"Inoka" David Costa, a linguist specializing in the Miami dialect of the Miami-Illinois language, the language of a native Algonquian people of Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa. In a paper posted to the web in 2007 he disavowed an earlier 2000 work1 and says that not only that work but "virtually all analyses of the name ‘Illinois’ offered over the past 300 years are in fact wrong." This includes all his previous scholarly work. He says that———————————————————— Abstract: David Costa says "virtually all analyses of the name ‘Illinois’ offered over the past 300 years are in fact wrong." This includes the documentation found in hundreds of pages of dozens of early missionary documents. What Costa does consider valid are two words, "In8ca" and "inoca," found in an obscure anonymous unpublished manuscript he calls "a messy jumble of data" with many errors and scribbling by someone "just learning the language" and/or in a couple of subsequent manuscripts based on it. From these two words he made up the hypothetical construct "*Inoka," (the apostrophe indicates it is a hypothetical construct) which he usually just spells "Inoka" as if it were a proper name used in vernacular speech. "Inoka" or "*Inoka" never appeared in print until the twenty-first century.———————————————————— from the three surviving dictionaries of the Illinois language, it is clear that the Illinois called themselves ‘Inoka’ (see Costa 2000: 46), a name of unknown etymology."Inoka" does not appear in any of the three original dictionaries Costa mentions or in the Jesuit Relations or any other early historical records archived on the web."Inoka" is not mentioned in the index to the Jesuit Relations beginning in Volume 72 and continuing in Volume 73 of that series. Costa's 2000 paper lists occurrences of the "Miami-Illinois name exactly as found in the original records," but that list does not include "Inoka." He does, however, offer inoka, along with irenweewa, iinoka, inooka, iinooka, inohka, iinohka, inoohka and iinoohka as possible pronunciations for "Illinois."
Taken at face value, there is nothing startling about this statement. It would not be surprising to find out that a people had more than one name for themselves. But what Costa means is that from the three dictionaries of the Illinois language, it is clear that the Illinois never called themselves "Illinois."
He documents very unmistakably that Illinois is a language; "Illinois" is a term that "literally means ‘he speaks in the regular way, the ordinary way’" But he says, the Illinois were not among the people who spoke that language, the Illinois language. Moreover, he offers endless theorizing about spelling to argue that when the word "Illinois" is used to refer to "the men" — that is, to the people or culture — that use was never by the Illinois themselves.
It gets worse.
Consider the validity of his statement that "from the three surviving dictionaries of the Illinois language, it is clear that the Illinois called themselves ‘Inoka.’"
"Inoka" does not appear in any of the three original dictionaries Costa mentions or in the Jesuit Relations or any other early history posted on the web. Costa's 2000 paper lists occurrences of the "Miami-Illinois name exactly as found in the original records," but that list does not include "Inoka." He does, however, offer inoka, along with irenweewa, iinoka, inooka, iinooka, inohka, iinohka, inoohka and iinoohka as possible pronunciations for "Illinois."
In any event, Costa does not offer any explanation or cite any specific references for the source of this expression. It is only in the end notes to the 2007 paper that he spells the expression "*Inoka," using the apostrophe to indicate that the expression is a hypothetical construct. In other words, Costa made it up. And so what he means about "Inoka" is not that it actually or explicitly appears in any historical or scholarly records — that would be mere folklore — but that the word he made up is "inferred" or "indicated" by those records to the exclusion of their explicit content and meaning.
(It should be noted that the expression should be written either in lower case italics to denote that it is a reconstructed "phonemicized form" or with the apostrophe to indicate it is a hypothetical construct, but Costa often simply spells "Inoka" to make it look like a proper name used in vernacular speech.)
Costa offers no explanation of what it is about those early records that indicate that "Eriniouaj," "Irini8a," "Iliniouek," "Ilinioues," "Iliniouetz," "Illinois," "Aliniouek," "Alinioüek," "Ilinioüets," "Ilinioüetz," "Ilinois," "Ilinoues," "Illuni," "Irini," "Irinions," "Iriniouek," and "Islinois" (and more) were pronounced "Inoka."
He offers no suggestion of why some expression he made up, "Inoka," negates 300 years of sound, mainstream, highly respected scholarship. It might be noted that he often makes a similar argument about "In8ca" and "inoca." These two words are found in an obscure manuscript he calls "a messy jumble of data" with many errors and scribbling, probably by a group of Jesuit missionaries just "learning the language" and/or in a couple of subsequent manuscripts based on it. Neither word is found in the Jesuit Relations or any other early publication.
Make no mistake: it is almost certain we do not pronounce "Illinois" the same way those early Illinois people pronounced their name for themselves — any more than we pronounce "Miami" the same way the early Miami people did. Indeed, we probably do not pronounce "English" the way those early Old English speakers pronounced their name for themselves. And that is perhaps an interesting point (but perhaps not terribly), but it does not mean English is not English or not a word that is used.
But a similar contention is Costa's whole approach to linguistics. He lives in a world of hypothetical constructs and theoretical phonetic forms derived from endless theorizing about details of spelling. There were, of course, no rules of spelling or standardized spelling in these early records. Claude Allouez used the spelling "IlimoucK" (the editor corrected it to "Iliniouek") in one sentence and "Ilinioüetz" in the next. The English translation of that record spelled it "Iliniouek" in the first sentence and "Iliniouetz" in the next.
Incidentally, "Allouez" was also spelled "Alloues," "Alloez," Aloes," "Aloez," "Aloues," and "Daloes" in these early records.
There is absolutely nothing to be gained by discussing Costa's disparagement of people like Marquette, Joliet, Hennepin, Charlevoix and Nicollet — indeed, the kind of people we name cities and counties and universities after — and the centuries of very respected scholars who confirmed the foundations those early scholars laid. It is probably equally futile to review the large body of knowledge that documents as explicitly and unmistakably as possible that names like "Erinioiaj" or "Ilinois" were the Ilinois people's name for themselves. (See an index of Jesuit Relations documentation.)
Such exercises would merely be "feeding the troll" in today's Internet jargon.
It is important, however, to note how history and scholarship suffers when this kind of groundless, looney, off-the-wall hypothesizing is allowed to be treated at all seriously.
Because it is inevitable, of course, that this kind of imaginary derivative scholarship will be skewed toward whatever is "way cool," whatever makes the biggest splash on on the 'net or perhaps even in the press. That is what Costa and his colleague Michael McCafferty have done with great flair and enthusiasm. They have hypothesized "Des Moines" into a dirty joke, and manufactured a whole body of bogus, erroneous history to support their joke.
But that is another paper.
Notes
1Costa, David. "Miami-Illinois Tribe Names. In John Nichols, ed., Papers of the Thirty-first Algonquian Conference, 30-53. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 2000.
Document Info
This document: http://www.illinoisprairie.info/Inoka.htm
Referring document: http://www.illinoisprairie.info/Eriniouaj.htm
Home page: http://www.illinoisprairie.info
Author: Jim Fay
Posted on: 8/27/10
