Osage

[Alan H. Hartley]

carolyn quintero wrote:

> Of course it's easy to see the English 'Osage' as a corruption of waz^a'z^e
> (via French 'oisage' or some such--not sure of the French term--).

Eng. Osage may be a result of Fr. orthographic confusion: Dhegiha inital
wa- was probably originally transcribed as 8- (as in Marquette's map of
1673 where 8chage). But 8- was also used for native o- (and Fr. ou-), so
O(u)sage may be a spelling pronunciation. (Marquette also has 8tontanta,
from Chiwere watóta.) This orthog. problem (though not specif. in
relation to Osage) is discussed by Mccafferty in his LINGUIST List
posting on the etym. of Chicago, 21 Dec. 2001 (which is good reading).

Alan