Native American names

[KIKO Sumi]

Hi, Yakkers

I am translating a list of names of Native American tribe chiefs and
names relating to them from 16th to 19th century.
As they didn't have letters to write down, I think the alphabetic
literations largely reflect the real pronunciations.
I must translate them E to J written in Katakana, so I would like to
know how to read them.
I have searched through many resources in vain.
If you have any hints, please let me know. I would be really
appreciated.

1) Ne-Sou-A Quoit (Fox tribe chief)

2) Mehkskeme-Sukahs (Blackfoot chief)

3) Saukamappee (Piegan chief)

4) Otomahuk (Algonquian word meaning tomahawk、オトマフク？）

5)Chuchkee (tribe、チャチキー族？）

6)Piri (tribe、ピリ族？）

Thank you very much for reading my question.

KIKO Sumi enjoying hot summer in Chiba, Japan
<tomato_...@nifty.com>

[Marc Adler]

2010/8/25 KIKO Sumi <tomato_...@nifty.com>

 

If you have any hints, please let me know. I would be really
appreciated.

I think a lot of Americans and Canadians on this list could tell you how we (who are used to seeing these kinds of things in place names and history classes) would pronounce them, but I don't know how accurate it would be.

If no one shows up who knows how these names are actually pronounced, then we can give you some "best guesses."

--

Marc Adler
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adlerpacific
Gauçac eztira multçutu eta berretu behar, mengoaric eta premiaric gabe.

[Atsuko Sumi]

Thanks a lot Marc-san

 

As I don’t have anything at all regarding those names, any probability would be very grateful.

And I really thank you for your suggestion.

 

KIKO Sumi, enjoying cool summer night in Chiba

<tomato_...@nifty.com>

[David ab]

I am sorry I can't be of much help in relation to the translation but I would like to sugest some kind of advise.

I think you are taking it for granted that those names are all pronounced by the american version and accent. I sugest that you remember that some indian tribes were under influence of the french language and maybe they reflect the french version (pronountiation) of those words.

 

I hope it can be of some help anyway. Good luck.

 

David

2010/8/25 Marc Adler <marc....@gmail.com>

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[Karen Sandness]

I can't help you with the pronunciation of these names, but I'm pretty
sure that "Chuchkee" is a misprint or variant of "Chukchee," the name
of Siberian tribe that lives across the Bering Strait from Alaska.
"Chuchkee" brings up a few hits, but they all refer to Arctic
shamanism, so this is probably the same tribe. "Chukchee" or "Chukchi"
is the more common form by far.

In fact, entering "Chuchki" brings up the Google results for "Chukchi."

Land bridgely yours,
Karen Sandness

[KIKO Sumi]

Thanks a lot for your suggestions, David-san, Karen-san

Yes, I think "Ne-Sou-A Quoit" might be of French source, and guessing
"Quoit" be クオイット, but that's all.

For "Chuchkee", Karen-san's guess seems to be right, for this tribe
lives in Siberia.
What a detective you are!
I could find the pronunciation of "Chukchee" in my Readers' Plus
dictionary.

You two gave me great help. Thanks a lot again.

KIKO Sumi<tomato_...@nifty.com>

Karen wrote

[Dale Ponte]

I'd second Dave's suggestion that:

>some indian tribes were under influence of the french language and
>maybe they reflect the french version (pronountiation) of those words.

If I were you, I'd make this query on an online forum(s) that is
concerned specifically with native american history and/or languages.
I'd ask them to transliterate the accepted pronunciations, including
accented syllables (which of course can indicate the hard consonant
for katakana, as in ロ_ッキ_). To make it possibly more convenient for
them, I might post a couple or few examples of the styles for
transliterating pronunciation, such as for the tribe name of
"Algonquin"; the varying styles are easily obtained from different
online dictionary sites, or scholarly texts. If you were still unsure
about how to render these transliterations in katakana, you could post
them here and chances are the Honyaku genius would get them sorted out
(as quick as you could say "Mehkskeme-Sukahs";-).

HTH,

Dale Ponte

[Marc Adler]

2010/8/25 KIKO Sumi <tomato_...@nifty.com>

1) Ne-Sou-A Quoit (Fox tribe chief)

Okay, so assuming this is French, I'd say this ネ・スー・ア・クアト
 

2) Mehkskeme-Sukahs (Blackfoot chief)

メフクスケメ・スーカフス

Or without the aspiration,

メクスケメ・スーカス
 

3) Saukamappee (Piegan chief)

ソーカマッピー
 

4) Otomahuk (Algonquian word meaning tomahawk、オトマフク？）

オトマフク
 

5)Chuchkee (tribe、チャチキー族？）

As Karen says, the Chukchi are much more famous, but they're in Russia. So, assuming Chuchkee is right,

チュチキー
 

6)Piri (tribe、ピリ族？）

ピリ

If anyone has any other suggestions, please voice them.

[Natalie Arnold]

If Ne-Sou-A Quoit is indeed French-influenced as the hyphens suggest, then the final "t" is almost certainly silent.  I'd suggest クアー for the final word.

Although I am French-Canadian, none of these names ring a bell for me.



--
----------------------------------------------
Natalie Arnold @ Osaka

[KIKO Sumi]

I really appreciate your suggestion, Ponde-san,

As far as Algonquin dictionary, I tied some according to your advice,
but
couldn't find "otomahuk" anywhere.
Maybe I should try further.
Many sources suggest there *were* those tribes or persons, but they
don't tell
the exact pronunciations. So I might try some specialist forum if I
can find.

Adler-san, I am really grateful for your katakana transliteration.
That's what I needed, and you gave me a great help.
As for "Ne-Sou-A Quoit",as Arnold-san suggested, I would take クアー for
the last word.
Thanks a lot, Arnold-san.

KIKO Sumi, working without air condition in Chiba, Japan
<tomato_...@nifty.com>

[Brian Chandler]

KIKO Sumi wrote:

[of] > 1) Ne-Sou-A Quoit (Fox tribe chief)

> Adler-san, I am really grateful for your katakana transliteration.
> That's what I needed, and you gave me a great help.
> As for "Ne-Sou-A Quoit",as Arnold-san suggested, I would take クアー for
> the last word.

If this is a Francophone version, 'Ne' would surely be ヌ, not ネ.

So more likely ヌ・スー・ア・クアー (I don't really see any need for a nobashi-
bou on the end, but then I never did understand this stuff.

HTH
Brian Chandlaaaaa

[Natalie Arnold]

The proper French pronunciation of Ne is neither ヌ　nor ネ (nor is it ナ,　ニ, or　ノ).

  Bearing in mind that the French-Canadian pronunciation is specifically relevant here, and that there might be a missing accent, my sense is that ネ is in fact the closest kana.

Though again, this is by no means my field.  I'm just a random French-Canadian.

--
----------------------------------------------
Natalie Arnold @ Osaka

2010/8/26 Brian Chandler <imagin...@despammed.com>

[David ab]

Hello again,

 

I agree with Natalie Arnold as far as the french reading.

Bye the way this name Ne-Sou-A-Quoit means: "Bear in the Forks of a Tree", and he was indeed a Fox Chief (a tribe of North American Indians).

I think you should probably like to take a look at this site: http://www.uc.edu/news/mchall.htm

 

Hope it helps. Good luck once more.

 

David

 

 

2010/8/26 Natalie Arnold <nat.m....@gmail.com>

[Brian Chandler]

[Repairing the top-posting damage...]

> > KIKO Sumi wrote:
> >
> > [of] > 1) Ne-Sou-A Quoit (Fox tribe chief)
> >
> > > Adler-san, I am really grateful for your katakana transliteration.
> > > That's what I needed, and you gave me a great help.
> > > As for "Ne-Sou-A Quoit",as Arnold-san suggested, I would take クアー for
> > > the last word.

> 2010/8/26 Brian Chandler <imagin...@despammed.com>

> > If this is a Francophone version, 'Ne' would surely be ヌ, not ネ.
> >
> > So more likely ヌ・スー・ア・クアー (I don't really see any need for a nobashi-
> > bou on the end, but then I never did understand this stuff.

Natalie Arnold wrote:
> The proper French pronunciation of Ne is neither ヌ nor ネ (nor is it ナ, ニ, or
> ノ).

Of course not. (Any more than my name ends in 'ah'.) But ヌ is the
*conventional* rendering for 'ne', assuming it isn't missing an
accent. And if the French pronunciation of 'ne' with an accent was
intended, isn't it more like that it would have been written Nez-Sou-A
Quoit (for example)?

> Bearing in mind that the French-Canadian pronunciation is specifically
> relevant here, and that there might be a missing accent, my sense is that ネ
> is in fact the closest kana.

Indeed it might well be. The whole exercise is something of a mystery,
frankly, but generally with things like this the most useful course is
to be as conventional as possible, so a reader might one day be able
to match the transliterations back to the original names.

Brian Chandler

[KIKO Sumi]

David-san

Thanks a lot for your insightful input.
I've looked into the page you suggested and found the meaning of Ne-
Sou-A-Quoit,
which is "Bear in the Forks of a Tree" as you quoted, and tried to
find the fox word (Mesquakie-Sauk) meaing it, but
failed.
For example bear is "mahkwa" (http://www.native-languages.org/
fox_animals.htm) .
So I would tell the editor there may be many ways of reading
concerning to "Ne-" part, as Chandler-san and Arnold-san pointed
before.

>but generally with things like this the most useful course is
to be as conventional as possible, so a reader might one day be able
to match the transliterations back to the original names.

I really agree with you, Chandler-san.
And when the pronunciation of a proper name is a bit different people
would not mind so much as we have experienced with Osama bin Laden.
In 2001, when we first knew the name, the Japanese media read Osama
as "ウサマ", or "ウサーマ","オサマ", and there still are many versions now.

Anyway, thanks for your precious cooperations.

KIKO Sumi, enjoying sweet grapes in Chiba, Japan

[Carl Freire]

On Aug 27, 2010, at 4:44 PM, KIKO Sumi wrote:
> And when the pronunciation of a proper name is a bit different people
> would not mind so much as we have experienced with Osama bin Laden.
> In 2001, when we first knew the name, the Japanese media read Osama
> as "ウサマ", or "ウサーマ","オサマ", and there still are many versions now.
>

Tangentially, there's plenty of room for variation there, too, which is why ウサマ for example turns up and may be acceptable:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden#Variations_of_bin_Laden.27s_name>

Which of course only reinforces the point you're passing on to the client about the variabilities in rendering Native American names into katakana etc.

Cheers,
Carl

--------------------

Carl Freire
Tokyo, Japan
carl_p_freire at ybb-dot-ne-dot-jp

[Alfred S Chamass]

2010/8/25 KIKO Sumi <tomato_...@nifty.com>:

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I can't help you, but you may find the following link useful.
http://www.native-languages.org/languages.htm

Rgds
--
Alfred Salib Chamass
scha...@gmail.com

[David ab]

Hello again. Thank you too for mention this subject since it's a interesting one.
I think the problem you encounter here is the problem faced in the study of most pre-writing languages and cultures.
Since there were no physical writing support, it is very dificult to find a true meaning of a word much years later.
This is the same problem encounter by schooalers of japanese old language, since some centuries ago japanese language were writted mainly in kanji characters. The solution was in part found in the study of the old dictionaries and books elaborated by the first europeans to set foot on the islands, namely the portuguese and later the spanish.
My suggestion is that you try to find the approximate meaning by taking as reference the first studies of those languages, mainly by american and some french explorers and visitors of canada (by the way, this is a portuguese word too!). I think the link I provided you could be a good source, but there are certainly others, try google-san for a hand, if you didn't already.
I agree that you should be as "convencional as possible" in order to permite futher interpretation. I also think you should try to stick to the way the word first appeared in romanji to avoid futher misleadings. But only if there was no reformulation of the norms. I am thinking of chinese language for instance, the hepburn system.
Sorry I can't give much help, but hope its a contribution from my part.

Take care and good luck on your pursuits.

David

[Dale Ponte]

Ms. Kiko,

I admire your diligence! And I'm very sorry for not responding
promptly to your post. My 'idea' was confusingly written, and maybe
even something of a dud, for which I offer my heartfelt apology.

Poking around in a few online scholarly texts I get the distinct
impression that at any rate there is a hodgepodge of transliteration
systems in print (stickler beware). So just doing your best based on
what you have, with a little help from your Honyaku friends, seems
likely to be adequate and justified. The suggestions for katakana
transliteration that have been offered on this thread so far seem
pretty safe to go with, it seems to me.

As a sort of back-up device, though, perhaps your assignment would
allow including (within its text) the English transliterations that
you are working from, by placing them within parentheses following the
katakana, simply like this:

ヌ・スー・ア・クアー (Ne-Sou-A Quoit)
オトマフク (Otomahuk)

Hope this helps,

Dale Ponte

> <tomato_spec...@nifty.com>

> <tomato_spec...@nifty.com>

[KIKO Sumi]

Dear Ponte-san

> ヌ・スー・ア・クアー  (Ne-Sou-A Quoit)
>  オトマフク (Otomahuk)

That's a very practical and reader-friendly advice.
As far as I can't find the "correct" answer, it seems to be the most
ideal solution,
adding original English (? French) words with Katakana.
I would try to find the first source, as far as time forgives me,
following David-san's suggestion though.
I was thinking incorrectness is often my weak point.

Anyway thank you very much for thinking for me so much.

KIKO Sumi
Enjoying cool night in Chiba, Japan