Osage

[Michael Mccafferty]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2002, Alan H. Hartley wrote:

> carolyn quintero wrote:
>
> > Of course it's easy to see the English 'Osage' as a corruption of waz^a'z^e
> > (via French 'oisage' or some such--not sure of the French term--).
>
> Eng. Osage may be a result of Fr. orthographic confusion: Dhegiha inital
> wa- was probably originally transcribed as 8- (as in Marquette's map of
> 1673 where 8chage).

Yes,
Marquette and other early Jesuits in the Mississippi valley also used
the digraph 8 to represent /wa(a)/. That is what Marquette indicates here.
In fact, Marquette used 8 for /wa(a)/ in at least four terms on his
1673-4 map.


 But 8- was also used for native o- (and Fr. ou-), so
> O(u)sage may be a spelling pronunciation. (Marquette also has 8tontanta,
> from Chiwere watóta.)

 This orthog. problem (though not specif. in
> relation to Osage) is discussed by Mccafferty in his LINGUIST List
> posting on the etym. of Chicago, 21 Dec. 2001 (which is good reading).
>

Michael McCafferty