jowett etc

[Henry Kammler]

Hi there,

I don't want to bore you but seeing this

"(No Name Available)" wrote:

>
> Further to Mosin~o's "mystery words": Gibbs and Shaw both have _seahpoo_ as
> 'hat, cap' and both say it's from Fr. _chapeau_.
>

I am inclined to insist on Nootkan tsiyapuxs as the source of siahpoo. I see no
reason why a language that has the phoneme /sh/ (as present in _chapeau_, too)
should change it to /s/. The syllable-final /h/ in  _siahpoo_ (= *[siyaxpu])
suggests a sort of aspiration or velar fricative in the source word, it would not
be uncommon for such a sound to change its position from second to first syllable.
Finally, both languages may be the source, i.e. speakers of CJ just converged the
two words by analogy (chapeau being so similar to tsiyapuxs), which is not unheard
of as well.

I have to admit, it's definitely time for me to have a look at the sources.

One remark on etymologies given by Gibbs and others. CJ researchers always depended
on available sources. At least for Nootkan no dictionary was available for most of
the time. "Nootka Texts" by Swadesh and Sapir (1939) has a short glossary (maybe
2,500 items) which by the way it is presented does not offer itself for
non-linguists (e.g. awkward order of glosses). That volume was immediately out of
print. It was only in 1990 that another attempt towards a dictionary was made
(T'aat'aaqsaapa Cultural Dictionary, compiled by Jay Powell -- who should be
awarded a prize for the huge task) but it is designed for use in the Nuuchaahnulh
communities, not freely distributed elsewhere and again not alpabetically ordered.
I am not aware of any Makah dictionary that could be ordered in bookstores but
maybe someone from Neah Bay (on this list maybe?) can help out with information.
The quality of the etymologists' work can only reflect the quality of their
sources, any lack of information on their side is not their fault then.

Best wishes,
Henry