Etymology of Chicago
The etymology of the name Chicago has been the subject of considerable dispute, with suggested possibilities ranging from the regional Algonquian dialects for "wild onion place"[1] to Ojibwa for "something great."[2] More recent research[citation needed] has shown that it derives from the name Chucagua, originally attributed to a river mentioned in the 1609 Spanish narrative written by Garcilaso de La Vega of the Hernando De Soto expedition of 1539–43. La Vega writes of:
“… a large river, which because it was the greatest of all those that our Spaniards saw in La Florida,[3] they called it the Rio Grande, without giving it any other name. Juan Coles [La Vega informant[4]] says in his Relation (i.e., report) that in the Indian language this river was called Chucagua, and below we shall describe its grandeur at more length, for it was a wonderful thing.”[5]
Pierre Richelet translated the La Vega narrative from Spanish into French in 1670.[6] The developing interest that the French had in the De Soto expedition was related to their continuing exploration in North America, an interest resulting in the Richelet translation being published in six editions from 1670 to 1735.[7]
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was the first to use the "Chicago" word, using the spelling "Checagou". In 1679–83, he used it for a place, a river, a portage, and a location on a map.
Historical background of Chicago word in Chicago region[edit]
The earliest uses[citation needed] of the name are all by La Salle:
- As a Name of a Location: …au fond du lac des Islinois, oû la navigation finit au lieu mesme nommées Checagou [1679-80].[8](…at the bottom of Lake Michigan, where the navigation ends at the place called Checagou.)
- As a Name of a Portage: …le 6e Janvier, les neiges m'ayant arreste quelques jours au portage de Checagou.[9] (…on January 6th [1682], the snow held me up a few days at the Checagou portage.)
- As a Name of a River: …pourroit surmonter le grand débordement que les courants causent dans Checagou, au printemps, beaucoup plus rude que ceux du Rhône.[10] (…able to overcome the great overflowing that the currents cause in Checagou [Des Plaines], in the spring, much rougher than those of the Rhône.)
- As a Name on a Map: Carte de la Louisiane shows the word Checagou at the southwest of Lake Michigan (lac des Ilinois). Clara A. Smith, in the Ayer Collection at the Newberry Library, in 1927, indexed this map as Carte de la Lousiane [sic], Minet, 1685.[11] She notes, "The map as a whole is based on the [Jean Baptiste Louis] Franquelin map of 1684." The map is more accurately referenced as La Salle, Carte de la Louisiane, 1683.
- Translation of 1684 Franquelin Cartouche, below: Map of Louisiana, or the voyages of Sieur de La Salle and of the countries that he discovered from New France to the Gulf of Mexico, the years 1679, 80, 81 & 82. By Jean Baptiste Louis Franquelin, the year 1684, Paris.
The 1684 Franquelin map of North America,[12][13] a huge six-by-four-foot map, was, as Francis Parkman said, "a great map, the most remarkable of all the early maps of the interior of North America."[14] Prepared for the eyes of the King, it's purpose was to show the King La Salle's success in meeting the terms of his royal commission of 1678.[15] The Franquelin map shows La Salle's voyages and discoveries over the years 1679–82. These are the years of the Chicago word's first appearance in history.[citation needed] The 1684 Franquelin map, on its cartouche, explicitly says it was based on the voyages and discoveries of La Salle. The Franquelin map and the Minet map are both derivative of La Salle's information.
Minet said he made the map, as Parkman paraphrases him, "on his voyage homeward."[16] Minet had been with La Salle at his Texas Gulf coast colony before sailing home, during which journey he made the map.
Background history before use in Chicago region[edit]
As stated above, Chucagua, as the Chicago word, is earliest found in an account of the expedition of Spanish Conquistador, Ferdinand De Soto. Undertaken during the years 1539–43, his expedition[lower-alpha 1] traversed the southeast quadrant of North America. This was the very geography of interest to the French in the 1670s. It was the narrative of this De Soto expedition, published in Spanish by Garcilaso de La Vega, in 1609,[17] that was translated into French by Pierre Richelet in 1670.[6]
Richelet's 1670 translation of La Vega led many to believe the Mississippi was the Chucagua of De Soto. The translation had a historic effect on cartography, such that French cartographer Hubert Jaillot, in 1674, on his map of North America,[lower-alpha 2] inserted De Soto's Chucagua River discharging into the Gulf of Mexico by way of a large bay (Bahia del Espiritu Santo). This was a radical revision of the continental waterways discharge at the Gulf coastline of Nicolas Sanson's 1650 Amerique Septentrionale.[lower-alpha 3][lower-alpha 4] Sanson's continental discharge was based on the 1625 Florida et Regiones Vicinae of De Laet.
La Salle began his plans to navigate the river to its discharge in the 1670s, voyaging to France in late 1677 to petition the King for permission.[14] La Salle included Checagou in his plans, the word appearing in his writing and on maps after 1679.
All the water on one side of the watershed flowed ultimately to the Gulf of St. Laurence, all the water on the other flowed to the Gulf of Mexico, and there was only a short portage between them. The Chicago area—by way of the Des Plaines, Illinois, and Mississippi Rivers—was the practical connection to voyage from the Great Lakes/St. Laurence waterways to the Gulf of Mexico. In a letter of October 1678, La Salle wrote of his plans, which included establishing a fort on the Illinois River, and from there, "to descend the great river of the Bay of St. Espirit, to reach the Gulf of Mexico."[14]
Four years later, in April, 1682, when La Salle completed the navigation of the Mississippi River, he discovered it discharged into a inhospitable swamp delta, and not the welcoming bay written of in La Vega. As historian Francis Parkman described, "La Salle, deceived by Spanish maps, thought that the Mississippi discharged itself into the Bay of St. Esprit."[14] The original significance of La Salle's Checagou, as the gateway to the river of De Soto and the Gulf, was soon forgotten to history, but continued to be written on most maps until the mid-1700s.
Folk etymology[edit]
Numerous folk etymologies were compiled by Virgil J. Vogel in 1958.[18] The most favored by historians were the two Miami-Illinois Indian words meaning "onions" and "skunk." Vogel, after elaborating dozens of etymology theories, says, "The overwhelming weight of evidence seems to indicate that Chicago was named for the onions which grew there, and that the name came from the Miamis."[19]
Not an onion[edit]
The original source of the onion theory was Henri Joutel. He kept a continuous journal over the years 1684–88 of his experience in North America at the side of LaSalle. In the late 1690s, France took an active interest in colonizing Louisiana. Joutel's journal became a valuable resource for information about La Salle's discoveries. When traveling through the Chicago region in 1687, Joutel learned from an anonymous informant that the area was named for the garlic that grew in the region. Joutel wrote Chicagou (and gave a physical description of the plant).
Nous arrivasmes au lieu que l'on nomme Chicagou, qui, suivant ce que l'on en put apprendre, a pris ce nom de la quantité d'ail qui croist dans ce canton, dans les bois.[21](We arrived at the place called Chicagou, which, according to what we learned, took this name from the quantity of garlic growing in this canton, in the woods.)
Joutel was misinformed. Anglicized, the proper name for "garlic" in the Indian language was wanissisia. Chicagou(a), among other spellings, is the proper word for "skunk." The use of "skunk" for "garlic" is, as Le Boulanger indicated, an abusive use (see below). As defined today, translating to English from French, "abuse": "irregular, improper, contrary to rule or usage, excessive."[22] Moreover, in Le Boulanger's time, the English definitions of "abusive," attested in the Oxford English Dictionary, were: "wrongly used, perverted, misapplied, improper." The wanissisia at a certain time of the year has a repulsive smell. The chicagoua is well known for its repulsive smell. In that they shared the feature of repulsive smell, the word "skunk" (chicagoua) was used as a metonym for "garlic" (wanissisia), notwithstanding, an "abusive" metonym.
Orthography explanation of Dictionaries of Le Boulanger and Gravier. The character "8" symbolized a speech sound in the Indian languages that no letter in the French alphabet could approximate. The "8" is an available way to represent "omicron-upsilon," an "o" with a "u" resting on top. It is conventionally typeset "8," and is generally urged by modern scholars to be pronounced as a w (or "oo" when written for French ou).[23]8anissisia, anglicized, is respelled wanissisia. Note the difference in the spelling of "skunk"—Le Boulanger has chicac8o,[24] Gravier has chicag8a.[25] The letters "c" and "g" are often interchangeable, being "voiced" and "unvoiced" counterparts of one another, and of no consequence. Le Boulanger's Miami-Illinois "skunk" has terminal o, Gravier's has terminal a. These were their personal idiosyncrasies.
Joseph Kirkland[edit]
In his 1892 Story of Chicago,[26] Joseph Kirkland was the first[citation needed] to use Joutel's physical description and etymology of the plant to identify Allium tricoccum as the plant for which Joutel wrote chicagou.[27] Presumably[original research?] Kirkland got the etymology and botanical description, not from Joutel's 1713 abridged edition (in which it was not reported), but from the unabridged journal of Joutel, which was reproduced in the third volume of the massive six volumes of documents published by Pierre Margry, not many years before his own, Kirkland's, publication.[21]
John F. Swenson[edit]
Swenson has written extensively on the etymology of Chicago since 1991,[28] his major article being, "Chicagoua/Chicago: The Origin, Meaning, and Etymology of a Place Name." He argues, as Kirkland did, that Chicagou was the Allium tricoccum, and he further argues the actual Indian word Henri Joutel wrote as Chicagou, was Chicagoua, asserting the final letter a was "conventionally dropped."
- "In the language of the Illinois Indians, chicagoua referred specifically to the wild garlic" (Swenson, 1991, p. 238).
- "...the life giving garlic that had given chicagoua its name" (Swenson, 1991, p. 243).
- Chicagoua was the distinctive name in the Illinois language... for Allium tricoccum" (Swenson, 1991, p. 246).
This does not accord[original research?] with the evidence that the distinctive name for garlic/onions was "wanissisia," as shown in the dictionary entry in the Le Boulanger example above. This definition is similarly attested in Carl Masthay's Kaskaskia Illinois-to-French Dictionary, under the entries for ail, "garlic," and oignons, "onions."[29][original research] The distinctive name for the skunk was "chicagoua."
Swenson cites Le Boulanger, who is his only authoritative reference. He does not mention the definitive "abusive" Le Boulanger appended to "skunk" (when used for "wanissisia"). Swenson regards Joutel's journal entry as authoritative, notwithstanding it is hearsay, lacking academic rigor.[original research]
He contends, "The French, who began arriving here in 1673, were probably confused by the Indian use of this name for several rivers. They usually wrote it as Chicagou."[30] This is not correct.[original research] All documented instances of the word, before Joutel, confirm it was written as La Salle's "Checagou".[original research]
Nearly all the spellings[original research] on maps into the mid-1700s show the place name of the future city as La Salle's Checagou—not as Swenson says, as "they usually wrote it, Chicagou." Chicagoua, as a place name, appears on no map, nor is it found in use as the proper word for the garlic/onions. Jacques Gravier, whose dictionary defined Swenson's "Chicagoua" word as the word for "skunk" (see above), used it as a placename in five letters he wrote, on three occasions. He did not identify the word with the onions/garlic.
How Joutel's Chicagou spelling became authoritative[edit]
Ten years after Joutel's journal entries of 1687–88 (with the Chi- spelling), and his return to France, his written recollections about La Salle were sought after by the French authorities who were initiating the colonization of the Gulf coast near the Mississippi outlet, where La Salle had been.
Among those La Louisiana colonizing authorities were Louis Phélypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain (Secretary of State, Minister of the Marine) and Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville (founder of La Louisiana). In 1698 they discussed in their letters their desires to examine Joutel's journal. It contained an “exact” account of La Salle's explorations of the Mississippi and regions of the coastline.[31]Joutel's Chicagou was therefore not unknown in official circles.
French popular interest in La Salle became widespread with Louis Hennepin's publications, giving La Salle great acclaim in Description de la Louisiane (Paris, 1683), and his Nouvelle decouverte d'un tres grand pays (Utrecht, 1697).
La Salle already well known to the French public, an abridged edition of Joutel's journal was published in 1713 (it contained neither the etymology nor plant description). As the "preeminent eyewitness historian of the La Salle expedition," Joutel further extolled the La Salle legend, his published abridgement translated into English the following year, The Historic Journal of the Last Voyage of La Salle. It mentions "Chicagou," the location, three times on three consecutive pages. The "according to what we learned, [Chicagou] took this name from the... garlic" etymology was not included in this abridged version, nor in the English translation.
The spelling of the Chicago word was regarded sufficiently reliable for cartographer Guillaume Delisle (also, de l'Isle) to change the spelling of the place name of the future city from La Salle's Checagou on his 1703 map, to Joutel's Chicagou on his 1718 Map.[1] Delisle was acclaimed as the leading cartographer of the period.
The complete Joutel journal was published by Pierre Margry, 1876–86. For the first time Joutel's etymology[21]and descriptions of the plant(s) were made available to researchers and the general public. Joutel's 1713 abridged journal said nothing about the source of the name. Researcher, until Margry, had limited information. However, the etymological information that the place name derived from the garlic/onion, was made available when Margry's six volumes were published. Soon thereafter, 1892, Kirkland himself published Joutel's folk etymology, identifying the plant name with Allium tricoccum, corroborated by Swenson (1991) a century later. As such, it has been part of the Chicago historical landscape.
The Coming of the English[edit]
With the coming of English speakers and cartographers, the Chicago place name with the "Che-" spelling, on contemporaneous maps, was abandoned. This was subsequent to the English gaining the French possessions in North America with the 1763 Treaty of Paris. The Joutel "Chi-" spelling had gained cartographic credibility, having been printed on the 1718 Delisle map, revising it from his earlier La Salle "Che-" spelling, as seen on his 1703 map. Presumably[original research?] he was influence by the publication of Joutel's journal in 1713, with the "Chi-" spelling in the place name.
The Joutel spelling was easily reconciled with the English language.[original research?] An important factor, in the change from Checagou to Chicagou, is that in English, the French pronunciation of the first vowel in Checagou is not part of the English phoneme systems. In addition, with the tendency toward "recessive accent" in English (the accent moving toward the fronts of words), it was only a matter of time before the final "oo" sound of French ou, became neutralized from its full accented [u] value and became an unemphatic [o], spelled simply as it sounded—o.[original research?]
Notes[edit]
- ↑ In May, 1542, De Soto died en route, and Luis de Moscoso Alvarado assumed the command.
- ↑ Image: Amerique Septentrionale
- ↑ Nicolas Sanson died in 1667, but maps, even with alterations, under his name continued. This map is often called Sanson-Jaillot, and sometimes dated 1673–74.[citation needed]
- ↑ Image: Amerique Septentrionale
References[edit]
- ↑ Vogel, Virgil J. (1958). "The Mystery of Chicago's Name". 40: 168.
- ↑ Vogel, Virgil J. (1958). "The Mystery of Chicago's Name". Mid-West. 40: 169.
- ↑ In the 16th Century, La Florida was a Spanish Colony that spanned much of the Gulf coast.
- ↑ Chang-Rodríguez, Raquel (2006). Beyond Books and Borders, Garcilaso de La Vega and La Florida del Inca. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. pp. 23, 39, 128, 132n. 4, 149, 155, 156, 161. ISBN 0-8387-5651-4. Search this book on
- ↑ Clayton, Lawrence A. (1993). The De Soto Chronicles: The Expedition of Hernando De Soto to North America in 1539–1543 (Two Volume Set). Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. pp. Vol. 2. 385. ISBN 978-0-8173-0824-7. Search this book on
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Richelet, Pierre (1670). Histoire de la Floride, ou, Relation de ce qui s'est passé au voyage de Ferdinand de Soto, pour la conqueste de ce pays / composée en espagnol par l'Inca Garcilasso de La Vega; et traduite en françois par P. Richelet. Paris. Search this book on
- ↑ Chang-Rodríguez, Raquel (2006). Beyond Books and Borders, Garcilaso de La Vega and La Florida del Inca. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. p. 169. ISBN 0-8387-5651-4. Search this book on
- ↑ Pierre Margry (1876–86). Découvertes et établissements des français dans l'ouest et dans le sud de l'Amérique Septentrionale. Paris: Impr. D. Jouaust. Vol.2. p. 82.
- ↑ Margry, Pierre (1876–86). Découvertes et établissements des français dans l'ouest et dans le sud de l'Amérique Septentrionale. Paris: Impr. D. Jouaust. pp. Vol.2. 166. Search this book on
- ↑ Margry, Pierre (1876–86). Découvertes et établissements des français dans l'ouest et dans le sud de l'Amérique Septentrionale. Paris: Impr. D. Jouaust. pp. Vol. 2. 167-68. Search this book on
- ↑ Smith, Clara A. (1927). Edward E. Ayer Collection. Chicago: Newberry Library. p. 23. Search this book on
- ↑ http://earliestchicagomaps.com/images/imagesECM-Small/1684Franquelin.jpg
- ↑ The original map, made for the King to show the King his new Colony, La Louisiane, forged from uncharted territories by La Salle, went missing from its French archive in the late 19th Century. Francis Parkman had a reproduction of it made, before this, and deposited it in the Harvard University map collection archive, where it still exists, but much faded. The image of this map, found in current use, was published in Jesuit Relations in 1900. Much reduced in size, it was based on the Harvard version.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 Parkman, Francis (1983). Pioneers of France in the New World. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. p. 806. ISBN 0-940450-10-0. Search this book on
- ↑ Parkman, Francis (1983). Pioneers of France in the New World. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. pp. 803–04. ISBN 0-940450-10-0. Search this book on
- ↑ Parkman, Francis (1983). Pioneers of France in the New World. New York: Literary Classics of the United States. p. 984. ISBN 0-940450-10-0. Search this book on
- ↑ de La Vega, Garcilaso (1956). La Florida del Inca: historia del adelantada Hernando de Soto, gobernador y capitán ganeral. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Search this book on
- ↑ Vogel, Virgil J. Vogel (1958). "The Mystery of Chicago's Name". Mid-America. 40: 163–74.
- ↑ Vogel, Virgil J. (1958). "The Mystery of Chicago's Name". Mid-America. 40: 173–174.
- ↑ Joutel, Henri (1713). Journal historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de La Sale fit... Paris: Estienne Robinot. pp. 176, 177, 178. Search this book on
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Margry, Pierre (1876–86). Découvertes et établissements des français dans l'ouest et dans le sud de l'Amérique Septentrionale. Paris: Impr. D. Jouaust. pp. Vol. 3. 485. Search this book on
- ↑ Girard, Denis (1962). Cassell's French Dictionary. New York: Macmillan. p. 5. ISBN 0-02-522610-X. Search this book on
- ↑ For explanation of "8" from 1723, from a speaker of the Indian language, see Jesuit Relations, Vol 67, 143. Sébastion Rasle letter to his brother. https://archive.org/details/jesuits67jesuuoft/page/n161
- ↑ Le Boulanger, Jean (1700). French Miami/Illinois Dictionary. Canada: anon. p. 5. Search this book on
- ↑ Swenson, John F. "Chicagoua/Chicago: The Origin, Meaning, and Etymology of a Place Name". Illinois Historical Journal. Vol. 84, No. 4: 247.
- ↑ Joseph Kirkland, Story of Chicago
- ↑ Kirkland, Joseph (1892). The Story of Chicago. Chicago: Dibble. p. 8. Search this book on
- ↑ Swenson, John F. (1991). "Chicagoua/Chicago: The Origin, Meaning, and Etymology of a Place Name". Illinois Historical Journal. Vol. 84, No. 4: 235–248.
- ↑ Masthay, Carl (2002). Kaskaskia Illinois-to-French Dictionary. Creve Coeur Missouri: Carl Masthay. pp. 336, 596. ISBN 0-9719113-0-4. Search this book on
- ↑ Swenson, John F. (August 25, 2019). "By John F. Swenson; adapted from "Chicagoua/Chicago: The Origin, Meaning, and Etymology of a place name"; Illinois Historic Journal 84, winter 1991". Early Chicago. Retrieved November 20, 2019. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Margry. Découvertes et établissements, Vol. IV. pp. 50, 65, 69, 71. Search this book on
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