And a bit more about ‘owls’: Sahaptian
I’ve noted that the Grand Ronde Chinuk Wawa word for an ‘owl’, pʰupʰúp, traces back to not only a K’alapuyan-language word (‘northern pygmy owl’) but also to southwest Oregon’s Takelma (‘screech owl’).
We can now add the Sahaptian family of languages to that mix…
Image credit: Oregon Wild
- Umatilla Sahaptin ppúu ‘burrowing owl, Athene cunicularia‘
- Ichishkíin (Yakama) Sahaptin pípu ‘burrowing owl’
- Nez Perce papó• ‘ground owl’.
It appears that similar words were shared among certain Oregon tribes, and that they specifically referenced the cute little ground-dweller seen above.
My previous post on this word in Takelma argues that it may have arrived in that language (alone, out of all SW Oregon languages) due to speakers’ having moved into the Siletz Reservation community.
In that case, it may be attributable to Chinuk Wawa, independently of the Grand Ronde data we already know of!
Bonus fact:
It’s extremely important to keep track of negative evidence, too. So:
No similar forms to the above are found in our data on other languages of the same area:
- Northern Paiute,
- the Chinookan languages,
- the SW WA Salish languages and Tillamook Salish,
- Coos,
- Siuslaw,
- Oregon Athabaskan,
- Cayuse,
- Shasta,
- or Alsea.
A somewhat similar form, hú•fn ‘owl’, is found in:
- northwest Oregon’s Molalla,
- and I’ve previously noted a more or less comparable Klamath (‘barn owl/snowy owl’) in southwest Oregon.
