[CHAMDBRS] 



THE PIIILOLOGY OF THE OUANANICHE 



18B 



when iippliiMl to Iho .Ciiiiiidiiin tish. Ono ol" the loa<lin<jj Am«'rican 

 iiuthoritics on tho snhjcct, Mr. A. N. ( 'lijMicy of (rlcn Falls, N.Y.. State 

 Fiish Cnlturist of New York, expresses his intention of hereafter writing 

 of the tVesii-waler salmon as the ouaiuvnieho. no matter in wiiat water it 

 may l»e foiiml. .Vnd it will be ol)sei've<l that he does not etnpltiy the 

 form of the word t^iven in Wcbffter'K. 



To Dr. Klliott Coues — a most eminent autliority — was entrusted the 

 supervision of the zoiilotjieal terms in the Ccntiir//. iu\{\ Ik^ was assisted 

 in ichtin'olog-y liy the very capable Professor Theodore N". (rill. Yet in 

 their U8e of the word • winninish "' there would seem to be no justirication 

 for eitlier the orthography or their detinition of it. They term the ■ win- 

 ninish " — •• the Sehoodie trout." and upon turning up the word •■ trout " 

 with its various fiualifying terms, the Sehoodie trout is (k>clare(l. l»y the 

 same authorities, to be identical with -the great lake trout." Now the 

 great lake trout (litters widely from the ouananiehe, and is not a .salmon 

 of any kind, either landlocked or otherwise. It is /<(drelinns rKtnuijicnnh 

 or (tiih tlujsfiis. — the Mackinaw trout of the gi'eat lakes. — the '/iirue 

 fniirrltef of French Canada, — the togue and salmon trout of certain parts 

 of the Xorthern States. — the l.o/coniesh oi' tha Montagnais Indians and the 

 toiilaili of the country of the Micmacs and Al>enaqui.s. 



Thi're are many reasons for ])referring • ouananiehe" to all the other 

 forms of the tish's name. It is true that its orthography is F'^rench, but 

 French was the original spelling of the written word. The name of the 

 tish is Indian, but the various sounds of the spoken language of the 

 Montagnais and Xascapee tribes were unrepresented in writing until the 

 arrival of the French missionaries in ('anada. These latter employed 

 written characters for the use of their Indian converts and also reduced 

 the spoken language of the Indians to writing, using for the purpose 

 their own Frenidi alphabet and system of orthography. They trans- 

 ferred to paper their i>tymology of the sound of this tish's name, and their 

 pictorial re[>resentation of the spoken Indian word remains to this day a 

 pertect ]»hilological reflex of the musical vibrations produced by its ))ro- 

 nunciation. Kngiish observers would probably have depicted the sound 

 on paper by writing • whananishe " or ■ wannahnishe." The French- 

 having no •• w ' emi>lov • ou " to represent the sound, as in mii. For the 

 sake of brevity an<l simplicity, the early French missionaries in Canada 

 used the numeral •• S " to represent not only huff or <'i(//it. but also the 

 Indian sound ordinarily represented by the French oid or <ni. no matter 

 in what part of a word it occurred. Hence the origin of '■ Suuaniche." — 

 the first of the many forms of the word given in the commencement of 

 the present paper. Xo English spelling represents the sound of the 

 Indian name as well as does the orginal French form " ouananiehe '' or 

 ••Hananiche.' It stands, too, the test of ]>riority. being found printed in 

 the olck'st existing book of thi; Montagnais mission, which, according to- 



