Ioway baxoje, paoutet, etc.

[Alan H. Hartley]

RLR wrote:
>
> The transcriptions of the Ioway self-identifier with apparent stop
> consonants, e.g. "paoutet", etc. on some early French maps, should be
> taken with a grain of salt.
>
> 1.  French had no "ch" sound, either phonemically or phonetically and
> had not had since about the 12th century. They had no "dj" sound either.
> So they had to write any such sound they heard in some other way. In the
> modern language the spelling conventions tch and dj are most often used.
> But in the 17th century there was no real standard.

No standard, but they did usually distinguish ch, e.g., some ethnonyms
(with my OED headword forms):

Apalatci (1591, Apalachee)
(Hi-)attchiritiny (1737 (ay-)Archithinue)
Metchigamea (1674 Michigamea; cf. Matsigamea in 1698)
Natches (1690 Natchez)
Natchetes (1698 Natchitoch; cf. Nachitos in 1714)
Outchibiue (1668 Ojibway)
Cadodacchos (1698 Kadohadacho)
Chacchi-Ouma (1774 Chakchiuma; and Chachouma in 1702)
Chikacha (1698 Chickasa)
Chetimacha (1770 Chitimacha; and Chotymacha in 1699)
Tchiacta (1708 Choctaw)
Otchagra (1761 Hochunk)

> 2.  In Canadian dialects of French (and perhaps those in the areas of
> France from which most colonials came) the stops /t/ and /d/ are
> pronounced as affricates [ts] and [dz]. It may well be that a spelling
> like "Paoutet" for the Ioway represented [paxotse] and was thus the
> closest they could get to the ch that they heard from speakers.

Judging from the above examples, I think they could have gotten closer:
*Pa(h)outche.

Alan