coulee etc.

[janilta]

David, Mike, Chris,

Yes, 'coulee' is clearly a French noun and, as was already mentioned,
describe, as a general term, the 'path' carved by a river more than its
flow itself. No Metis word here.
And I don't think that its use is different in Canada/America from the
European use, in spite of the fact that the rivers are sometimes bigger
there probably.

Btw, Mike, can you give me the date of the first mention of Oregon (or
any other of its various forms) since the date of entry of '(h)ouragan'
in French language has been quite precisely determined, so that we may
see if the connection is chronologically possible.

The phnological system of the Mitchif (Metis/'Prairie French') can give
an explanation for some CJ words I guess. Patrick Douaud in 'Mitchif, un
aspect de la francophonie' explains that 'Fr 's' becomes 'ch' (ie Eng
'sh') and Fr 'z' becones 'j' (not Eng 'j' !), especially in initial
position, so that we have 'les sauvages' pronounced as 'li chavage'
(thus quite close to CJ !).... the changing of 'e' and 'o' vowels in f
ex final position respectively becoming 'i' (Eng 'ee') and 'u' (Eng
'oo') eg Fr 'ble' is 'bli' and Fr 'gros' is 'grou' ('groo').
So I think this can explain partly our 'cooley' riddle. 'Courez' becames
'couri' and the rolled 'r' was noted 'l'.
And there was no construction of any Mitchif verb as 'couri' I think,
especially if one takes into account that in Mitchif the nouns are
French (less than 1% Cree) but the verbs Cree (less than 1% French). No
Mitchif verb here.

For historical, chronological, geographical and ethnical reasons, I do
believe the 'coolie' thing must be a kind of a joke... ;-)

Regards, Yann.