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Ilinois, Illini and Liniouek The earliest references to the Illinois people were in the accounts of the early French explorers and later Catholic (mostly Jesuit) missionaries beginning in the mid-1600's. These French accounts or records of what was then known as New France often began with the word "Relation" and were often more or less informally referred to as "Relations."Hyperlist of spellings:Eriniouaj
Liniouek
Aliniouek
Iliniouek
Ilinois
Illini
Abimi8ec
Alini8ek
AliniSekThe varied records of what happened in New France were collected, edited, translated � and in some cases modernized and 'corrected' � and put into a formal collection of numbered volumes titled Jesuit Relations. This was done in the late 1800's and early 1900's by Reuben Gold Thwaites, Secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
Page images of both the very earliest volumes and collected and numbered Jesuit Relations are posted on the web. Page images of most of the "Relations" and all of the Jesuit Relations series are posted at the Library and Archives Canada website. Many of these Jesuit Relations documents have the original French on one page and English translations on the next.
Text versions of the Jesuit Relations volumes are posted at Creighton University's The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: 1610 to 1791 website. An archive offering virtually all of this material as well as as well as an impressive body of other early historical documents is the Internet Archive website. This resource offers much of this material in a variety of formats.
A constant challenge to everyone developing these materials was how render the way the natives pronounced the many indistinct back of the throat sounds of the language, a language that was described in terms ranging from "sonorous," to "indolent" to "guttural." The first consonant in the expressions such as "Ilinois" or "Illini" was variously rendered as an 'l,' or 'r,' or sometimes an 'n.' And there was no 'w' so '8' was often used where we would use that letter.
Moreover, there was virtually no standardization regarding spelling. This not only applied to the Native expressions and names but to the European ones as well. The last name of the Jesuit missionary Louis Joliet was also spelled "Jolliet," "Jolyet," and "Jollyet." The river Marquette and Joliet spelled "Ouabouskigou" later became "8bache" (and a variety of other things) before it came to be the "Wabash" we know today. In all these cases, the writers merely used whatever spelling convention was most familiar to them and their circle of colleagues at that particular time and place.
That is an important point to keep in mind as we survey the variety of spellings used in the early records. This variety may be interesting and at times even amusing, but it is no more valid to theorize great semantic or cultural significance from these various spellings than it is to theorize that the four renditions of "Joliet" refer to four distinct indiviuals.
Earliest known citation of Illinois was in a 1641 volume, Account of what happened in New France in the year 1640. It was on page 132 of that volume. Paul LeJeune wrote that the �Eriniouaj� were neighbors of the Winnebago. The expression was probably be intended to be pronounced something like "Eh rih nih wi" with the 'rih' very indistinctly pronounced and the final sound being a long 'i.'This account became part of theJesuit Relations collection. The original French was was on page 230 of Volume 18, and the English translation on the next page. Note that the English translation modernized and Anglicized the spelling to "Eriniouai."
In a 1657 volume, Account of what happened at the mission of the fathers of the Society of Jesus, in the country of New France, in the years 1655 & 1656 Jean de Quen spelled the name of the neighbors of the Winnebago as �Liniouek,� an expression that ends with the plural ending 'k' or 'ek.' It was on page 149 of that volume.
In the Thwaites edition of Jesuit Relations the French and English versions are found on pages 220 and 221 of Volume 42.
A 1659 volume, Account of what happened more remarkable at the missions of PP. of the Society of Jesus in New France, in the years 1657 & 1658 Father Gabriel Dreuillettes mentioned several villages that were neighbors to the Pottawatomi village he name Saint Michel. One of those villages was a village of the "Aliniouek" mentioned on on page 80.
It was on pages 246 and 247 of Volume 44 of Jesuit Relations.
A 1668 volume, Account of what happened more remarkable at the missions of the fathers of the Society of Jesus in New France, the years 1666 & 1667, Father Allouez discussed the customs of the Ottawas and other peoples. One of the other people he mentions is the "Ilinioüek" on page 57.
In the Thwaites edition it is found on pages 288 and 289 of Volume 50.
Marquette's 1674 Travel and discovery of some countries and nations of North America is perhaps the first account that is primarily about the Ilinois. Earlier accounts have more or less merely mentioned them in passing in discussions of other people such as the Winnebago, Ottawa or Pottawatomi. Marquette, on the other hand, was eager "to labor among the Illinois" and tells of his excitement as he and Joliet left their canoe and followed a beaten path out into the prairie. Even greater was his excitement when he encountered some people and "asked them who they were" and "[t]hey replied that they were Ilinois." (page 15)This account is found on pages 116 and 117 of Volume 59 of the Jesuit Relations.
An oft quoted passage from this account comes a few pages later on page 20 of that volume. Here's a translation:
The quote is on pages 124 and 125 of volume 59.WHEN one speaks the word �Ilinois,� it is as if one said in their language, �the men,� � As if the other Savages were looked upon by them merely as animals.The word "Ilinois" (or "Illinois") itself offers a perfect example of the folly of trying to attach too much theoretical or etymological significance to the spelling of any or all of these terms under consideration. English speakers continue to use the French spelling, even though it does not at all reflect how they pronounce the word. Marquette intended the word "Ilinois" to rhyme with "bourgeois" as French words ending in "ois" are pronounced today. But English speakers give in neither the French nor the English pronunciation a linguist would expect. They pronounce it, not to rhyme with "noise" as the standard rules of pronunciation would direct, but rather to rhyme with "boy," in spite of the spelling.
An often quoted discussion comes from the 1697 publication by Hennepin: New Discovery of a Vast Country situated in America, between New Mexico and the Frozen Ocean.One chapter of this this French account begins with what is widely translated into English as:
On page 53 of that volume is an often quoted passage:The etymology of this word Illinois comes, as we have said, from the term Illini, which in the language of that Nation signifies a man finished or complete, the same as the word Alleman expresses full man, as if they wished to signify by this, that a German is imbued with the spirit, fortitude, and heroism of all the men of every race that ever existed.It should be noted that while parts of Hennepin's accounts are often rather questionable, this passage is very consistent with the perceptions of his day and accepted and built upon by scholars for 300 years. Gabriel Gravier, the author of the early Miami-Illinois dictionary, quoted from Hennepin's statement ("du terme Illini, qui dan la langue de cette Nation fignifie un homme fait...") in his definition of "irini8a": "irini8a un homme fait".1�The Lake of the Illinois signifies in the language of these Barbarians, the Lake of the Men. The word Illinois signifies a grown man, who is in the prime of his age and vigor�Indeed, J. Hammond Trumbull, in his 1871 scholarly paper "On Algonkin Names for Man" says that Hennepin's observation about "Illinois" is a quintessential example of the notion that "[e]very savage believes in the superiority of his own tribe and nation to all others. He and his are the real men..." The Illinois language reflected a "conviction of personal and tribal excellence." In other words, such glosses for "Illinois" as "superior tribe of real men" or "tribe of superior men" are very sound, indeed.
The point could be made that Hennepin's observation was not merely about savages, but was equally applicable to Germans of his day, and presumably other nationalities as well. The Jesuit Relations makes the same point about the classical Greeks, and their contempt for "barbarians.".
A brief (and regrettable) digression
It must be noted that current Wikipedia entries for and "Illinois" and "Illinois Confederation" dismiss all the above. They state that Indians of Illinois never used any expressions like "Illinois," or "Illini" to refer to themselves, that the term "Illinois" is an "adaptation" of a Miami word, that the etymologies discussed above are "unworkable."
That is a point of view originated with and is aggressively promoted by David Costa, a linguist specializing in the Miami dialect of the Miami-Illinois language. We will not get bogged down here in reviewing his arguments. For those who are interested, a review of Costa's argument is offered in a separate posting.
It would be nice to just dismiss this whole thing, but unfortunately it is the kind of looney, disdainfully amusing idea that tends to take on a life of its own in the press, on talk shows, and on the web. Indeed, it is starting to be reflected in mainstream offerings besides the Wikipedia ones mentioned above.
So much for the digression. Let us continue with an interesting case study of how "ou" became "S" in some Algonquian records.
As noted earlier, the Jesuits had no letter "w," so it was one of the sounds indicated by "ou." In some publications the "ou" was written with the letters on top of each other. This "ou" character is sometimes described as an "open-topped 8" and was used in works about some archaic languages. In Algonquian it had the "w" sound when used in places where a consonant was needed and "oo" in places where a vowel sound was needed. And so it was that the very earliest occurance of what came to be Alimiwec was written with an "open-topped 8" in place of the "w."The expression was offered in the 1661 publication Account of what happened more remarkable at the missions of the fathers of the Society of Jesus in New France, in the the years one-thousand six hundred and fifty-nine & one-thousand six hundred and sixty
It was found on page 62 of that publication.
But there were a couple of problems with this spelling of the expression. First, it became evident that the first consonant of the word was probably not intended to be a "b" but an "l." And second, not all the printers who printed the "Relations" had the archaic open-topped 8 character in the type they used. (Indeed, that is a problem with trying to write the expression for publication on the web; the "open-topped 8" character is not part of the standard character sets used on the web. That is why this page offers images of words from old publications but does not try to print out those words in regular text.)
For those reasons, An 1858 reprint of several earlier Relations along with some supplementary information included a page of corrections. Among these was the original 1661 expression corrected to "Alini8ek." In other words, it used the regular "8" in place of the "open-topped 8."
A correction that was part of a brief paper
The correction was found on page 46 of that publication.A final transformation is the product of computerized optical character recognition or OCR. OCR is a remarkable, but imperfect, technology. It doesn't always read text in the same way a human eye would. And it is not designed to recognize seventeenth century Algonquian typography. That is why this discussion has taken some pains always to offer an image of the title page from which the various text images were taken. Sometimes merely offering an OCR text rendition of the page � or a translation or modernization of that OCR rendition � is simply too far removed from the original publication to be a valid documentation of it.
At any rate, many OCR applications, including the one used by Google, often simply do not consider that the number 8 is the correct character used in the middle of a word. They recognize it as the character 's' in either lower or upper case. Therefore words like "Abimi8ec" or "Alini8ec" get read with either an upper or lower case 's' in place of the number 8.
Document Info
This document: http://www.illinoisprairie.info/Eriniouaj.htm
Parent document: http://www.illinoisprairie.info
Author: Jim Fay
Posted on: 5/11/10
