Mountain Beaver & Jargon & Chehalis & ... ?

[Mike Cleven]

ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU wrote:
>
> Mike,
>
> The thing is, "mountain beaver" is only so-called.
>
> It isn't a beaver, nor is it a muskrat.
>
> Apparently somewhere along the line, it used to be called "mountain boomer",
> some kind of continuation of a North American anglophone tradition of naming
> mysterious noisy animals of the forest "boomers".  (Viz. certain squirrels
> and birds farther East of here.)
>
> Weird, huh?

Or grouse, for that matter (oh yeah, you said 'birds', didn't you?);
never heard of a booming squirrel though; pretty scary.  Now about those
baby boomers - when do they reach maturity and become big boomers?  My
stock analyst wants to know.....

Aren't there other North American languages than English that indulge in
onomatopaeic names for animals, i.e. the Jargon itself - "kalakala" and
"haht-haht", for example?  English doesn't seem like it's that unique in
this regard, and I'd suspect that la francaise canadienne has a few
also, if not original French (Yann?).

Now about these boomer critters.....we all got the Vancouver Island
Marmot, and the Whistling Marmot (Siffleur), hence the name of Whistler
Mountain (originally named London Mountain for its habit of having rain
and fog collect around it, especially Southside about halfway up; skiers
take note - even though their base lifts are only a few feet apart,
Blackcomb has better weather, is higher, and oh yeah has better scenery
as well as more incredible backcountry).  But ya say these aren't
marmots (or pikas), so what is they?  Do we even have 'em on this side
of the border (Theresa? Terry? Lee?).

Somewhere along our confusing zoological debates didn't we (or I) try
and figure out what the difference between nenamuks and eenamuks would
be; otter vs. fisher, mink vs. martin etc. - or could it be that
"eenamuks" is the "mountain beaver", unless sakwellel (or however one
transliterates it) is already in the semi-official "yeah, these are
Jargon words" list?

MC

[by the way Dave, your new e-moniker sounds kind of like "Doctor
Eleven", or rather "Dee Doctor Eleven" (dee=the).  Have you ever heard
of Brother Twelve, by any chance?

MC