bird.

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Tue Nov 4 00:52:04 UTC 2003


> I haven't been following all this as carefully as I should have, but
> we're getting into larger territories to the South here. Chickasaw has
> tIshkila 'bluejay' (the cap I is nasalized), with an "expressive" form
> tIsh tIsh tIsh aachi (characteristically three CVC syllables plus 'say')
> which my teacher tells me means 'to make a noise like a bluebird'.

I should point out that tiNs^kila is an excellent match for Biloxi
tiNskana - close enough to suggest borrowing by Biloxi.

My understanding is that confusions in mapping between Native American and
English systems are pretty standard for terms like 'bluejay' and
'bluebird'.



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