Talk:Skokomish people

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my understanding is that the Skokomish and other Twana peoples were NOT along the puget sound and were all around hood canal. the edge between the puget and hood canal watersheds seems to be the language and cultural boarder.

Skokomish -> Skookum-ish?

A fellow contributor to the Chinook Jargon article posted a source for the Skokomish name I hadn't heard before: that it's composed of skookum + -ish - meaning "brave/strong/stalwart people". I'd always thought that the name came from their relocation to the Skokomish River, which as far as I understand it is the remaining length of the Snohomish River after it meets the Skykomish River. Don't know my Washington history/name-source stuff to know any better; the -ish ending is vaguely Salishan for "people" (usually -mx, -mc or ??) but I can't think of any other Chinookisms that have this ending. Comments?Skookum1 00:10, 21 May 2006 (UTC) *The ending is "-mish" for "people" - no? https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Skokomish_River

And here is the Skokomish Nation's official website: http://www.skokomish.org/

The book "Washington State Place Names", by James W. Phillips (2nd ed. 1972, U.W.Press, ISBN) contradicts the etymology skokom + ish that I posted in Chinook Jargon. Phillips (p.132) writes:

Name of the area's resident Indian tribe is based on two of their dialect words — s'kaw, meaning "fresh water", and mish meaning "people".

I still think that skokom+ish = "strong people" is correct, but that's because I've been familiar with that from childhood. I and the family member who taught me could easily be wrong.

However, I must point out that the the Skokomish River is on the opposite side of Puget Sound from the Skykomish River, which on my maps feeds into what is now called the Snoqualmie River, which runs past the town of Snohomish (which may originally have been a name for the river, also). (Note that this is an easy mistake: it's frequently the case that Washington State place names sound very similar, but are for different features in different places.) Tom Lougheed 01:41, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

That was my confusion; Snoqualmie + Skykomish = Snohomish River, for its last few miles before the sea; the confluence is somewhere southeast of Everett, between there and Snohomish I think. And I'll go with your attestion; you can't cite original research, but I can cite you (being a chinook studies kinda guy, i.e. not credentialed but familiar enough to go OK, there's a Puget Sound usage/adaptaton that's not recorded in Shaw/Gibbs.Skookum1 03:46, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

BTW the -mish ending, or things like it, in the Salishan languages I'm half-famliar with (from placenames mostly) means "wind", as in Squamish - "big wind", apparently, and yeah, the head of Howe Sound is like the Columbia Gorge for howling wind and big waves. Not sure about Samish and Samamish because they're across the line. The "people" ending tends to be -mcw/-mxw (-emc in Secwepemc, -imc in St'at'imc, -mux in Nlaka'pamux (not so with Comox, which is from the Chinook Jargon for "dog" - which these people apparently were known for having many of, and like other tribes in the region bred them for food and wool; that breed is now extinct; and in Comox the -mox ending is from Chinookan, which is entirely unrelated but does mean "creature/being" or something to that effect), or at least the -ox/-ooks ending is (Pasiooks=French; "cloth people", as they came trading cloth, and dressed in it). Oh, just to clarify, the Comox were Salishan, but their name is from the Chinook Jargon; there is a Comox language spelling of it K'omox, and I don't know where the accent goes, but's quite common for BC bands to Indianize Chinook words and names in their community to a "more Indian-looking" form. Hence, for example, Kiy-oose for what had been Cayoose Creek , as though it were a St'at'imc word in origin (Cayoose Creek is the map/English band name of the reserve, but the adjoining creek it is named for is normally spelled Cayoosh Creek). The modern revival of the Chinuk-Wawa in Grand Ronde is proudly based on its creolization - its incorporation of more and more elements from the many languages in their multitribal community, and purgations of English and French elements, or at least totally Indianize their prononciation. The name conversions in BC are not so systematic, more a statement of identity, and an affirmation of the look/orthography of their traditional language: spell a Chinook name/word in the traditional-language spelling instead of in the pseudo-English spellings. Similarly, within local native tongues Chinook and/or French adaptions are spelled in the local format, and are often not taken for "foreign" words (mowitch for "deer/game" is a famous one on that account; from Idaho to Alaska and throughout BC and WA and OR).

Anyway, all of that to get to the point that I think it's a Puget Sound hybrid form of skookum/skokom (vowel harmonic contraction of some other effect, or just the local prononciation) plus that -mish, which is distinctly Salishan and not part of the regular Jargon; as if there was a regular Jargon. It makes perfect sense to me that the -mish ending would be recognized by their immediate neighbours throughout the Sound and adjoining Straits and Coasts, because of the common roots built into Salishan tongues, different from each other as they so very much era. The mainstream Chinook Jargon, as emanating from the lower Columbia, would have had skookum win. I'd also suggest that your inherited translation of it as "brave people" rather than "strong wind" may be that the latter was taken by these people metaphorically; that they are a strong wind etc. Skookum has all kinds of meanings, as I'm sure you know: skookum win can mean someone potent with life-force, strong-souled, or with really good cardio. All depends on when and in which context, and how you deliver it.

But I don't know about Puget Sound Salishan tongues that much; there's the Duguamish too, isn't there? As said, as far as I've ever heard, the -mish ending up here is "wind", but all Salishan tongues are subtle in how their consonants work and it might not be too far from -imc/emc to -mish. Skookum1 03:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey, so, old thread, but the claim that "Skokomish" comes from Chinook Jargon is found on several pages. I just did some research on it and concluded that the Chinook Jargon theory is not well substantiated in reliable sources, while there are plenty of good sources I know and trust (mostly) that agree on "Skokomish" being a Twana word meaning "river people". Lots of course point out the Twana word, spelled variously sqWuqWu'b3sH', sqʷuqʷóʔbəš, etc, contains the Twana word for water, spelled qWu, kaw, qʷú, etc; Anglicized "ko", as in s-KO-komish (or perhaps repeated, s-KO-KO-mish, not sure). The Skokomish's own website points out on the front cover page the name sqWuqWu'b3sH, which when moused-over changed to "People of the River". So, given that source and William Bright (seemed the best and most reliable among many choices), I'm going to change the claim of Chinook Jargon origin to Twana on the several pages that say so. Just wanted to warn in advance! Pfly (talk) 07:23, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Also: William Bright on the -mish ending. He says it is from Lushootseed and means "people". He usually renders it -bš, as in dxʷsawʔábš, "Duwamish" (lit. 'people inside the bay'), or səhíʔwəbš, "Sahewamish", sc'abábš, "Sammamish", etc. And points out in every case, "the alternation of m and b is characteristic of languages in the Puget Sound area. Pfly (talk) 07:23, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Chipewyan people which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 09:13, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

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Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved, because no policy-based rationale has been offered.
The nominator is reminded that WP:UNDAB is an essay, not a policy or a guideline. An essay contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors, and may usefully be cited as a place to read a particular line of reasoning, but should not be cited as if it represents a community consensus.
The argument by BD2412 is unsupported by any policy, while CambridgeBayWeather's invocation of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes) misrepresents that guideline; it lists several possibilities for titles of articles for such groups of people, and notes that there are "several acceptable naming conventions". -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:39, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

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Skokomish people → Skokomish – target is dab page created with two items by 67.75.229.103 on Sept 12 2003. People article began as Skokomish (tribe), then moved to "Skokomish tribe" by Kwami on Dec 13 2010, then reverted by him as he'd missed talkpages, then reverted to "Skokomish tribe" by him on the same date, then moved to current title by Uysvdi on Dec 13 2013 citing "renaming to disambiguate ethnic group article from federally recognized Skokomish Indian Tribe)" which is an invalid dab argument per WP:UNDAB. Skookum1 (talk) 07:10, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose until the issue is addressed properly. These should be discussed at a centralized location.

There was a discussion once on whether the ethnicity should have precedence for the name, and it was decided it shouldn't. That could be revisited. But it really should be one discussion on the principle, not thousands of separate discussions at every ethnicity in the world over whether it should be at "X", "Xs", or "X people". — kwami (talk) 12:29, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support per nom. An identified people should be the primary topic of a term absent something remarkable standing in the way. bd2412 T 02:39, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support as per the policy Wikipedia:Article titles#Use commonly recognizable names and the guideline Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes). There is no need to redo any guideline as it already supports the un-disabiguated title. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 04:15, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Skokomish people/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

introductory text, needs infobox, map of Twana/Skokomish territory, more content, refs. Needs separate language page, although examples of Twana are few and far between. Comment that I hadn't heard before re Skokomish - this name is supposedly from the Chinook Jargon skookum + ish, i.e. "brave/strong people" --Skookum1 (10 May 06)

Substituted at 05:16, 13 May 2016 (UTC)