Iskit/Secret Island

[Sally Thomason]

  I'm not wowed by the possibility of a p/k switch in a
context like that: I mean, anything's possible, but it
doesn't seem awfully likely.

  On the other hand, there's the well-attested Chinook
Jargon word itsxut `black bear' (from Chinook).  None
of the 14 or so attestations that I have of the word
have a k; most have h or w (or both), as in itswoot
or ichwet, and a few have f, as in ichfat.  But in other
anglicizations of Northwest Native words a k sometimes
replaces a velar fricative x; and s replacing the ts
isn't unusual, either.  So iskut, which Mike Cleven
suggested as related, would be a pretty good match for
itsxut.  Iskit is less likely (the rounding tends to
remain in anglicizations of labialized CJ consonants
like "xw", "kw", "qw", and so forth), but still possible
-- there are other examples.

  -- Sally Thomason
     sally at thomason.org