Talk:sassaquoi

Etymology
The etymology is given as "possibly from English sasquatch", but that seems speculative at best.

The sense "war-cry" is most likely connected to the older North American French sacacoua, which is borrowed from an undetermined Algonquin language. It appeared in a 1705 issue of Mercure Gallant (possibly onomatopoeic) describing the war-cry of a Native American group: "Les Sauvages appellent ce cris Sakakoua, ou cris de mort, autant de cris, autant de personnes tuées ou ausquelles ils ont enlevé la chevelure ; ils font aussi le Sacacoua lorsqu’ils ont enveloppé leurs ennemis, soit dans les bois, soit sur des lacs & des rivieres. Ce cri se fait en frappant legerement de la paume de la main & prononçant le mot susdit.' — )"

That same meaning (with a few variant spellings) is found in Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch und Hilfswörterbuch für den Amerikanisten (1960), again attributed to an unspecified Algonquin language.

The sense "noise, racket" seems derivative of the earlier "war-cry" meaning and is the primary definition given in Dictionnaire étymologique des créoles français d'Amérique, Deuxième partie: Mots d'origine non-française ou inconnue (2016), but with the speculative origin as a derivation of the French phrase "ça c'est quoi?" It also notes a secondary definition (imposing and noisy person) that is similar to the "big fellow" sense here. It's possible that English "sasquatch" contributed to that meaning or it could be a homophone. —Tcr25 (talk) 19:37, 30 May 2022 (UTC)