[Lexicog] Turkey

Michael McCafferty mmccaffe at indiana.edu
Thu Aug 25 19:46:11 UTC 2005


That's nice. Thanks.



Quoting David Costa <pankihtamwa at earthlink.net>:

> Actually, */pele:wa/ is more complicated than I realized. 
> 
> Here's the breakdown:
> 
> 'turkey': Shawnee, Fox, Miami, Potawatomi, Delaware
> 
> 'grouse' (of some kind): Ojibwe, Menominee, Cree, Micmac, Arapaho/GrosVentre
> 
> I'm a tad reluctant to reconstruct this as 'grouse' since there are better
> Proto-Algonquian candidates for that. Perhaps its true PA meaning is
> 'salient local game fowl'.
> 
> Ojibwe mizise is from an etymon (*/me?$i?le:wa/, lit., 'big flier') that
> seems to mean 'turkey' most of the time, and 'prairie chicken' the rest of
> the time.
> 
> 'turkey': Ojibwe, Cree, Cheyenne, Menominee
> 
> 'prairie chicken': Fox, Miami
> 
> Dave
> 
> 
> > David Costa wrote:
> >
> >> The Proto-Algonquian word for 'turkey', */pele:wa/, can be etymologized
> >> as literally meaning 'flier'.
> >
> > which comes out in Ojibway as bine 'partridge, ruffed grouse' and binesi
> > 'bird (of a large species)'. Turkey is mizise.
> >
> > /pele:wa/ descendants in Plains Cree mean 'bird' and 'prairie chicken'.
> >
> > Alan
> 



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