rtlSTpRjC^y, SUkxm tifirVB^SITY OF uimm: A Glossary OF Mississippi Valley French 1673-1850 BY JOHN FRANCIS McDERMOTT WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY STUDIES -NEW SERIES LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE — No. 12 DECEMBER, 1941 Washington University George R. Throop, Ph.D., LL.D., Bridge Chancellor Walter E. McCourt, A.M., Assistant Chancellor The College of Liberal Arts Frank M. Webster, Ph.B., Acting Dean The School of Engineering Alexander S. Langsdorf, M.M.E., Dean Tlie School of Architecture Alexander S. Langsdorf, M.M.E., Dean The School of Business and Public Administration William H. Stead, Ph.D., Dean Tlie Henry Shaw School of Botany George T. Moore, Ph.D., Director The School of Graduate Studies Richard F. Jones, Ph.D., Acting Dean The School of Law Joseph A. McClain, Jr., A.B., LL.B., J.S.D., LL.D., Dean The School of Medicine Philip A. Shaffer, Ph.D., Dean The School of Dentistry Benno E. Lischer, D.M.D., Dean The School of Nursing Louise Knapp, A.M., Director The School of Fine Arts Kenneth E. Hudson, B.F.A., Director University College William G. Bowling, A.M., Dean The Summer School Frank L. Wright, A.M., Ed.D., Director Mary Institute, a preparatory school for girls, located at Ladue and Warson Roads, is also conducted under the charter of the University. A GLOSSARY of MISSISSIPPI VALLEY FRENCH 1673-1850 A GLOSSARY of MISSISSIPPI VALLEY FRENCH 1673-1850 By JOHN FRANCIS McDERMOTT ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY STUDIES—NEW SERIES Language and Literature—No. 12 St. Louis, 1941 Copyright 1941 by Washington University St. Louis All Rights Reserved I PREFACE Ten years ago, when I began reading in the history of the Mississippi Valley, I found myself occasionally puzzled by words which were no longer current in French and by others whose meaning obviously differed from standard usage. Noticing that ^^translators and editors frequently had the same difficulty, I started a collection of unusual and obscure terms. The present monograph is the ^^ result. '' '''^^''^^^ ^^'^ *^^ "^^ "^n/^^'" ^u''^7 «^ «t"d^^ts of any phase rof French culture m the Mississippi Valley. It will be of use to them, I hope, in supplying ^ meanings of words which are, to ^ all except specialists in the French language, obscure, difficult, or commonly confused. Particularly have I been new interested in words and new meanings for old ^ words which often are j^ot to be found in the large standard dictionaries. I have given much attention also to , interpretation of now obsolete legal and commercial terms. I have included a number of Standard French words which I have repeatedly found confused and mistrans- lated I have also included a number of other terms, commonly hsted m dictionaries, not for the sake of elucidating their mean- ing, but for the sake of illustrating and describing certain cus- toms which have grown up around them in the area of the Mis- sissippi Valley; these terms are marked with an asterisk The word list has 1^ been gathered from printed and manuscript sources which range the entire Mississippi Valley-from the Allegheny Mountains to the Rockies, from the Great Lakes to :ahe Gulf Much use has been made of Canadian works, because a majority of the French people of the central part of the valley I I and a considerable portion of the Louisiana French were Cana- dian m origin. I have set the years 1673-1850 as approximate limits because that spread of time represents the period when . J^renclimen were most active in the Mississippi Valley The plan |. of the glossary is simple. _ All words have been placed m one alphabetical order, ; with the most common spelling fol- lowed by variants. ! When a word is clearly borrowed from the PREFACE Indian, I have next placed the abbreviation "Ind." Then follows the customary abbreviation to show the part of speech. The definition is given, whenever possible, in a single word. For all words of unusual meaning I have cited the authority of region- al dictionaries or have added illustrative passages from travel books and documents to show the particular sense in which the word was used. For terms descriptive of customs I have named sources where the reader will find much fuller accounts than I have had space for. For those standard but often misused words included I give the definition without citation of authority, for they are to be found in Littre. Except for words of these last two classes, current or standard uses of entries have not been mentioned. The documentation I have made as simple and useful as pos- sible. The four studies which I have used most frequently I have referred to only by the surnames of the authors (Clapin, Read, Ditchy, Dorrance). In citing other works I have used the author's last name and a brief title. Every source mentioned is fully identified in the "Sources Consulted" that follows the word list. This list of sources (which is not intended to be a bibliography on the French language in America) I have ar- ranged in one alphabetical order, because in that form it is more conveniently useful than if it were split into several classified groups. I wish to express my gratitude for the assistance given me by many persons and institutions. The Library of Washington University, the Missouri Historical Society, and the Mercantile Library of Saint Louis have been particularly kind in the use permitted me of their collections. The Kansas City Public Li- brary and the Stanford University Library have made special loans of rare books. The National Youth Administration and Washington University have provided me with a typist. Pro- fessors William Roy Mackenzie of Washington University and William Cabell Greet of Columbia University have given me considerable encouragement in my work. Professors Ralph P. Bieber and Bateman Edwards of Washington University, and Miss Stella M. Drumm, Librarian of the Missouri Historical So- ciety, have been kind enough to read my manuscript critically PREFACE and to make valuable suggestions concerning its organization and the scope of its word list. Professors Richard F. Jones, Bernard Weinberg, and Bruce A. Morrissette, and Dean F. W. Shipley have given time and assistance which I much appreciate. To Miss Annie Louise Carter, Miss Elizabeth Treeman, and Miss Alice E. Sellinger I am indebted for reading proofs. John Francis McDermott Washington University- Saint Louis 23 May 1941 Vll I CONTENTS PAGE Preface v Introduction 1 Glossary ! 13 Sources Consulted 149 INTRODUCTION Cajeu, cerne, mitas, prelat, habitant, sauvage, cotonnier, voi- ture, brulot, gourde, and assolat^ were all words in common use among the Mississippi Valley French between 1673 and 1850; yet several of them are not to be found in Littre's DictioiiTiaire de la Langue Frangaise, and for the others the meanings given in Littre are almost all quite unsatisfactory for local use. Imagine being confronted, in the inventory of an estate, with the infor- mation that an opulent French trader at Saint Louis owned two grands Prelats valued at fifty livres each, an old Prelat worth half as much, and another mechant Prelat of no value whatso- ever—a strange state of religious affairs that must seem. How astonished a Parisian would have been to hear one morning that his voiture had broken loose from its moorings and was float- ing down the river! It would not have consoled him to be told that a quickly made cajeu would carry him across the river where for a few gourdes he could readily obtain a pirogue. There were difficulties in the language for the eighteenth cen- tury Parisian traveling in America to satisfy his curiosity as well as there are for the present-day student of men and manners in the early West. Words and phrases now misleading, obsolete, or obscure, words with a local meaning distant from that of Standard French, and words which were actually new word-stock confronted them both. Although the French used by educated people in the Mississippi Valley was as good as that spoken in any other place, the conditions of the new life obviously called for an extension of the vocabulary. The many races and nation- alities in the great territory—Canadian, Indian, Spanish, Negro, West Indian, Louisiana French, and the French of France—all contributed to Mississippi Valley French. The new fauna and flora, as well as new occupations, made necessary additional words and extended the meaning of old ones. 1 All French words cited in this introduction will be found in the diction- ary that follows; it is unnecessary, therefore, to document them here. 2 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY FRENCH One considerable influence on the French vocabulary in the Mississippi Valley was that of Canada. Within a century after the founding of Quebec, settlements of Canadian French were growing up in the Illinois Country at Cahokia and Kaskaskia, and not many more years passed before the villages of Fort Chartres, Prairie du Rocher, Saint Philippe, and Vincennes were peopled from Canada. Sainte Genevieve drew its population from its parent town, Kaskaskia. Saint Louis, founded by a French- man of France, acquired its inhabitants largely from the old villages of the eastern part of the Illinois Country or from Canada. The militia lists for Saint Louis in 1780 show the diver- sity of population in the district and the preponderance of Canadians : one man was born in Spain, two were Italians, three Americans, seven were from New Orleans, twenty-four from France, forty-eight from the Illinois, and one hundred and twenty-nine from Canada.^ Louisiana, as well, owed much to the Canadians. The province and its principal towns.