Sunday, December 16, 2012

How Saskatchewan got its name.

Saskatchewan is Canada's fifth largest province. It takes its name from the Saskatchewan river. Legend has it that Saskatchewan means 'swift flowing river' in the Cree Indian language.

My take: Saskatchewan is a prarie province with more than 50% forest land. The -wan suffix in the name seems of Sanskrit origin. Van in Sanskrit means forest which kind of fits the profile of the land. Further, 'Kutch' in Sanskrit means 'island' and 'sas' cues 'six'. So Saskatchewan means 'the forest with six islands'. My view is the six islands in reference are the six great tribes - Algonquins (Algonquin), Atikameks (Atikamekw), Cree (Cree), Inuit (Inuktitut), Montagnais (Innu), and Naskapi (Naskapi). The only way to nail this hypothesis is to study the connection between the Cree language and Sanskrit.

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