Alan Hartley's new article on etymology of "camas"

[Dave Robertson]

Tlus tanas pulakli,

Having just received the latest newsletter of SSILA*, I'd like to praise one of our listmembers, Alan Hartley, for his fine "Etymological Notes" contribution on the etymology of the word "camas".

Drawing on numerous sources, Alan shows why the etymology of this word should be recorded as Sahaptian, specifically Nez Perce.  Alan also discusses the relation of "camas" to Chinook Jargon, which in a nutshell is:  The word was picked up from Nez Perce by French- and English-speaking members of the Lewis & Clark expedition, thence passed into CJ.

In contributing this article to the SSILA Newsletter, Alan's helped to clear up a mistaken, if venerable, etymological assumption.  Thank you!  (Thanks also for the mention of our "active online Chinook Jargon community".)

Will you be working up the etymology of "wapato" next?  ;-)

Dave
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*Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, _Newsletter_ XX:3 (October 2001), pages 10-11.  Membership in the Society costs $15 (US) or $25 (Canadian) per calendar year.  Researchers interested should see the website, http://www.ssila.org.
--
"Asking a linguist how many languages she knows is like asking a doctor how many diseases he has!" -- anonymous



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