Principal English Translation:
sometimes; when? at what time? at what hour?
Orthographic Variants:
quenman, queman, vel (huel) quemmanian, quemaya
Alonso de Molina:
quemman. algunas vezes, a tiempos, o a ratos. vel. a que hora? preguntando. aduerbio.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 88v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.
Frances Karttunen:
QUĒMMAN at times¡ at what time? / algunas veces, a tiempos, o a ratos, vel. ¿a que hora? (M) See QUĒN. QUĒNMAN See QUĒMMAN.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 208.
Horacio Carochi / English:
quēnman = sometimes, at what time
Horacio Carochi, S.J., Grammar of the Mexican language with an explanation of its adverbs (1645), translated and edited with commentary by James Lockhart, UCLA Latin American Studies Volume 89 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2001), 511.
Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written:
at what time (of the day), interrogative. with in or even without, sometimes, at intervals. quēn, mani. 231
James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 231.
Attestations from sources in English:
Quēmman ticochi? - Àmo tlàcâ, zan yohuac. = When do you (s.) sleep? - Not during the day, just at night.
Michel Launey, An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, translated and adapted by Christopher MacKay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 133.
...pues quemman amo miac tomin ticpiah = ...pues aunque no mucho dinero tenemos = ...but sometimes we don't have much money (documented in Veracruz in 1988)
William Mills, "Nahuatl Folk Tales from Zongolica, Veracruz," Tlalocan 15 (2008), 17–79, example from 20.
Quēmman is a compound of quēn (how) and -man (a locative-temporal suffix).
Michel Launey, An Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, translated and adapted by Christopher MacKay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 133.
Attestations from sources in Spanish:
...pues quemman amo miac tomin ticpiah = ...pues aunque no mucho dinero tenemos (documentado en Veracruz en 1988)
William Mills, "Nahuatl Folk Tales from Zongolica, Veracruz," Tlalocan 15 (2008), 17–79, ejemplo de la página 20.
queman tlachixqui Macuilxochi = el despertar de Macuilxóchitl
Natalio Hernández, El despertar de nuestras lenguas / Queman tlachixque totlahtolhuan (México: Fondo Editorial de Culturas Indígenas; Editorial Diana, 2002 [1994]), 31.