Just plain Prairie People

[David Costa]

>> But my point merely was that there is no linguistic evidence whatever for any
>> of these Illinois forms containing anything that means 'little'. So I
>> hesitate to say that the Illinois name for the Mascoutens means 'little
>> prairie person' when it lacks any kind of recognizable diminutive. (And we
>> have a very good idea what the diminutive endings look like in
>> Miami-Illinois.)

> OK, I see the point of confusion.  I'm not asking a specific question about MI
> morphology, I'm just asking if there were in general regional circulation
> opposed 'prairie person' and 'little prairie person' terms with different
> ethnic references.  I simply happened to find the unmarked term first in
> Illinois and quoted the marked term for Mascouten, too.

Ah. Well, setting aside the problematic Illinois form of this name, Goddard
does indeed say in HNAI 15, page 672, that there is an Ottawa name for the
Mascouten <mush-ko-dains>, which in modern Ottawa/Ojibwe spelling would be
/mashkodens/, and which he glosses as 'person (people) of the (small)
prairie(s). Interpret that as you will. :-)

>> The Illinois names are obviously related, but I can't sign off on a 'prairie
>> person/little prairie person' analysis for that language.

> My apologies.  I didn't mean to seem to be asking you to.

> I will, however, make a daring assertion, which is that */masko(o)teenta/ is
> probably traceable in some historical fashion to a diminutive form in some
> Algonquian langauge, even if not in MI.

Well, yes, I assume there's some connection.

Dave