Confirmation of lisítaluy ‘squash’ from Canadian French
(image credit: Clackamas County Arts Alliance)
Previously in this space…
I’ve written that a word for ‘squash’ in Quinault Salish of southwestern Washington, lisítaluy, is not just from French les citrouilles — it had to have come via Chinuk Wawa.
Even though we hadn’t previously known such a Jargon word!
Well, now I’ve found what I consider enough evidence to tilt things decidedly in the Jargon direction.
Because in a (linguistically) unrelated language, Clackamas Upper Chinookan of northwestern Oregon, the same word shows up.
The common factor is not a ton of direct contact with French-speaking people; you can’t reliably claim that for Quinault, even though Clackamas is right in the early creolized zone of Chinook Jargon and would’ve interacted with Canadian French talk to some degree.
The uniting theme is instead the Jargon.
In Clackamas, the word I’ve just found is i-sídlu ‘squash’ in “Clackamas Texts”, page 540.
A detail or two about that that I find really neat —
What was originally the French plural definite article les, pronounced li in Jargon and from all indications also in Canadian/Métis French, became what I’ve sometimes referred to as a prefixed marker of the noun class in Jargon. Some of us linguists might take the behavior of Clackamas ‘squash’ as support for that latter idea. Because the speaker Victoria Howard, who was also natively fluent in Grand Ronde Chinuk Wawa, effectively replaces that li- with normal Clackamas masculine noun prefix i-.
Also notable, both Quinault & Clackamas have exactly the same stress placement in the French root word, i.e. on the sí syllable. Whereas French stress is pretty mobile, it tends to be more fixed within Chinuk Wawa. So by finding the word in an additional language, we’ve gained the opportunity to sort of triangulate back to what a CW form would’ve sounded like.
The loss of the final y sound in the Clackamas borrowing of the word for ‘squash’, by the way, makes it sound precisely like what we’d expect for a borrowing of French le(s) citron(s) ‘lemons’! However, common sense tells us that’s not what’s going on. As a tropical crop, citrus fruits were fantastically rare and expensive on the early Pacific Northwest frontier, whereas squash and pumpkin seeds were easily transportable and grew readily in our climate.
So adding up all the clues, I’m daring to proclaim lisítaluy as a Chinuk Wawa noun that we accidentally never learned from our dictionaries. The evidence for it looks really strong to me.
I am not really sure about it…
First of all, the pre-american contact form, in old French, was ‘citrole’ which is attested from the XIII° century.
‘Citrouille’ is only attested in the XVI° century, and the evolution can be explained by the contact with some amerindian tribes, probably Salish, because it is not native in the form eaten nowadays.
So it makes sense French canadians would have exchanged about this new variety (of the ‘citrole’) with the tribes acquainted to it, and then brought back the newly evolved word with them on their return to France.
Secondly, the form you brought out in Clackamas, for which I thank you gratefully, seems to have cognates in south america, where the common edible squatch was developped and “create” (at least this is the point of view actually).
Indeed, the form “Kuílu” meaning “squash” in Máku, a language unclassified of Roraima (Venezuelan-Brazilian border), appears to be related to “sídlu” in Clackamas.
But this is not all, the Quinault form ‘lisítaluy’ seems to be related (distantly) with Toba “lalʸiyaʁai”.
The language is being spoken in Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia, so not far from the place of domestication of the squash (northern Peru, 10 000 B.P.).
There are many “southern” cognates for the Toba word : in Wayampi (Tupi) and Wayana (Carib), “squash” is “asikala” ; in Pilagá-sister language it is “loli’aʁai”.
But perhaps for the Chinookan case, the most important is mascoian Lengua ‘yan-siŋheyi”.
Now, concerning the link between squash and lemon, it is not very clear (maybe the color ?) but clearly our ancestors found a link : “limũù” in Dâw language, meaning “squatch” is totally identical to english “lemon” ; and yes we have this case between Clackamas “sídlu” and Latin “citrus”…
By the way, the Dâw form seems to spread from Tupi, judging Nheengatu “ʒirimũ” meaning “squash”, related to Djeoromitxi “bzirima”.
In conclusion, I think nor Quinault nor Clackamas forms spread from French, but that we have a clear case for Almosan-Penutian-indo-European affiliation. Another one…
citrole to citrouille is a completely regular sound change within French. No contact explanation is needed.
If nothing else, the complete lack of evidence for Proto-Indo-European pumpkins should give you pause.
Not really.
“Pumpkin” obviously came from Algonquian, cf. Menominee “ohkaːn-ɛmɛhkwan” (pumpkin).
“la sitaluy” ‘pumpkin’
Various types of smaller squashes are called in French “la courge”, from Latin “cucurbita”. The large squash known as “la citrouille” or “le potiron” is said to be native to a Southern region of North America, including Mexico. This is not where CW originated or where there was a significant French presence.
According to the TLFI, OF “citrole” ‘pumpkin’ is an adaptation of an Italian word and there is only one attestation, in a medical text. But if the pumpkin originated in America, perhaps the Italian word referred to a different sort of squash. The other French attestations are all much later, with the ending “ulle” or “ouille”. The TLFI does link the “citr-” stem meaning “yellow” with Latin “citrus” and its derivatives such as French “citron” ‘lemon’. The TLFI comments on the ending “-ouille” which indeed is slightly derogatory (“low class”) and must have been adopted at a later date. The large size of the vegetable probably influenced the adoption of the derogatory ending.
For me, “le potiron”, a word attested later than “la citrouille”, refers to the same vegetable, although there must be slight differences, perhaps between subspecies. But the word does not have the negative connotation of “la citrouille”, so it is preferred for instance on a menu featuring “la soupe au potiron” ‘pumpkin soup’. The TLFI says that the word originally referred to a large mushroom and its origin is doubtful.
Yes, indeed, this is where it gets interesting : “potiron” is of totally uncertain origin, and the “mushroom” explanation doesn’t convince me much (even if it can be tentatively explained by Basque “potor(ro)-on(ddo)” = fat/big mushroom).
“Potiron” is primarly used for orange big round squashes, the best edible ones (C. Maxima, which would have originated from Cucurbita andreana over 4000 years ago).
The official point of view (Mexico) is in concurrence with Guitarrero cave (Peru), where Zapallo (Cucurbita pepo, Cucurbita moschata, Cucurbita maxima, y Cucurbita argyrosperma) is attested 9 000 B.P. (C. ficifolia, cultivated from northern Chile and Argentina to Mexico).
It seems the Mexican domestications (C.Pepo (citrouille, courgette) – Oaxaca, 8 750 B.P. ; Ocampo, Tamaulipas, Mexico, about 7,000 B.P.), which are indeed the ones we are used to, stemed from Guitarrero cave variety (proto-Chavin civilisation).
In Nahuatl language, “citrouille, courgette, courge (sauvage)” is “ayotli” ; “Potiron” is “tlalayotli”.
The Aymara cognate is “lakayuti”, which could be related to “lisítaluy”?
Clearly, there is a problem with Latin “citrus”, and its supposed diminutive “citrullus” : it only means “lemon tree” and they derive it from Greek “kedros” (“cedar”), via Etruscan (??).
This appears like total nonsense.
By the way, doing my own research, I’ve found “sitrouilhez” in Breton, which appears to be Gaulish in origin ; “cetriolo” in Italian really means “cucumber” and so the argument citrus/yellow seems to fail even more.
Anyway, DiitiidɁaaɁtẋ “c’ic’tik’ws” (watermelon) is too close for not to be unrelated with “citrus”, so we must assume there was a shift from watermelon to lemon at some point in time (obvously watermelon didn’t grow in Italy in Romans time, 2000 years ago).
Watermelon is said to come from Egyptians, the same Egyptians who mysteriously put tobacco and cocaina in their royal tombs ; needless to say, those aree obviously (south) american in origin…
Lemon origin is unknown : as for sweet orange, every explanation is so confusing that it should be discarded.
Reading the etymology given for “lemon”, I’m pretty sure that Persian and Arabic “limun”, old French “limon”, Balinese “limo” and Malay “limaw” all come from the Dâw language ( northwest Brazil) “limũù” or “limũ̂” meaning “squash”, which is related to “jirimũ” in Nheengatu (ultimately from Kwaza “txiri’mũ”).
Concerning the (sweet) orange, where the etymology given is much more winded but at least indicated “word of uncertain origin” (!), I’ve found those ones : “Ɂooyančas” in ṪikwaaɁath, “Ɂoolalčis” in DiitiidɁaaɁtẋ, “Ɂorancis” in ĆišaaɁatḩ. It is supposed to have been introduced by Europeans in America, but obviously linguistics say otherwise…
Hmm but I thought we’ve seen it before. In my CJ notes I have:
siklo, lêsitlo, lacitrouille