概要
英語は歴史の中で、様々な国や地域との文化交流や商業の行き来を通して他言語
との接触を行ってきた。英語は元々アングロサクソン族の言語だったが、のちにたくさん
の言語と交わり合い吸収し、現在の英語へと成長していく。英語がアメリカ大陸へ持ち出
されると、更にネイティブアメリカン族の言語に触れることとなる。英語はたくさんの国
からいくつもの単語を借用してきた。西洋人がアメリカ大陸に着き、ネイティブアメリカ
ンと生活を共有していく中で、英語は更にたくさんのネイティブアメリカン語を借用語と
して使うことになる。本論では、ネイティブアメリカンの歴史や西洋人とのやり取り、ま
たネイティブアメリカンからの借用英単語を紹介したいと思う。
1.
Introduction
English has imported a variety of vocabulary from many countries in its
history.
When colonists settle their new country in the United States, they had no words for
many objects and new experience that they underwent. There were many living and
growing things that were peculiar to the New World. Accordingly, not only English but
also other colonial languages imported many terms. English imported terms from Latin,
French, Greek, Italian, and Spanish language freely. Above all, however the languages
from which English borrowed firstly was Native American language that were spoken
by original habitants in the Unite States. Contact with Native Americans brought into
English a number of words having reference to their life. In this paper, Vocabulary from
Native American languages will be discussed from the viewpoint of the history between
European colonists and Native Americans.
2.1. History of Native American
Europeans tend to think America was discovered by European countries, but
there had already been Native Americans who formed their life in the American
continent long before Europeans arrived. The Native Americans were considered to be
Asian tribes who crossed the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska between 18000BC
and 14000BC. After that, Native people spread over North America, Central America
and South America. Prior to 8000 BC the Native Americans reached the southern part
of South America. People were organized socially and politically gradually by 3000 BC.
2.2. Discovery of Native American
In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed west from Spain looking for a direct and
shorter route to the Indies. Instead, the land on which he landed was American
continent. He thought it was India so he called the Native people Indians.The Discovery
of native people by Christopher Columbus was the first contact between Native
American and Europeans. By the time he came to the New World, the native population
of North America was estimated at about 500,000 people and there were about 500
tribes.
According to Welker (2002), “at the time of first European contact, probably
close to 1,000 American Indian languages were spoken in North, Central, and South
America. Although the number of languages in daily use has declined because of
persecution and pressures on the Indians to adopt English, Spanish, and other original
European languages. Perhaps 300 languages were spoken in Canada and the United
States when the first Europeans arrived, and about 200 are still spoken by some
300,000 people.”1
2.3. Cultural and Colonial areas
The areas which were occupied by Native Americans with similar cultures are
divided into ten areas. They are the Northwest coast, California, Northeast, Southeast,
Great Plains, Plateau, Great Basin, Southwest, Arctic and Subarctic areas. As the
Europeans arrived, Russian explorers came to occupy most of the southern coast of
what is now Alaska. French expansion started from Quebec in Canada and went over
Mississippi River areas. English settlement founded on New England areas and some
southeast areas. Dutch explored Hudson Bay areas of east coast. Spanish explorers had
the greatest power of any European explorers and occupied Southwest areas which are
now Mexico, California areas and Florida.
2.4. Cultural Exchange
Contact between Europeans and Native peoples began in the early 1500s and
continued for a century before European started to make settlements. This is the first
opportunity for English to have direct contact with North American languages that is
Native American languages. They contributed to a great expansion of knowledge, which
was reflected in the linguistic borrowings. Through living with Native Americans,
Columbus and other Europeans made discoveries of new plants, animals, customs,
buildings and living sources that they had not known.
3.1. Native American Vocabulary Loans in English
Vocabulary from Native American languages was mostly borrowed in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. After the nineteenth century, words were rarely
loaned. Indian’s living styles are reflected in English vocabulary. Plants and animals
words from Native Americans are often loaned to other languages as well. Indian
1
From http://www.indigenouspeople.net/americas/americas.htm
languages are powerful language which reflected plants and animal names in American
English. It is also significant that many place names in the United States are based on
Native American vocabulary.
Native American languages are often agglutinative languages like Japanese,
Korean, and Altai language. Prefixes, infixes and suffixes are often used. They are not a
single language but consist of many languages. During seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, a group of Algonquian languages was often the source of loan words. This is
because Algonquians were distributed over the eastern area, which was being settled by
Europeans. Other Indian terms were loaned after nineteenth century. As Europeans
exploited the west, loan words of different languages were introduced.
3.2. Cultural loan words
From their earliest contact with early traders and explorers, Native Americans
taught them new words often to describe things and food. The following gives specific
examples of vocabulary which was loaned by Native Americans. These examples are
divided into six categories: animals, plants, buildings, tools, food and miscellaneous.
1.Animals:
skunk, moose, raccoon, opossum, menhaden, terrapin, woodchuck, muskellunge,
wapiti, chipmunk, cayuse
2.Plants:
persimmon, chinquapin, hickory, squash, catalpa, tamarack, sequoia
3.Buildings:
wigwam, tepee, hogan
4.Tools:
moccasin, tomahawk, totem, parka, atlatl
5.Food:
pone, hominy, hoochinoo, bean, peanut, tomato, papaya, pineapple, avocado, chile
pepper, cocoa, maize
6.Other:
sachem, powwow, papoose, squaw, mugwump, potlatch, chautauqua
3.3. Place Names
In addition, many American places have been named after Indian words.
Places including some states, rivers, lakes and cities in the United States are originally
from Native American languages. Actually thousands of place names including Ottawa,
Toronto, Saskatchewan and the names of more than half of the states of the US come
from Native American languages. More than a thousand rivers also have names of
Native American origin. Indian languages had a great influence on place names. The
following state names, city names and river name and lake names are from Indian
words.
States
Indiana → “land of Indians”
Iowa → “this is the place”, “the
beautiful land”
Kansas → “people of the south wind”
Kentucky → “land of tomorrow”
Michigan → “great or large lake”
Ohio → “great river”
Texas → “friends”
Utah → “people of the
mountains”
Cities
Chicago → “garlic field”
Manhattan → “isolated thing in
water”
Milwaukee → “a good spot or place”
Pensacola (Florida) → “hair”
“people”
Saratoga (New York) → “springs from the hillside”
Rivers and lakes
Mississippi → “father of waters”
Except Superior, all of the great lakes
Lake Tahoe → “big water”
of Michigan, Erie, Ontario and Huron
have Native American names. The Adirondack Mountains, Appalachian Mountains,
Chesapeake Bay, Penobscot Bay, Mohave Desert, Yosemite National Park and Niagara
falls are also originally from Indian words.2
4.
Conclusion
Native American language have contributed to the vocabularies of English
and many other Old World languages, especially words for animals, plants and culture
traits unknown to Europeans before the discovery of the New World. Native American
life styles are reflected in English Vocabulary. Among many Native American languages,
most words are borrowed from Algonquian language. Today interest in Native American
language is increasing. Indeed, some Native American languages are becoming
culturally and politically important. Wherever you go in the US, you will see a lot of
Native American words there, especially place names.
5.
2
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