Penutian "musmus"?

[David D. Robertson]

Here's something more specific, now that I've referred back to Berman's
article:  from page 17, a set of proposed Plateau Penutian cognates having
the meaning "black-tailed deer":

K[lamath] -- mosmas, mosmos
M[olala] -- mu(u)sims
     musmalhq "doe" (malhq "she-one")
     musqamlh "buck" (qamlh "he-one")

These forms bear a closer resemblance to the CJ word for "cow" than the
proposed Algonquian source-words do.

--Dave




On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 20:57:22 -0400, David D. Robertson
<ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU> wrote:

>I was just glancing at Howard Berman's IJAL vol. 62 article, The Position
>of Molala in Plateau Penutian, and saw a form for "deer" that looked
>rather like CJ musmus "cow".  Could the Jargon term have any roots in the
>Penutian one?
>
>As implausible as that may sound, and as widely accepted as an Algonquian
>etymology for musmus is, I can imagine a situation in which early CJ
>already had the word mawich for "deer" (from Southern Waskashan, that is
>Nootkan); maybe this would make existing widespread Oregon words like
>musmus more likely and useful as terms for "cow".  As we know, terms for
>animals were often shared among unrelated & not-closely-related languages
>in the NW...
>
>I think no one has proposed S. Wakashan sources for musmus.
>
>Now, if musmus is Penutian rather than Algonquian, this tends to make the
>latter seem a more minor contributor than thought.  (Because there are
>relatively few other CJ words considered to be of Algonquian origin.)
>
>Reactions?