Slow? Pokey? Further temptations in etymologizing ‘turtle’
From the Grand Ronde Tribes 2012 dictionary of Chinuk Wawa, you can learn a word for ‘turtle’, íɬaqwá.
That word comes from Lower Chinookan í-ɬax̣ʷa, also meaning ‘turtle’.
Pokey? Nope. (Image credit: Freepik)
The alternation /x̣ʷ ~ qʷ/ is typical of southwestern Washington, where it also occurs in the (technically) unrelated Salish languages, such as Lower Chehalis. (Which is a major ancestor of Chinuk Wawa.)
Slow?
It’s impossible for me to resist suggesting, in addition, a possible etymological connection with another Lower Chinookan-sourced word, the Chinook Jargon adverb ɬáwá ‘slow’.
The same pattern of sound alternations that I just mentioned is also observed to include /w/, in the same languages. So why not consider whether ‘turtle’ is literally ‘the slow one’?
Pokey?
Having said that, I’m obligated to note one more potential connection, a Lower Chinookan ideophone (more or less an onomatopoeia) that’s known in Southern Chinook Wawa, ɬáx̣ which can mean ‘protruding visibly’ or ‘coming out of water’.
I can’t count the times I’ve been kayaking and detected turtles by their snouts poking out from the water!
However, the lack of lip-rounding on the final consonant (we’d expect /x̣ʷ/, remember) makes this idea relatively far-fetched.
Slow!
Slow & steady wins the race…
