Whence the CJ word for 'grizzly bear'?

[David Robertson]

LhaXayEm!  Qhata mEsayka?

Looking at Melville Jacobs' Kalapuya texts today I see that that language
had a root /Sayum/ (where S can be either /s/ or /sh/), "grizzly bear",
apparently.  This is on page 21, story number 7.

But in I believe Boas' Chinook texts, and if not there, in Sapir's
Kathlamet Chinook texts, we find a root /Sayim/ for the same thing!

These are unrelated languages, according to current dominant linguistic
theory.

Because the word for "grizzly bear" in Chinook Jargon is /SayEm/, I'd be
interested to know the probable source for it.

It's not in Jacobs' list of CJ words used in the Kalapuya texts told by
John Hudson of Grand Ronde, but...could that be merely an oversight?

Or could both language groups have an essentially identical form for
"grizzly" as part of a Northwestern pattern of shared animal names?  (Viz.
"bluejay" in many languages of our region.)

Or, might it be only coincidence that we find the same form in both
languages?

Could Hudson have been inserting CJ into his Kalapuya, in this case?
Jacobs notes that Hudson expressed his frustration at being unable to
speak as well in the latter  language as the people used to.  These texts
contain plenty of inserted loanwords, mostly Jargon (e.g. basdEn, musmus,
bib "pipe", lemchin "medicine") and English (cedar, rheumatism, Shaker,
caterpillar, matches, and so on).

Wik na kEmtEks.

Pi alta na lhatEwa.

Dave



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