Just plain Prairie People

[Koontz John E]

On Sun, 12 Jun 2005, David Costa wrote:
> However: there is no evidence that this means "Little Prarie People" within
> Illinois, or, indeed, that it's any kind of diminutive at all. The old
> Illinois initial for 'prairie' is indeed /maskotee-/ (modern Miami
> /mahkotee-/), but the problem is that */masko(o)teenta/ does not contain any
> recognizable Miami-Illinois diminutive suffix. In fact, the ending of this
> name, the /-nta/ part, is not recognizable.

What would happen if it was **/masko(o)teensa/?   Not that I have any
theory as to how -eenta in this one word could become -eensa!  Other than
borrowing, which you suggest.

> However, considering how freely tribe names are shared back and forth among
> Algonquian languages, it's highly likely that Miami-Illinois borrowed
> */masko(o)teenta/ from some neighboring Algonquian language, possibly the
> Mascoutens themselves. That is, there might be some other neighboring
> language where that ending is analyzable. Several similar names for the
> Mascouten are given on pages 671-2 of HNAI, volume 15.

> Now, alongside */masko(o)teenta/ there is another tribe name, old
> Illinois /masko(o)tia/ 'Illinois' (<masc8tea>; again, the length on the
> 2nd V is uncertain), which you cite below, and its modern Miami
> equivalent /meehko(o)tiaki/ (plural), .... This latter form also has
> matches in a couple neighbor languages, i.e., Sauk /ma$kooteewa/
> 'Peoria', and Meskwaki /ma$kooteewa/~/mee$kooteewa/, also 'Peoria'. ('$'
> = s-wedge) This name is not attested in Miami-Illinois after the 1820's.
>
> Clearly these forms all ultimately come from Proto-Algonquian */ma$kote:wi/
> 'prairie' in some way, but I don't see how the 'small prairie'/'big prairie'
> analysis can be made to fit the linguistic evidence. Forms like Illinois
> /masko(o)tia/ 'Illinois' and the Sauk/Meskwaki cognates very likely do have
> an ultimate etymology 'prairie person', but there's no way to analyze
> Illinois */masko(o)teenta/ 'Mascouten' as 'little prairie person'.

I don't see why we have to compare the Illinois */asko(o)eenta/ form per
se with the Illinois */masko(o)tia/ form, Sauk /ma$kooteewa/, etc., forms.
It appears that we have widely attested 'prairie person' for Illinois (or
some subgroup thereof) and 'little prairie person' (or once
'(unanalyzable) prairie person') for Mascouten, which is exactly what I
was getting at.

So, is there any grammatical objection to the diminutive applying to the
whole 'prairie person' as opposed to just the 'prairie'?  If not, the
analogy with pairs like Yankton/Yanktonais or Nadowe/Nadowesiw (forgive my
spellings), or even Shahi(a)/Cheyenne seems clear enough.  There's an
areal pattern of using X/little X as a scheme for distinguishing two
peoples with similar names, however they may have come by the similar
names.