Off topic: RE Iroquoian 'corn'

[Wallace Chafe]

The Caddo word for "doctor" is kunah. I've never gone very far in tracking 
it down, but I've always understood that it was borrowed from further 
south, whether from Uto-Aztecan or some other source I can't say. Aren't 
there a great many cultural items throughout the Southeast that diffused 
northward from Meso-America? I don't find it at all surprising that 
Cherokee for "corn" should have such an origin.

Wally

--On Tuesday, February 02, 2010 8:26 PM -0800 David Kaufman 
<dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Bob,
>
> I think the 'x' represents 'sh' ('shilo'), as it did in old Spanish.  I'm
> told that Floyd Lounsbury apparently thought Cherokee 'selu' was from
> this Uto-Aztecan word.  But, if that's the case, how the heck did
> Cherokee get it from Uto-Aztecan?  It would make more sense if some other
> SE languages had this borrowing, but, as far as I know, none do.  So it
> seems to be a strange isolated case.
>
> Dave
>
> --- On Tue, 2/2/10, Rankin, Robert L <rankin at ku.edu> wrote:
>
>
> From: Rankin, Robert L <rankin at ku.edu>
> Subject: Off topic: RE Iroquoian 'corn'
> To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
> Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010, 8:18 PM
>
>
> Although it probably doesn't explain the Cherokee word for 'corn', there
> are other Aztec and even Incan words in southeastern languages brought in
> by Spanish soldiers who had served with Cortez or Pizzaro in Mexico and
> Peru.  The Creek word totolo:si 'chicken' is one of them and there is a
> Quechuan term for 'basket' roving around the SE.  I doubt a concept as
> central to the culture as 'corn' would have such a military source
> though, so if this is from Aztec, it's probably pre-Spanish.  Is the "x"
> in xilo a graph for "sh", as in 16th cent. Span., or for [x]??
>
> Bob
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU on behalf of David Kaufman
> Sent: Sun 1/31/2010 9:26 PM
> To: Siouan List
> Subject: Iroquoian 'corn'
>
> 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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