Ethnic Terms

[Michael Mccafferty]

On Tue, 23 Jul 2002, David Costa wrote:

> Not surprisingly, Algonquian has the same set of 'Espagnol'/'Español' terms
> for 'Mexican'/'Spaniard':

> Shawnee /spaani/ looks like it might actually be from English 'Spaniard';
> not too surprising, since Shawnee lacks most of the French loans that the
> other Central languages have.

Problem is, the Shawnee were trading on the Atlantic Coast of Florida or
South Carolina very early, I'll have to check, but prior to their contact
with English traders further north.


>
> Amusingly, Albert Gatschet's notes point out that the Miami name for the
> town of Mexico, Indiana (I have no idea why it's called that) was
> /iihpaawalonki/, literally 'place of Mexicans', the same as the Miami name
> for the country.
>
It probably means what it says and is likely a "new" Miami place name,
post diaspora.

Michael McCafferty