THE ETYMOLOGY NERD
  • Home
  • ALGOSPEAK
  • Infographics
    • Interactive Map
  • EVENTS
  • MORE
    • Shop
    • Media/publicity
    • Blog (Archived)

WINDY CITY

4/19/2017

0 Comments

 
The titular slang for Chicago is infinitely more whimsical than it lets on. The word Chicago is from the Native American language Potawatomi, where the phrase shikaakwa, or "place of the smelly onion", became eponymous with the place that is now the third-largest American city. This is not uncommon; Native Americans often attributed food names to locations. It is also not uncommon for foodstuffs to have been named after animals, so it is unsurprising that shikaakwa comes from the Proto-Algonquin word sekakwa, which meant "skunk". The "smelly" semantic connection is evident. This is reconstructed as coming from the earlier Proto-Algonquin root sek, which meant "to urinate" and further displays the continued prevalence of smell in the definitions (additionally, it may have combined that with the word for "fox", but this is on shaky ground). From that very same prior word (sekakwa) we get our current word for skunk; it passed through the Abenaki language as segonku and was colloquially known as squunk in the area until the current spelling was coined in the mid-seventeenth century. A brief point of interest: a Chicago study by Nina Fascione, et al., found that there were over 4000 skunks "handled by wildlife control operators in the Chicago metropolitan area". Oh, the irony!
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    AUTHOR

    Picture
    Hello! I'm Adam Aleksic. I have a linguistics degree from Harvard University, where I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society and wrote my thesis on Serbo-Croatian language policy. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy traveling, trivia, philosophy, board games, conlanging, and art history. 

    Archives

    December 2023
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016

    TAGS

    All
    Interview
    Satire

Picture
CONTACT: [email protected]
SUBSTACK • TIKTOK • INSTAGRAM • YOUTUBE
I do not have a facebook account that's an impostor
  • Home
  • ALGOSPEAK
  • Infographics
    • Interactive Map
  • EVENTS
  • MORE
    • Shop
    • Media/publicity
    • Blog (Archived)