Tywappity Bottoms

[Michael Mccafferty]

Alan,
Just a couple of observations.

Given the date that "Ze-wa-pe-ta" was transcribed, it is most likely a
word written down by an English speaker. Therefore, the final -a of
"Za-wa-pe-ta" is probably /i/. As you probably know, English speakers
commonly heard native /i/ as /e/ and then wrote the latter vowel as an a
in keeping with the pronunciation of the first letter of the alphabet.
This would be why "Tywappety" has a y at the end. In other words, there
*is* a neat correspondence between, at least, the end of those two words.

In this connection, the penultimate -e- in both terms is probably /i/,
reflecting the pronunciation of E is in the English alphabet.
So, the last three syllables of this place name are probably
/-wa(a)pi(i)ti(i)/.

The discrepancy between the initial T- of "Tywappety" and the initial Z-
of "Ze-wa-pe-ta" is bizarre and suggests a scribal error.

Michael

On Sat, 13 Mar 2004, Alan Hartley wrote:

> Does anyone know the origin of the name Tywappety (Bottoms), given a
> town on the Mississippi in SE Missouri in 1797? When the village was
> founded c1790, it was called Ze-wa-pe-ta, which looks quite a bit more
> Siouan. It was apparently (the Web link is now dead) shown on an 1824
> map as Tywapatia.
>
> Thanks for any hints,
>
> Alan
>
>
>