Iroquoian 'corn'

[David Costa]

There is no reconstructible Proto-Algonquian word for 'corn' either,  
which indicates the arrival of corn postdated the breakup of Proto- 
Algonquian, as well.

David


> Dear All,
>
> The Cherokee word is not cognate with the Northern words. The  
> Northern words are variations on 'seed' for the most part. This all  
> suggests that corn arrived after the separation of Northern and  
> Southern Iroquoian.
>
> Marianne Mithun
>
>
> --On Sunday, January 31, 2010 7:26 PM -0800 David Kaufman <dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com 
> > wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> As the title suggests, this is really not a Siouan question but an
>> Iroquoian one, since I know we have a few Iroquoianists here on the  
>> List.
>> My question is this: the Cherokee word for corn is 'selu'; are the  
>> words
>> for corn in Northern Iroquoian similar or different?  Also, it  
>> seems that
>> the Cherokee word 'selu' may somehow be borrowed from Uto-Aztecan  
>> 'xilo'.
>> Does anyone have any thoughts on how Cherokee could have borrowed  
>> this
>> term from Uto-Aztecan? Esp. since no Uto-Aztecan borrowing for corn  
>> seems
>> to occur in any other Southeastern language that I know of.   
>> (Correct me
>> if I'm wrong, of course.)  Thanks.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>
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