Question on CJ/Shoalwater Chinook word

[Keith Thor Carlson]

Hi Dave,

I don't know for sure, but folk etymologies I've heard the lower Fraser
where the same words appear in Halqemeylem state that "pus" and
"puspus" are simply the words Natives heard white people using to call
their cats: "Here pusy pusy, here pus pus."
Keith

On Oct 6, 2004, at 10:34 PM, David Robertson wrote:

> This is on page 641 of Boas' "Chinook Indian Language".  There he
> discusses "<a-lap!u's> CAT borrowed from Chinook Jargon".  This would
> come
> from a source form like <lapus>, which would have been given a
> Shoalwater
> gender prefix & some diminutive consonant modification.
>
> According to the awfully extensive vocabulary lists in S.V. Johnson's
> 1978
> dissertation, the only form similar to this is <lepish> recorded by
> Lionnet
> 1853:12 for 'jaguar'.  (!)  Can I reasonably interpret this & <lapus>
> as a
> French article le/la on the well-known Jargon word pus or puspus?
>
> Can I reasonably assume from this that either pus was current in
> French as
> used in the lower Columbia region, or Jargon speakers for some reason
> Frenchified the word for "cat"?  (Maybe because it was obviously an
> imported animal.)
>
> I'm curious whether <lapus> can be compared to other Jargon words like
> <lishat> "shirt" that don't seem to come from French but have French
> articles in them.
>
> --Dave R
>
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