Sarpy

[Alan Hartley]

Michael Mccafferty wrote:

> Well, "Badsie" is not Iroquoian, because of the B-. Iroquoian doesn't have
> bilabials.

Good point. (The same phonological fact ruled Iroquois out as the source
of 'hoppus,' an earlier concern of mine.) The only other possibility is
Dutch, in which Jan Baptist is a common name (and was in 1700 in the
Hudson River basin). I don't know anything about colonial American
Dutch, but I don't have any reason to think that the [t] was palatized
as it was in French.

Alan