiti” and Bartolomé de las Casas agrees: “Haiti [a summit], the last acute syllable, from which this whole island was named and called, and so it was called by all the people of the neighboring islands”⁹.

As for the name Quisqueya, its authenticity has been questioned, which has implications for the culture of the Dominican Republic, where Quisqueya and the demonym Quisqueyan are frequently used in literature, poetry and oratory, and are even part of the lyrics of the national anthem.

In this work we propose to demonstrate that the word Quisqueya is a real toponym, originating from the Island Arawak or Taíno language spoken by our aborigines, and to make a proposal of etymology.

The arguments against recognizing Quisqueya as the Taino name for the island of Hispaniola can be summarized as follows:

1. Unreliability of the data of Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, since the chronicler was never in America and some inaccuracies have been demonstrated in his Decades. The Dominican lawyer, historian, priest and writer, Apolinar Tejera, in an article entitled Quid de Quisqueya? published in 1908, considers that Quisqueya is an “apocryphal or supposed” name and asserts: “Hispaniola was never called that, because the assertion of Peter Martyr d’Anghiera is based on completely false circumstances, nor did this name ever serve to designate specifically the vast region that lies to the east of Santo Domingo”¹⁰.
2. This name is mentioned only by Peter Martyr d’Anghiera. No other chronicler or historical source does. Apolinar Tejera emphasizes: “The assertion of Peter Martyr d’Anghiera is not corroborated by any of his contemporaries” and mentions Bartolomé de Las Casas, Fernando González de Oviedo, Frai Román Pané and Dr. Diego Álvarez Chanca¹¹.
3. Quisqueya is not an Island Arawak (Taino) word. Linguists Julian Granberry and Gary S. Vescelius consider that: “The toponym Quisquella, phonetically khiskheya, cannot be a Taino form, due to its phonological structure. The union of the consonants –sk^h– cannot exist in any native form of Taino”¹².

Regarding the credibility of Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, as we pointed out based on arguments detailed in a previous work¹³, he is an honest chronicler who strives to convey a faithful image of the New World. He would not deliberately invent a falsehood and had no reason to do so. However, the reliability of his sources is crucial to the accuracy of his statements and is the main source of his errors or inaccuracies.

The source of the information on the toponym Quisqueya was the Spanish navigator and cartographer Andrés Morales, who in 1508 was commissioned to explore Hispaniola and draw a map of the island, which he did. Mapmaking requires knowledge of local toponymy to identify different geographical points and to orient oneself on the terrain. Therefore, as part of his cartographic work, Morales must have interacted with the indigenous people to delve deeper into this aspect. For this reason, we believe that the indigenous toponyms of Hispaniola about which he reported to Peter Martyr d’Anghiera must have actually existed. In fact, many of them are mentioned by other chroniclers. The possible meaning of these place names is another matter. As Bartolomé de Las Casas indicates, there were practically no Spaniards who knew the indigenous language¹⁴. Furthermore, good indigenous translators were likely scarce. It is most likely that Andrés Morales’ communication with the natives was based on a limited knowledge of the indigenous language, supplemented by gestures, signals, and mannerisms. This method of exchanging information would explain some possible errors or inaccuracies in his interpretation of the meaning of the native words.

The fact that no other chronicler mentioned the word Quisqueya could be due to its being an obsolete name. As Peter Martyr d’Anghiera indicates: “the names that the first inhabitants gave to Hispaniola were first Quisquella, then Haiti”¹⁵. Under normal circumstances, there was no reason for the natives to mention it to the Europeans. Only someone like Andrés Morales, interested in delving deeper into the island’s place names and who had access to the caciques with knowledge of the stories sung in the areítos could have known the name.

Regarding the linguistic arguments, in Island Arawak “the usual was the open syllable, ending in a vowel, as in Spanish,” as Sergio Vladés Bernal points out¹⁶, as in Lokono, where, as Willem A. Pet indicates: “the only consonants that can exist at the end of syllables are the nasal sounds [m], [n], and [ŋ]. However, there is no difference between them in this position and for this reason they are treated as instances of a single nasal /n/”¹⁷.

So how is the consonant blend possible in the word Quisqueya? The answer is that this blend did not exist in the original Island Arawak word, and it was the inaccurate recording by Europeans that gave rise to this form. This is not a unique case; consider, for example, barbacoa, an Island Arawak word by most linguists, where the consonant blend –rb– is also not characteristic of the language spoken by our indigenous people.

C. H. de Goeje, in his The Arawak Language of Guiana, transcribes several words from Lokono that were inaccurately recorded by various European sources with the joining of consonants in their structure: ebelti, ‘to soften’, ‘to melt’; beltiri, ‘a beverage’¹⁸; kirtia-ti, ‘a white man’¹⁹; sibarlojen, ‘mythical woman’²⁰; kaspara, ‘a sword’²¹.

In the structure of the word Quisqueya, the segments quis and queya appear to be cognates of the lokonos morphemes: ki-sse and kairi.

Ki-sse, also recorded as kei-se, ke-si, and ke-ssi, is defined by C. H. de Geoje as an intensifier with the meaning of ‘certainly’, ‘real’, and among the examples of its use, he cites: Judu-nnu kei-se, ‘they were real Jews’; hé du-ke-ssi, ‘yes, certainly’²². This expression is composed of the morphemes kê + sê, which individually are both intensifiers. The linguist Konrad Rybka indicates that the suffix –ke is an augmentative adverbializer that adds the meaning of ‘very’²³. Regarding the suffix –se, the Arawak-German dictionary of the Moravian Brothers, 18th-century missionaries, points out that it is a frequently used intensifier and is added to many words, “so that it is difficult to pronounce four to six words without this suffix –se being added in some way”²⁴.

The fact that ki-sse is a suffix in Lokono, while in the Island Arawak word Quisqueya it is found in the first part of its structure, seems to be a difference between both languages, although in Lokono there is also at least one form where that morpheme is found in the initial part of the word structure: ki-sse-i-ra, used by women with the meaning of ‘indeed’²⁵.

The Lokono word kairi ~ keiri, ‘island’²⁶, is a non-identical cognate of the Island Arawak caya ~ cayo with the same meaning²⁷. The phoneme /e/ instead of an /a/ in Quisqueya could be due to a tendency to harmonize with the vowel /e/ of the preceding morpheme (ki-sse), omitted in the form of the word recorded by Martyr d’Anghiera. C. H. de Goeje explains that in Lokono “it is possible that the desire to obtain harmony between the sounds has some influence in those cases where the meaning is not jeopardized”²⁸. Furthermore, in Lokono the combination of the vowels /a/ and /i/ gives rise to the diphthong /ai/ in the variant of the language spoken in Guyana and /ei/ in that of Suriname²⁹, which could also explain the presence of the vowel /e/ in Quisqueya.

Therefore, Quis(e), ‘real’ + queya, ‘island’ = Quisqueya, ‘a real island’, a name motivated by its large dimensions, not usual for the Arawaks, who on the journey of their migration from the continent had previously found much smaller islands.

Regarding the meaning of Quisqueya that Andrés Morales conveyed to Martyr d’Anghiera, its essence is correct:

They call Quizquella something so great that there is nothing greater: Quizquella is interpreted as greatness, universe, everything, like the Greeks interpreted their Pan, because it seemed to them, in view of its magnitude, that it was the universe, the orb of the earth, and that the sun did not heat anything outside that island and the others adjacent to it. For this reason, they resolved that it should be called Quizquella³⁰.

Let us travel back 500 years to the place where Andrés Morales had his conversation with the indigenous chief who provided him with the information about the island’s original name. How does he explain the meaning of the toponym? He undoubtedly points to the land around him and opens his arms, as if wanting to encompass it in all its immensity, while pronouncing the Spanish word grande (‘big’, ‘large’). This repeated gesture, and the possible poetic inclination of the navigator or perhaps of Martyr d’Anghiera himself, explains how the chronicler recorded the meaning of the name for posterity.

The word Quisqueya holds a special place in the hearts and culture of Dominicans, closely linked to the patriotic feelings of the people of that land. Knowing that this was indeed the name given to the island by its first inhabitants strengthens and deepens that emotional connection to the name.

References

1. Arrom, José Juan. 2011. “Baneque y Borinquen: apostillas a un enigma colombino” [“Baneque and Borinquen: Notes to a Columbian Enigma”]. In  José Juan Arrom y la búsqueda de nuestras raíces. Editorial Oriente y Fundación García Arévalo. Page 54. www.cubaarqueologica.org.
2. Martyr D’ Anghera, Peter. 1912. De Orbe Novo. Translated from the Latin with Notes and Introduction by Francis Augustus MacNutt. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. New York and London. The Knickerbocker Press. Volume I. Page 361.
3. Enriquez Ureña, Pedro. 1980. “El español en Santo Domingo” [“Spanich Language in Santo Domingo”]. In Pedro Henríquez Ureña, Obras completas (1940-1944). Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña. Santo Domingo.Vol. IX. Page 183.
4. Celeiro Chaple, Mauricio. 2024. Guanajay, The Upland. www.laotraraiz.cu.
5. Rybka, Konrad A. 2016. The linguistic encoding of landscape in Lokono. Utrecht: LOT. Page 120. http://dare.uva.nl.

1. Patte, Marie France. 2011. La langue arawak de Guyane [The Arawak Language of Guyana]. IRD Éditions. Marsella. Page 208.
2. Rybka, Konrad A. 2016. op. cit. Page 98.
3. Arrom, José Juan. 2011. “Arcabuco, cabuya y otros indoamericanismos en un relato del P. José de Acosta” [Arcabuco, cabuya and other native american words in a story by Father José de Acosta]. In José Juan Arrom y la búsqueda de nuestras raíces. Editorial Oriente y Fundación García Arévalo. Page 84. www.cubaarqueologica.org.
4. Casas, Bartolome de las. 1909. “Apologética historia de las Indias” [“Apologetic History of the Indies”]. In Historiadores de Indias. Por Serrano y Sanz. Baylli Bailliere e Hijos, Editores. Vol. I. Page 17. http://www.archive.org/details/historiadoresdei01serr.
5. Tejera, Apolinar. 1945. “Quid de Quisqueya?”. In Boletín del archivo general de la nación. Editora Montalvo. República Dominicana. Vol. 8. # 42-43. Pages 216-221.
6. Tejera, Apolinar. 1945. op. cit.
7. Granberry, Julian y Vescelius Gary S. 2004. Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles. The University of Alabama Press. Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Page 30.
8. Celeiro Chaple, Mauricio. 2024. Guacayarima: the name in its labyrinth. www.laotraraiz.cu.
9. Casas, Bartolome de las. 1909. op. cit. Pages 321-322.
10. Mártir de Anglería, Pedro. 1892. op. cit. Page 168.
11. Valdés Bernal, Sergio. 2010. “El poblamiento precolombino del archipiélago cubano y su posterior repercusión en el español hablado en Cuba” [“The pre-Columbian settlement of the Cuban archipelago and its subsequent impact on the Spanish spoken in Cuba”]. In Contextos, estudios de humanidades y ciencias sociales. No.24. Page 121.
12. Pet, Willem J. A. 2011. A Grammar Sketch and Lexicon of Arawak (Lokono Dian). Sil International. Page 8.
13. Goeje. C. H. de. 1928. The Arawak Language of Guiana. Cambridge University Press.  Pages 16, 139. www.cambridge.org/9781108007689
14. Goeje, C. H: de. 1928. op. cit. Page 27.
15.  Goeje, C. H: de. 1928. op. cit. Page 199.
16. Goeje, C. H: de. 1928. op. cit. Pages 26, 64.
17. Goeje, C. H: de. 1928. op. cit. Pages 92, 155.
18. Rybka, Konrad A. 2016. op. cit. Page 88.
19. Moravian Brothers. 1882. Arawakisch-Deutches Wörterbuch, Abschrift eines im Besitze der Herrnhuter Bruder-Unität bei Zittau sich befindlichen-Manuscriptes. In Grammaires et Vocabulaires Roucouyene, Arrouague, Piapoco et D’autre Langues de la Région des Guyanes, par MM. J. Crevaux, P. Sagot, L. Adam. Paris, Maisonneuve et Cie, Libraries-Editeurs. Page 151. http://books.google.com.
20. Moravian Brothers. 1882. Obra citada. Página 136.
21. Patte, Marie France. 2011. op. cit. Pages 109-110.
22. Taylor, Douglas. 1977. Languages of the West Indies.  Johns Hopkins University Press.        Page 20.
23. Goeje, C. H: de. 1928. op. cit. Page 132.
24. Rybka, Konrad A. 2016. op. cit. Page 36.
25. Mártir de Anglería, Pedro. 1892. op. cit. Page 168.
26. Patte, Marie France. 2011. op. cit. Pages 109-110.
27. Taylor, Douglas. 1977. Languages of the West Indies.  Johns Hopkins University Press.        Page 20.
28. Goeje, C. H: de. 1928. op. cit. Page 132.
29. Rybka, Konrad A. 2016. op. cit. Page 36.
30. Mártir de Anglería, Pedro. 1892. op. cit. Page 168.