[Lexicog] Turkey

[David Costa]

Actually, in modern Miami-Illinois, /pileewa/ is glossed both 'turkey' and
'chicken'. However, /waapipilia/ (a much rarer word) only means 'turkey'.
This would lead me to believe that /waapipilia/ is a neologism designed to
disambiguate things -- to create a word that specifically means 'turkey'
and not 'chicken'.

However, against that is the statement by some speakers from a hundred years
or so ago that /waapipilia/ was an 'old name'. But none of the 18th-century
Jesuit sources have it. Hmmm.

(To get 'wild turkey', you just attach the prenoun /nalaaohki-/ 'wild' to
it:
/nalaaohki-pileewa/.)

Dave


> Similarly, Miami-Illinois derives the name for the domestic turkey from its
> name for the wild one. The domestic one is called /waapipilia/ 'white-turkey'.

> Michael


> Quoting "Rankin, Robert L" <rankin at ku.edu>:

>> In several other related languages however the term means variously
>> 'partridge, prairie chicken, turkey' so is or was a more general term for
>> gallinaceous birds.  Dhegiha terms for 'chicken' are derived from the same
>> root.

>> Bob

>>> The Spirit Lake Dakota (Ft. Totten, ND) call the turkey Zizica [zee
>>> -zee'-cha(another puzzle as the name means nothing).