turnip query

[Francisc Czobor]

LaXayEm !
   
  There is a Chinook Jargon word for "turnip", that appears in various forms in different sources:
  - lenawo (in Le Jeune's "Chinook Vocabulary" and "Practical Chinook Vocabulary", and also in Shaw's English-Chinook part, taken obviously from Le Jeune); 
  - lenamo (Demers); 
  - ledowo (Hutchings&Rosenfield 1860, Macdonald 1863); 
  - la mooow (Tate 1889?, Downing&Clarke 1898, and again Shaw, who found it probably in one of the former two). 
  I assumed that the "correct" form (or at least the closest to the original) should be Le Jeune's _lenawo_ and supposed that the etymology is most probably the French word _le navet_ = "turnip". 
  But re-reading an old message posted to the Chinook List by Dave Robertson (10 Apr 1999, Subject: Upper Chehalis Salish in relation to ChInuk Wawa), I noticed among the "words from Chinuk Wawa" (i.e. Upper Chehalis loanwords from CW) the word _ninamu_ = "rutabaga" (i.e. a kind of turnip). 
  Taking into account that the oldest form from those quoted above is Demers' _lenamo_, now I suspect that this is also the most "correct", being also the closest to _ninamu_. But what could be the origin of this word? Is it French? 
  It isn't easy to derive "lenawo" from "le navet"; but if the word is in fact lenamo/ninamu, it's even more difficult... or maybe _m_ and _w_ are two forms for rendering the [v] sound? In fact, we have, in the case of the French loanwords, examples both with v>w (la veste > lawest) and v>m (la vieille > lamiyay). But in this case what could be the explanation of changing the last vowel from [e] to [o]?
  Or maybe the word has another origin? Laksta kEmtEks ukuk?
   
  Francisc

 		
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