Cariboo Country.....

[Anthony D. Clover]

Mike Cleven wrote:

> That the word is originally Algonkian is not too surprising ("moose" is
> Cree), but I don't understand Douglas' insistence that the word was
> "properly written 'carboeuf'".  "Car" is a French preposition meaning
> something like "because of" or "according to" or "by means of".

I am no specialist of Chinook Jargon and basically a lurker on this
list.  But I do know French well, so maybe a couple of comments may be
helpful.

First, so far as the French etymologists are concerned, the word
'caribou' was first recorded in French from 1607 and is considered to be
'Algonquin':  it is contrasted or assimilated with the word 'kalibu'
said to be from the Micmacs tribe.  So it is a very early importation
into French.

Secondly, today 'car' is strictly speaking a conjunction, corresponding
to the word 'for' in English in the sense of 'because' but stylistically
able to stand at the beginning of a sentence.  But I can see how it
might be called a preposition.  It is derived from the Latin expression
'quare', separable as 'qua re' (in the ablative), so it could be
translated as 'in/by which thing/matter/reason'.  So, while I don't take
up any position over the likelihood of the original French expression's
having been 'carboeuf', it would however make logical sense to have been
originally part of a definition or gloss on some word, e.g. (in full)
'"kalibu", quare boeuf' i.e. 'kalibu, qua (or as) a kind of bull'.

Anthony Clover