/musmus/ vis-a-vis Algonquian "moose"?

[David Robertson]

LhaXayEm, qhata mayka?

Yann, that is a novel question:  Could ChInuk Wawa /musmus/ "cow; cattle"
have a not merely onomatopoeic origin?

Edward Harper Thomas (still the easiest Jargon book to find for purchase,
I think, if you're looking to add to your library) has the etymological
note for "moos'-moos",

	The word is of doubtful origin.  It occurs in almost that form
	in the Cree, which is moostoos, and is their word for buffalo.
	... [W]hen cattle were introduced, the tribes imitated the Cree
	as closely as possible.

Algonquian, the family to which generically the English word "moose" is
ascribed, includes Cree.

If Cree varieties have been mostly spoken in core areas which are outside
or at the edge of bison habitat, perhaps one and the same Algonquian root
which gave us "moose" also generated /musmus/.

Again, as with /sIskiyu/ "bob-tailed horse" and possibly /khiyutEn/
"horse", it fascinates me to see the possible Cree component of ChInuk
Wawa.

Then again, Michael Silverstein, in his fine paper "Encountering Language
and Languages of Encounter in North American Ethnohistory" (Journal of
Linguistic Anthropology 6(2):126-144, 1997), points out:

	With the rise of this emerging contact community [the fur trade],
	there are associated attestations in our records of the widening
	use of forms of Cree, and especially of a pidginized Cree as a
	lingua franca for both indigenous and nonindigenous people of the
	western Canadian plains....[This had an] ultimate transformation
	into distinct later consequences, such as loanwords that have
	made their way into languages seemingly distant from what might
	be considered sociopolitically "Cree territory," [which are] not
	to be projected as evidence of direct prehistoric Cree contact.
	
BTW, Thomas, while no professional linguist, aptly and consistently tries
to label a category of ChInuk Wawa words in his book, those which sprang
up in the Jargon itself rather than coming into it from identifiable
outside sources.  This is one such that the Jargon apparently gave to the
Old Chinook language, a reversal of the usual flow!

Best,
Dave


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