The story
- Proto-Cariban · derived from*tikô
- Kari'na · derived fromsiko“chigoe”
- English todaychigoe
Uncertain. Possibly from a Cariban language term such as Kari'na siko (“chigoe”) (early recorded variant chico), from Proto-Cariban *tikô, or else a West African borrowing such as Wolof or Yoruba jiga (“insect”). The eighteenth century historian Charlevoix refers to them as chique in his 1730 history of Hispaniola.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.