Historical questions

[David Costa]

Funny, Michael and I just had a discussion about this last month. Ives
Goddard showed a while ago that the reconstruction of Illinois /mihsooli/,
Kickapoo /me0ooni/ 'boat', Menominee /mEhno:s/ 'raft' and Cree /mihtot/
'raft' has to be Proto-Algonquian */meh0we0-/ ('0' = theta), where the
*/meh0-/ does indeed mean 'wood'. The Cree & Menominee cognates show that a
*/?0/ reconstruction is impossible. Miami /meehtikoo$ia/ 'Frenchman' is from
an unrelated etymon, PA */me?tekwi/ 'tree'.

Dave

> 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').