FW: Chicago (fwd) -- long

[Frank Abate]

The following is from Michael McCafferty, in response to Carl Weber's
etymology for Chicago, recently on the ADS list.  I pass this along at
Michael's request.

Frank Abate


-----
Here are some comments on Carl Weber's latest ideas. I have had to edit
out much of his comments because of space restrictions. Perhaps these
are available in an ADS archive. If anyone has a genuine interest in any
of this topic and wants more information, please feel free to contact me.

Michael McCafferty
mmccaffe at indiana.edu



> >
> >RE: Ch8ca8a

Comments following these symbols > > are Mr. Weber's.

> >2-25-02
> >
> >
> >Dear Mr. Rhodes,
> >
> > My claim is that LaSalle named Chicago and popularized the name.

La Salle was indeed the first European to record the place name. However,
it was also recorded independently.


> >He coined "Checagou" as part of his grand continent-scale plan, his
choice
> >of name under the influence of European rooted toponyms employed over a
> >century-and-a-half of European cartography.  My idea, based on a sequence
of
> >maps, is that current "Chicago" as English, was borrowed in the spoken
> >language from the Miami/Illlinois,

The term IS Miami-Illiois /$ikaakwa/ 'striped skunk'. The connotation of
this native term was /Allium tricoccum/.

$=sh

> >Importantly, Mercator (mid-1600s) got his
> >"Hochelaga" and "Chilaga," with their -- as I claim -- water morphemes --
> >from Portuguese maps, NOT French.

These are truly Laurentian Iroquoian place names. There is absolutely no
debate about this.

 Several Iberian names, including,
> >apparently, "Canada," were mistakenly re-etymologized as Amerindian,
based
> >on Cartier, 1535).

Again, <Canada> is pure Iroquoian. End of discussion.

> >The  "Ch8-" (close to English "shoe") of Le Boulanger's dictionary's
> >"Ch8ca8a" (1720) must be reconciled with the "Chi-" of front vowel forms,

Le Boullenger's term was a miscopy. This is borne out by the spelling of
the term in the **earlier** French-Illinois dictionary (Watkinson Library)
and the other, contemporaneous French-Illinois dictionary (Archives
Jesuites).

 If "Ch8-" is considered Algonquian, you are
> >right. But, as my current thinking goes, it is European and is related to
> >French "Chuca-" ("to fall" + pronoun ), and is found earlier in Spanish,
and
> >still earlier in Portuguese.

This does not merit comment.

>> "Chucagou,"
> >corridor, from the southwest tip of Lake Michigan to the Illinois River.

This is a miscopy or a confusion with a term for an unknown midcontinental
river that La Salle was forever attempting to locate, whose name goes back
to the Spaniards and which is not related to the Miami-Illinois name for
the river that empties into Lake Michigan at present-day Chicago.

 On
> >the basis of this map, "Chucagoua," found in the French and found in the
> >chronicles of DeSoto, MIGHT be cognate with LaSalle's "Checagou." A
> >comparison of names as they appeared on important European maps from the
mid
> >1500s through about 1700 yields some valuable conclusions, but the data
is
> >not yet in with water morphemes from about half a dozen Franco/Iberian
> >languages. What, as a Latin derived toponym, does "Chiogigu" mean? On the
> >maps before 1600 it is the name of the mythic river that empties into the
> >north sea. Is it Galitian?

Indeed, La Salle did believe there was such a river in the midcontinent.
But he was also in the business of deceiving people with his geography and
hydrology. See Jean Delanglez. La Salle based his pre-1684 knowledge on
the Spaniards. His post-1684 conceptions were distorted to his benefit in
his grand scheme to establish the French in Mexico.

> >Before 1600, European maps typically show a mythical mighty river flowing
> >into the mythical North Sea. The toponyms of European (Portuguese)
> >cartography show "water" roots, before 1600 -- particularly for the great
> >river "Chiogigua" flowing north from Canada. After the gradual
progressive
> >exploration of the Great Lakes, European cartography dropped its belief
in
> >an inland north/south river that discharged to the north, and picked up
the
> >belief that it went southerly, perhaps southeast to the Vermillion Sea,
off
> >the Coast of southern California. After 1673 everything changed, and it's
a
> >long story, with gaps.

<Chiogigua> is supposedly a Muskogean term picked up by the Spaniards in
the 1500s. La Salle consulted their works extensively. The term resembles
<Chicago> only superficially. Such superficial resemblances are
commonplace.

> >The French Cartographer Sanson was the first to "-agua" as a loanword
from
> >Spanish, rendered on French maps "-agoua." The "-ou + a" of French
"-agoua"
> >is easily associated, incorrectly, I claim, with Algonquian grammar.
French
> >"agoua," as a loan word from Spanish "agua," has appeared, as I could
find,
> >only in one dictionary (of French Argot), and it was never considered a
> >French word by the Academy. Nonetheless, in the later 1600s, the French
> >borrowed the word for their maps, and recast it as "-agoua," "-aoua," and
> >other orthographies (cf. It crossed my mind the Chaouanons Indians might
> >have been called so by the French with this word in mind + "-anons" the
> >Huron/Iroquois word for "people."

This paragraph is ridiculous, including the parenthetical remark: <-anons>
is not the Iroquoian populative final.

> >Spanish "-agua" is seen in French "Chagouamigon," and its slightly
shorter
> >forms "Chagoumigon," and "Chaouamigon," as they appeared in free
variation
> >in the 1680s on the maps of Franquelin  (he was Canada's Royal
> >cartographer).

I've never seen Franquelin use these spellings, and I imagine that
represent misreadings by Weber. The term in question refers to the Chicago
peninsula. It appears on Franquelin's 1684 map as <Chcagoumeinan>, I
believe. I'd have to get out my copy  of the map and see. The term is
Miami-Illinois and means 'striped skunk peninsula'.

Spanish "aua" can be explained as dropping the "g" from
> >"agua." French shows the same development ("aout": August) and in other
> >words. Joutel in 1684-87 wrote for the name of the Indians, "Chahouanons.
"
> >The "-h-" seemingly representing a relic "-g-" of "agua."
> >

Again, this is just nothing. Joutel, a monolingual European, is just
attempting  to write /$aawanwa/. The final -ns is a miscopied ua, a
standard set of miscopied letters.

> >Use of "-migon," after first use in the Jesuit Relations, about 1665, is
not
> >easily etymologized in Algonquian.

Absolutely, since it doesn't exist!

> >even shows "Chagon" as an obvious abbreviation for "Chagouamigon.
> > Coronelli
> >shows "-migon" in combination with French "Chou-" and Normande "Cou-."
Look
> >at Green Bay. I take these to be the past participle of "choir," "to
fall,."
> >with association of use with water. (Coronnilli got information for this
map

Coronelli's map are second-hand prettiness made for a king. They are not
good source material for serious study of onomastics or geograpy.

> >The Indian "Ch8ca8a," (as seen in Le Boulanger's dictionary, 1720),
> >apparently borrowed from the French, "Choucagoua," was, before the
> >Mississippi was from north to south fully navigated in 1682, the name
(after
> >1673/4) for a mighty river emptying into Mobile Bay (later called
> >"Chicagoua," 1697 to 1720). LaSalle used "Choucagoua" also for the Ohio
> >River, which takes a lot of explaining and a fuller discussion of DeSoto.

Le Boullenger did not copy his term from "the French, "Choucagoua"...'

> >I'm still trying to find the water morpheme in Le Boulanger's two
examples
> >(1720) of definition "il passe dans l'eau marche": 1. capa8a irach8ca8a.
2.
> >piman ch8ca8a. As I said, I think the "-a8a" was Iberian, passed on to
the
> >Miami/Illinois by the French via historical cartography. Where is the
> >Algonquian water morpheme supposed to be? if not in loan "-a8a"?

This is just ignorance of Miami-Illinois. I won't discuss the
Illinois morphemes here since I've already given Weber too much over the
years. I'm tired of teaching someone who refuses to learn anything.

> >The association of "Chicago" with the ProtoAlgonquian word for "skunk"
> >(i.e., urine + small animal + two grammatical suffixes, Frank Siebert,
1967)
> >is ultimately given authority by going all the way back to Le Boulanger
> >(1720). HOWEVER, next to the "skunk/onions" word, said to have named the
> >city, Le Boulanger wrote "abusive." That's been seriously overlooked in
> >etymologizing "Chicago" by way of "skunk."

The term first appears in the French-Illinois dictionary from the late
1600s. Le Boullenger copied a great deal of that dictionary.

I've addressed the "abusive" remark in another reponse to another of
Weber's flights of fancy. I refer to the LINGUIST listserv archives from
Fri, 21 Dec 2001. I spent more time on that "rebuttal".

> >My current hypothesis is that Miami/Illinois "Ch8ca8a," in Le Boulanger's
> >dictionary, was borrowed from the French, as chu + pronoun + "water." The
> >"chu-" from French "choir," and here referring to the falling of the
river
> >over its course. This explains Chicago much better than the onions
theory --
> >and the French Academy of Sciences DID write "Chu-" in "Chicago."
> >

No comment.

> >How French "chu/chue/chou" relates to LaSalle's "che-" continues as a
> >problem. I currently think the answer might be found in French/Iberian
> >regional grammar, maybe in irregular past participles of "choir." For
> >example, water  morpheme French "chou" in Normande is "cou." This might
make
> >"couamis," the Algonquian for "beaver," actually a French loan compound
for
> >"water friends."

Or maybe we could invent a language and attribute all
these mysteries to that language. How about that?

> >
> >Regards,
> >Carl Jeffrey Weber,
> >Chicago

-------
Michael McCafferty
307 Memorial Hall
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
47405
mmccaffe at indiana.edu