Cayoosh/Cayuse/Kiyoose again.....

[Mike Cleven]

Dell Hymes wrote:
>
> In regard to "kiuatan"
>
>         In Chinookan -tan would be second element in a noun, with the
> general meaning of 'thing'.  There are a few examples in Wasco-Wishram
> (-siutan, -mutan)
>
>         I seem to recall once learning that the first element, kiu- was
> Salishan, but could be wrong.
>
>         If the trajectory from 'caballos' is right, then someone somewhere
> dropped the -s at the end.

What you've come up with here seems to more than provide the answer -
since the singular (caballo=horse) doesn't have an -s at the end, of
course; ca(v)allo-tan (non-Spanish speakers: the 'll' is more or less a
'y' depending on which dialect of Spanish you're in; it could even be
something like a 'j' in some places).  Chinookan borrowed from the
singular, and whichever language or region cayuse is from borrowed from
the plural; hence they both seem to have the same Spanish root, albeit
from different cultural and geographic connections.

Did the Spanish ever penetrate Chinookan territory?  I can't remember;
they did make Gray's Harbour, though, didn't they, as well as of course
the Straits, Sound, etc.  If not I'm wondering what the route of this
borrowing might have been - up through California or the Great Basin,
perhaps, in which case might there not be similar words (without the
Chinookan -tan ending) farther south.

1814's pretty early for cayuse to be of NW coinage; must be also
somewhere to the south but I suspect more SE than directly S.  Anyone
got any hints as to which language might have retroflexed the 'b' in
'caballos' to make 'cayuse'?

MC