Wea

[Dayna Lee]

I got it as far as the office before the flood. I'll put it in the mail
today.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu] On Behalf Of David Costa
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 9:38 AM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Wea


The phonemic form of the tribe name is /waayaahtanwa/; /waawiyahtaanwi/
is 'eddy'; /waayaahtanonki/ (the locative of the first term) was the
name of Ouiatenon. I don't think phonemic */wiyaahtanonki/ existed.

I have an old French form for the word 'Ouaouiatanoukak'. I don't
remember where I got it, probably from McCafferty.

Also, don't forget Ojibwe <wawiiatan> 'Detroit', given by Baraga. This
and the M-I forms can be compared to Shawnee /waawiyawhtanwi/ 'water
circles around'.

Incidentally, there's a joke among the Miamis nowadays that "'Wea' is
short for 'We Ah Miami'".

Dave

> Incidentally, there are three forms of this toponym/ethnonym on record

> for
> Miami-Illinois: /waayaahtanonki/, /waawiaahtanonki/ and
/wiyaahtanonki/. Note
> also that the term is generic in meaning ('at the whirlpool person')
that it
> appears elsewhere, historically, in reference to other people.