Language Police Attack The Name, "Squaw"
"This word is one of the earliest borrowed into the English language from the native languages of North America," he told me the other day. "It was actually first attested in 1622 in writings that come out of the Plymouth colony of Massachusetts. . .
. It was understood to be the Indian word, in the local Indian language, for woman, and it was always used that way for all the early historical period."
Wonder if anyone else (besides some Native Americans) didn't know this? Amazing what a little research will clear up.
posted by HCL at 7:55 PM
