Every web site I go to says the word was based on the Ojibwe word Maashkinoozhe and they say Maashkinoozhe means Ugly Pike. That does not make sense because Maash means flower in Ojibwe. I was wondering if you can tell me what the aborigional word for Muskellunge is? There are more than native languages alive today in North America, and there were once more than a thousand. Often explorers talked to neighboring tribes about other tribes first, before approching unknown peoples, so they picked up totally different words in another language than those used by the actual tribe they are referenced to.
Because the different tribes had different perspectives and different prejudices, the words for the same thing could have vastly different meanings. Because the French got further out west before the English did, many English words based on Indian languages first came to the English speakers via bastardized French. Later, these got all jumbled together to form our modern names for different animals and other things when translated to English.
It averages about 20 lbs 9 kg , but may grow to 6 ft 1. The Ugly Pike is native to the St. The latin name for this fish is Esox masquinongy. This fish has a lot of long needle-like teeth that it uses to grab ducks, frogs and snakes, as well as other fish. It also has weird eyes that turn inward rather than pointing straight out to the sides like most other fish, making it look sort of cross-eyed, or ugly.
Also, where most fish in the pike family have 5 gill slits, this fish has 11, so these two things might have made it appear deformed to Cree fishermen used to seeing other species of pike. The Meskellunge is also a long, narrow fish, way longer than it is wide. Perhaps the flower part refers to the smell, as in a musky smelling perfume, which often comes from flowers.
In the English word Muskellunge, the first part, muskel , refers to a musky smell and lunge is a scientific term for a family of fish to which this fish belongs. This fish is a bottom feeder with a strong oder that could be described as a fishy or musky smell. Maash may have referred to the general locations where this fish lives or to a particular plant it preferred to live near. A third folk etymology in this dialect that is quite popular is the origin of the word Waswanipi, the name of another local community.
The origin of this word however has already been discussed in a previous blogpost and can be read here. For this dialect we will discuss two popular folk etymologies before bringing this post to an end. There are two features of this dialect that will help elucidate these etymologies.
However, in Plains Cree the loss is in favour of s. The second feature is the loss of distinction between Old Cree r and y , in favour of y. The rational behind this, aside from a phonetic resemblance, is that women would have traditionally been the keepers of the home fire. As with the examples from other dialects, the loss of distinction between two Old Cree sounds is often what leads people to reanalyze common words with obscure origins.
As with some of the other folk etymologies mentioned above, there is often a bit of romanticizing involved. This is often a telltale sign that the explanation is false. Consider the Old Cree form of this word. The historical meaning of this word is supported by historical and modern sources. Additionally, the word is known to have been used by other Algonquian peoples, including the Anishinabe.
An dictionary of the Anishinabe language, compiled by J. Cuoq, includes the following words — note the presence of Latin and an old orthography based on French:. Going back even further to F. Now that the Old Cree meaning of this word has been explained, let us turn to the folk etymologies. If this were the case, we would expect to find evidence either in the historical record or in another dialect or related language, yet no evidence for this can be found anywhere.
No such word exists in any Cree dialect or related language. Additionally, we would need to ignore the whole middle section of the word! The original meaning of this word is therefore quite clear. The historical, cross-dialectal, and cross-linguistic data is amply clear about both the original form of the word and its meaning. Folk etymologies are always quite interesting as they reveal ways in which people perceive certain aspects of the language they speak.
There are many other folk etymologies in Cree, but this initial survey will hopefully have peaked your interest in the subject. Stay on the look out for interesting explanations of Cree words and feel free to share any you may have heard in the comments below! You are commenting using your WordPress.
You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Search for:. Southern Inland East Cree As with the previous dialect, there are features in this one that obfuscate the origins of certain words.
Plain Cree For this dialect we will discuss two popular folk etymologies before bringing this post to an end. Share this: Twitter Facebook.
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