St. Louis - Pain Court; Ndeck and Other ppahV forms.

[Jimm GoodTracks]

For what it is worth, I decided to take the discussion to a friend from
Southern France who has done some cultural studies and journeys to the
various tribal communities of the Southern and Northern Plains in the last
few years.  This is what he has to say:

----- Original Message -----
From: Lionel Lacaze
To: Jimm GoodTracks
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 12:14 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: St. Louis?


Ho Jimm !
This sounds very interesting ! Me too I have doubts concerning the "short of
bread" meaning of "Pain Court". It would rather mean the place where they
make small breads , or the place where their bread is "short" because of
lack of baking powder (I don't have the English for "levure" which is what
you put in bread to make it come big as it is goes through oven). Altough I
had already heard about St Louis being called red head town in reference to
William Clark hair, "Pain Court" is new to me. (As well as Misère ?)
("Misère" is great poverty, I don't think the English "Misery" stands for
great poverty ?). Anyway to the French in Canada or southern Louisiana would
sure have been the western frontier in the 1600's and 1700's and life for
white people at these places was sure difficult and "misérable" ("very
poor", "wandering life").
 Lionell:

> Here's a discussion of a French name applied to Saint Louis, Missouri,
which
> was founded by the French in about 1775.  See if you get anything out of
it.
> Jimm
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Koontz John E" <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>
> To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 3:56 PM
> Subject: Re: St. Louis - Pain Court
>
>
> On Tue, 30 Mar 2004, [windows-1252] "Alfred W. Tüting" wrote:
> >  > Paroisse de l?Immaculée Conception de Pain Court
> >
> > C?est la misère extrême des ancêtres qui a donné le jour au nom de Pain
> > Court. Les missionnaires disaient : « Je m?en vais dans la mission du
> > pain court », ou tout simplement : « Je m?en vais à Pain Court. » Et le
> > nom prit racine pour toujours... <<
> >
> > It seems that the French speaking author doesn't have problems to quote
> > the term _pain court_ in the sense of smth like "short of bread"
> > (although it doesn't look like a real grammatical French rendering,
> > then).
>
> Comments on St. Louis as "Pain court" generally pair this with a comment
> on Ste. Genevieve as "Misere," suggesting a parallel.  It would be
> interesting to know what the first source is that suggests this.  I agree
> that taking something like "a short loaf" as symbolic of want or perhaps
> just meagerness seems more consistent with French syntax than other
> possibilities.
>
> In any event, any explanation of the name as applied to St. Louis has to
> account for its use in three North American placenames dating to French
> settlements in the area, and probably also to its use in two street names
> in France.  It seems clear that some metaphorical meaning might be
> involved.
>
> It is also possible that the name might reflect the French nickname or dit
> name of an early resident, though it seems more likely that Paincort as a
> nickname reflects the same metaphor as the placenames than that the
> placenames derive from the nickname.  This seems likely because of the
> number of instances of Paincourt as a placename and the tendency to
> explain it in ways that imply shortages of food rather than as a nickname.
>
> Finally, if the sense is taken simply as short bread without too much
> emphasis on what that might mean, it could represent a none-too-relevant
> play on an unrelated phrase in another language with a similar sound.
> This seems less likely because the name does reappear as a placename, and
> because Native American versions of St. Louis seem to be derived from the
> French and not vice versa.  If we include Allan Taylor's Gros Ventre case,
> the Native American versions include not just borrowings of the sound
> sequence by calques of the sense.