coulee etc.

[Mike Cleven]

janilta wrote:
>
> 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.

Except that coulee is a specific geographic descriptive, not just any
riverpath; maybe there are some in France that go by that name, I don't
know.  In the Prairies (and Interior Washington, obviously) a coulee is
a river valley cut into a prairie; on the Prairies and Plains this
includes valleys cut by streams.  Isn't the French verb coulir, rather
than couler?  If so, then the adjective does have the same vowel as
coulee.  Another similar geographic feature is a couteaux, which is an
"edge" in the prairie landscape; the biggest and most significant one
being the Missouri Couteaux; physically similar to a coulee but due to
lakeshore formation rather than water drainage....

Hmmm.  Just thinking of water drainage; I'm wondering if there's an
etymological (if not directly related) link between "gully" and
"coulee".....

The other regional word based on couler/coulir that's fairly common now
among skiers is "colouir", a kind of chute, the most famous of which is
the Saudan Couloir at the top of Blackcomb.....


>
> 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.

I'll have to dig out that pamphlet someone (Jeff?) sent me long ago.  I
think the explorer's usage of (h)ouragan (ouragon, actually,  I think)
was much before any western application of "Oregon", or the use of that
spelling.  The name was used to give shape to an area the US wanted to
get all in one chunk; as such it was entirely fictional and fantastic,
despite being the name given to the whole country west of the Rockies
and north of the former territories of New Spain. For the area described
by the name also included most of present-day British Columbia, up to
the infamous 54'40" line of latitude which marked the southern limit of
Russian coastal claims (from the 1850s or so the British had made claims
on the Stikine and other inland-northern BC not).  Conversely the
British considered what is now Washington and Oregon, plus all of Idaho
and part of Montana, as part of "the Columbia District" of the HBC,
although not a formal colony.  "Columbia" was never a workable name for
the region, as Lewis & Clark were probably aware when choosing "Oregon"
- or was it them?  Were they sent out to "find Oregon", or were they the
ones who named it in the process?  It's a peculiarly American geographic
usage, without any historical precedents and quite spontaneous........
>
> 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.

Again, "coulir", I think....

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

Again, it was; or rather I recited a long-ago misapprehension about this
word which had always struck me upon hearing the word and its meaning,
despite the lack of any meaningful linguistic connection.  Never meant
to be taken as serious linguistic speculation; only that "cooley" is
just the sort of command you'd give to a labourer or slave.....esp "hyak
cooley", of course.....