Pejorative vs. Diminutive

[Ryan Denzer-King]

It's interesting you mention the use of "dog" for insults.  I know very 
little about comparative Algonquian, but in Blackfoot imitaisskiwa "dog 
face" is supposed to be about the worst insult (or just imitawa as 
deictic, "there's a dog").  I didn't know this was so widespread.  As 
far as I know Blackfoot doesn't have any dedicated pejorative, but 
surely there are people here that know a lot more about Blackfoot than I 
do.  I've never thought of it as grammatically diminutive (and perhaps 
it is not), but Blackfoot uses (oh)pok- for little things: imitawa, 
'dog', poksimitawa, 'little dog', nitohpoksimitawa, 'my little dog'.

On 05/08/2013 10:35 PM, Arok Wolvengrey wrote:
> Thanks, Bernie:
>
> The Micmac form, "kisiku'sm" for "old dog" used for a man would seem to have a parallel in Plains Cree: kisêyinîwatim "old (man) dog" or "dog of an old man".  Probably only another Elder (most likely his wife ;-) would be able to get away with that.  There's also another insulting term based along these lines: atimwastim "dog of a dog" or "dog of a horse".  Otherwise, forms of atimw-/-astimw- "dog" might frequently be used for insults, but the morpheme hasn't been bleached enough to become an all-purpose pejorative ending ... yet.  I will note, the Saulteaux pejorative form "animohš" has replaced the basic form "anim" as the general reference for "dog", and perhaps this is common to other Ojibwe dialects as well.
>
> Cheers,
> Arok