Algonquian

Note: The form Algoumequin, from which Algonquain (1632) and later Algonquin is usually taken to be contracted, was first used by Samuel de Champlain in 1603, recording a meeting with a large group of Indians at the mouth of the Saguenay River: "Ils estoient trois nations quand ils furent à la guerre, les Estechemins, Algoumequins, & Montagnes, au nombre de mille …" ("They were three nations when they were at war, the Estechemins, the Algoumequins, and the Montagnes, altogether a thousand …"; Des sauvages, ou, Voyage de Samuel Champlain, de Brouage, fait en la France nouvelle, l'an mille six cens trois [Paris, 1603], pp. 5-6.) The etymology given above was suggested by Gordon M. Day in "The Name 'Algonquin'," International Journal of American Linguistics, vol. 38, no. 4 (October, 1972), pp. 226-28. Day gives the angle-bracketed transcription [ɛlægómogwik]; the transcription elakómkwik is used in the Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 15, Northeast (Washington, D.C., 1978), p. 792—presumably elehkomoqik in the orthography of the online Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Dictionary, from the changed conjunct stem elakum- "be related to." Day dismisses the Micmac etymology algoomaking "at the place of spearing fish and eels" suggested by J.N.B. Hewitt, on, among other reasons, the grounds that no Micmacs were present when Champlain met the group of Indians at the Saguenay River.