Caddo ethnic terms

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Wed Jul 31 00:39:21 UTC 2002


On Tue, 30 Jul 2002, David Costa wrote:
> >> I think zakanas^ or something like it is found in some Algonquian languages.
>
> I think I might have talked about this with John K. many years ago, but the
> "(les) Anglais" term for Englishmen is all over non-Eastern and non-Plains
> Algonquian. The great majority of the time it still means 'Englishman', and
> *not* 'white person':

I think that any presentation of summaries actually went to Tony, but I am
aware that the term was widespread in Algonquian languages and thatit mean
'the English'.  I just don't know the Algonquian forms off the top of my
head.

> Miami /aakalaah$ima/, /aanhkalaah$ima/
> Fox /sa:kana:$a/, Sauk /0a:kana:$a/, Kickapoo /0aakanaasa/
> Menominee /sa:kana:s/
>
> Ojibwean:
>
> Southwest Ojibwe /zhaaganaash/
> Ottawa /zhaagnaash/ 'whiteman, Englishman'
> Maniwaki /a:gane:$a:/ & /zha:gana:sh/
> Potawatomi /zhagnash/ 'Englishman'
>
> Cree-Montagnais:
>
> Plains Cree /akaya:siw/, Attikamek /e:kare:$$a:w/, Montagnais /ak at li$aw/ &
> Naskapi /ka:kiya:sa:w/.
>
> ($ = s-hacek, @ = schwa, 0 = theta)
>
> Note that while most of the languages retain a trace of the sibilant in the
> French article 'les', the article is missing from the Miami, Maniwaki
> Ojibwe, and the various Cree dialect forms.

The Siouan forms I know by memory are:

Teton s^agla's^a
Santee s^ahdas^a (I think)
OP "sakenash" probably sagdhas^a or sakkenas^a
IO "laggerash ~ raggerash" ragras^

I'll have to check these to make sure I haven't lost any final vowels.

> The odd one out here is Shawnee, which has an old word for 'Englishman'
> which can probably be phonemicized as /me:kilesima:na/. This seems to be
> taken straight from the English word "Englishman"; I admittedly can't really
> explain the initial /m/, unless it's influenced by the initial /m/ of
> Shawnee's word for 'white man', /mtekohsiya/ (/tekohsiya/ by the 20th
> century). Either way, this is yet another example of Shawnee NOT borrowing
> from French when everyone else did.

How about taking the m- from "an (Englishman)," though I don't see why m
instead of n.

JEK



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