Historical questions

[Alan Hartley]

In Michael's absence, here's what I have for Missouri(a):

< French Missouris (pl.; 1687) < Fr. 8emess8rit (1673; the character 8
is used in French transcriptions of North American languages to
represent the sounds spelled ou in French) < Illinois we:mihso:rit
‘person who has a big canoe’ < we:- (3d pers. sg. prefix o- in the
changed mode of the conjunct order) + mihso:ri ‘big canoe’ (as missouri
1725, Internat. J. Amer. Ling. LVII. (1991) 374) + -t (3d pers. sg.
conjunct suffix); < mihs- ‘big’ + -o:ri ‘canoe’ (< PA *o:si).

Illinois mihs- could stem from either Proto-Algonquian *me?T- [glottal
stop; unvoiced th]  ‘big’ or *mehT-  ‘wooden’ which have identical
reflexes in Illinois, but the gloss ‘wooden canoe’ is made less likely
by the existence of the Illinois word meehtikoosia ‘Frenchman’ (lit.
‘wooden-boat person’).

Happy New Year,

Alan