A fresh look at the place name Chicago

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Summer 2003 by McCafferty, Michael

Therefore, the correspondences between Illinois terms and scientific terms based on the Illinois language dictionaries' primary sources are as follows:

In conclusion, an original spelling in the form *Chicag8 or *Checag8 representing Miami-Illinois term sikaakiva 'striped skunk,' that is, 'wild leek,' led to La Salle's improperly published . His final represents an original 8 erroneously transcribed either by him or by one of his colleagues, a 8 that actually stood for wa. Although we do not have it in a document dated earlier than this spelling from 1680, the original spelling that served as the basis for La Salle's did not vanish. It was still alive and doing well among the Jesuits in the mid-1700s, appearing in the work of the Detroit missionary Pierre Potier, who wrote and ("the Chicago fork") as the name for the confluence of the Kankakee and Des Plaines rivers.45 And there is no way that these spellings of our Miami-Illinois term could be rewritten correctly with ou for 8.

Finally, while Miami-Illinois speakers in 1680 referred to the Des Plaines River as sikaakwa (siipiwi) 'striped skunk (river)' that is, 'wild leek (river),' it appears that late historic speakers of that language were calling the south branch of the Chicago River by this name. On a map drawn on 20 December 1812, Thomas Forsyth refers to the stream as , which is the Miami-Illinois term sikaakwa.46

Notes

1 Virgil J. Vogel, "Illinois' Onion Patch," Illinois History, XII (1958): 39-41; Virgil J.Vogel, "The Mystery of Chicago's Name," Mid-America, 40 (1988): 163-74; Virgil J. Vogel, Indian Place Names in Illinois (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1963); John F. Swenson, "Chicagoua/Chicago: The Origin, Meaning, and Etymology of a Place Name," Illinois Historical Journal 84 (1991): 235-48.

2 For the definitive guidelines that apply to research in Native American place names, see Floyd G. Lounsbury, Iroquois Place-Names in the Champlain Valley (Albany: University of the State of New York, State Education Department, 1960). Reprinted from the Report of the New York-Vermont Interstate Commerce Commission on the Lake Champlain Basin, 1960, Legislative Document 9:23-66.

3 Phonemic spellings are italicized.

4 For Miami-Illinois phonemic "striped skunk," see David J. Costa, "Miami-Illinois Animal Names," Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics 17/3 (1992): 26. For the definitive description of the language, see David J. Costa, The Miami-Illinois Language (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003).

5 The doubling of a vowel indicates a long vowel, that is, a vowel pronounced with an extended length. In Miami-Illinois, as in other Algonquian languages, vowel length is phonemic, that is, it is an absolute determining factor in the shape and meaning of words. For example, in Miami-Illinois nipi means "water" but niipi means "my arrow."

6 Swenson, "Chicagoua/Chicago: The Origin, Meaning, and Etymology of a Place Name," 238.

7 Pierre Margry, ed., Decouvertes et etablissements des Francais dans l'ouest et dans le sud de l'Amerique septentrionale 1614-1754, Memoires et documents inedits recueillis et publies par Pierre Margry, 6 vols. [Paris: D. Jouast: 1876-1886] (New York: AMS Press [Reprint], 1974), 82. For a riveting study of the location of the Chicago portage, see Robert Knight and Lucius H. Zeuch, The Location of the Chicago Portage Route of the Seventeenth Century (Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1928).