Re: onomatopoetic animal sounds

The Gray Wizard wrote:

> > From: J Matthew Pearson
> >
> > Tokana used to have an onomatopoetic word for cat, namely "miua"
> > [miwa], but then I banished cats, and so the word no longer exists.
>
> Banished cats?  And I so liked the Tokana.  But a world without cats, oh my!
It's nothing personal--against you or against cats.  But I wanted the Tokana to
know only the flora and fauna that a native American society with no contact
with the Old World would know about.  The native Americans in our timeline
didn't domesticate cats, and so neither did the Tokana.

Actually, I've contemplated introducing a loophole.  The Tokana belong to a vast
trading network which extends up and down the Pacific coast from Alaska to the
tip of the Baja Peninsula, whence it connects up with other trading networks
extending down into Mesoamerica and points south.  It was through this trade
network that the Tokana acquired llamas from South America (approximately 100
years before the fictional present).

But suppose the northern reach of this trade network had extended across the
Bering Strait to Siberia and points south.  If so, then perhaps the Tokana could
have acquired cats (and even pigs or horses) from East Asia.  But somehow I
don't think that's really feasible.  I can't think of any economic benefit the
East Asian traders might have had in bringing cats or pigs or horses on the long
boat journey along the northern Pacific rim.  (By contrast, the Tokana acquired
llamas after centuries of diffusion:  The South Americans introduced them to the
Mesoamericans, who started breeding them and eventually introduced them to the
Californian peoples, who then brought them north on overland trade expeditions.)

Matt.

Reply