Talk:Palouse people

Is Palus a Sahaptian word, or of French origin?
The usual etymology for Palouse is that it's from la pelouse, meaning a grassland in French, this being the language of the bulk of the HBC and NWC employees who were the first European-connected outsiders to traverse the region (I use European connected because many HBC employees, though speaking French as a lingua franca within the company, were of aboriginal origin from the Prairies and beyond). Is "Palus" just a "nativized" version of Palouse, or is there an actual Sahaptian etymology here. If so, could someone also explain how it is that the French term for grassland is so darned close, and why it is that English (and French) speakers adopted the Palus name for this region? It should be noted that the Cayuse, Nez Perce, Pend d'Oreille and many other tribes in the area were not known by their native names (in fact, the Cayuse name for the Cayuse people and language is AFAIK completely forgotten); likewise the Nootka, Kwakiutl, Bella Coola, Shuswap, Kootenai and more (here given in their English names). So how was it that a native word for a native people became translated to a stretch of landscape? Or is it, as not said clearly in the opening paragraph, that Palouse is another form of the same word, and originally meant the prairie area around these parts, and then became applied to the people who lived there?Skookum1 09:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)


 * One other explanation is that it is a Sahaptian word meaning something sticking down in the water. The term is also mentioned in the journals of Lewis and Clark. One source for information is "Plateau: Key to Tribal Territories" in Handbook of North American Indians. V.12: Plateau Edited by Deward W. Walker, Jr. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1998. Pages 352-359 deal with the tribe. I will look it up today at work and see if I can find more. Another (semi)interesting word is Appaloosa, said to derive from the white settlers in the region calling them Palus horses. Robbie Giles 14:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Now that makes sense to me - "It's a Palousa" (with the -a provided by some American dialect trait).Skookum1 19:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Chipewyan people which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 09:45, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
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Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: dismabiguate. The consensus is that there is no primary topic for "Palus", so Palus is moved to Palus, Maharashtra, and Palus (disambiguation) is moved to Palus. The nominated article Palus people is not moved. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:59, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

– current title is for "a tehsil Sangli district in the Indian state of Maharashtra", hardly MOSTCOMMON for the use of this term in English (even in India, where this place is obscure). That page created Feb 20 2007 by Shivap. Palus (tribe) redirected to "Palus tribe" on Oct 26 2010 by kwami. moved to current title by myself on Jan 28 2011 citing "moving to generic "people" because of legal associations of "tribe" in the United States". I submit that the district in India is not the PRIMARYTOPIC and that page shoudl be changed and Palus become for the people article. "district of India" dab is a suggestion, there may be an extant format for Indian-from-India titles that would be better... Palus (Indian district) did not strike me as useful because of dual meaning of "Indian" in this context. Skookum1 (talk) 06:41, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Palus people → Palus
 * Palus → Palus (district of India)
 * Oppose 1st, Support 2nd - there is no primary here, move the Indian small town, then Palus (disambiguation) → Palus In ictu oculi (talk) 09:23, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * how a tiny, obscure district in India is anywhere near as potentially a primarytopic as this people is beyond me....and what you are suggesting means a WP:TWODABS dab page.Skookum1 (talk) 10:29, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Palus (disambiguation) is a FIFTEENDABS dab page, and "a tiny, obscure district in India" happens to have one of India's great classical singers born there, but that's not the point, it isn't a candidate for WP:PRIMARYTOPIC - there is no primary topic, as there usually isn't. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:37, 20 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose until the issue is addressed properly. These should be discussed at a centralized location.
 * There was a discussion once on whether the ethnicity should have precedence for the name, and it was decided it shouldn't. That could be revisited.  But it really should be one discussion on the principle, not thousands of separate discussions at every ethnicity in the world over whether it should be at "X", "Xs", or "X people".  — kwami (talk) 12:25, 20 March 2014 (UTC)


 * "These should be discussed at a centralized location." LOL that's funny I already tried that and got criticized for mis-procedure. Your pet guideline was never discussed at a central location nor even brought up with other affected/conflicting guidelines nor any relevant wikiprojects.  And as for "There was a discussion once on whether the ethnicity should have precedence for the name, and it was decided it shouldn't" that's fine to say about a discussion that you presided over on an isolated guideline talkpage that you didn't invite anyone but your friends into..... WP:ETHNICGROUPS is clear on the variability of "X", "Xs", or "X people" and says nothing being people mandatorily added as you rewrote your guideline to promote/enact.  It says quite the opposite; the CRITERIA page also says that prior consensus should be respected, and those who crafted it an attempt to contact them towards building a new consensus done; and calls for consistency within related topics which "we" long ago had devised the use of "FOO" and often "PREFERRED ENDONYM" (for Canada especially, where such terms are common English now and your pet terms are obsolete and in disuse and often of clearly racist origin e.g. Slavey people).  The crafters of the ethnicities and tribes naming convention (which your guideline violates) clearly respected our collective decisions/consensus from long ago re both standalone names without "people/tribe/nation/peoples" unless absolutely necessary and also re the use of endonyms where available; but when I brought it up in the RMs of last year you insulted and baited me and still lost.  Now you want a centralized discussion when you made no such effort yourself and were in fact dismissive about any such effort.  Pfft.  NCLANG fans like to pretend WP:OWNership on this issue, especially yourself as its author but that's a crock.  The way to "address this issue properly" is to examine all of these, but bulk of them needless directs from then-long-standing titles moved by yourself, one by one as I was instructed/advised re the bulk RMs; as case-by-case decisions are needed.  You want a centralized discussion, but never held one yourself.Skookum1 (talk) 12:54, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * In all fairness Kwami's undiscussed move (moved Talk:Palus (tribe) to Talk:Palus tribe) was not a move from a primary position here. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:27, 20 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. An identified people should be the primary topic of a term absent something remarkable standing in the way. bd2412  T 02:38, 22 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose - 1. Palus in Maharashtra is either a village or town, or it is a tehsil, also known as taluka or taluk. But it is not a district despite the dab notice on the page, the term district in India is clearly defined and in this case the taluka is part of Sangli district. So the rename needs to be investigated. Second, it would be useful to have some idea of the population of both the taluka and the Palus people to judge their significance - no definitiev figures leap out at me at a quick search, but its possible the original locality would itself exceed that of the Palus people. Third, the first reference I saw for the people is a National Geographic article which uses the term Palouse, which is used in WP for another geographic region. And incidentally, a taluka in India is neither tiny nor obscure. Imc (talk) 08:04, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Neutral on the first (at least for now), but support a move of Palus to Palus, Maharashtra (this would be the way to disambiguate it). There might be a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, but the place in India isn't it. --BDD (talk) 23:11, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose original request per in ictu oculi. While I take no position on any of the other recent RM concerning peoples, there is no clear primary topic for the term "Palus", and the disambiguation belongs at the base title.  Per BDD, moving the current content at Palus to Palus, Maharashtra is the logical choice also, so I support that suggestion. Xoloz (talk) 02:39, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose the first. I'll support either change for the second on the condition that a dab page is created at Palus.  I wonder how much we are missing in other cases do the the sheer number of requests that are probably not allowing ample time for editors to review these nominations.  I know that we missing important facts in some discussions, and many comments are the same on every discussion even if they are inappropriate by not considering the total uniqueness of every case. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:10, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, they are the same on many discussions, particularly your oppose votes claiming there is another PRIMARYTOPIC without ever substantiating that; this is the first post of yours in one of these discussions that wasn't a boilerplate objection like you've sown across dozens of others (most of which have been moved, despite your objection). You don't "know" you are missing important facts, you are only fielding that as yet another vague objection.  The reason the bulk of these RMs passed is because the moves were according to guidelines; in this case when I nominated the RM to move this back to its original title, which was "Palus" - the article on the Indian (in India) district was not yet "up"; a dab here is needed, but your comment about "missing important facts" is a non sequitur as all moves that were passed were so moved because the guidelines call for that, and in most cases, also, the viewstats and googles are compelling and the PRIMARYTOPIC is obvious; here it's not, even though the district in India is obscure probably even in Indian English.  The point of "Palus" in the original incarnation was to make the distinction from Palouse, as was done likewise with Yakama vs. Yakima and Spokan vs. Spokane people.  The RM at the former just passed, at the other it was closed/not moved yesterday.  "Oppose" votes with no substance should be ignored, but there's a tendency lately - incorrect - for closers to count votes quantitatively and not examine their validity.  BDD and Cuchalainn have been closing/moving titles because they examine the votes, and also pay attention to the guidelines cited by "support" votes and, of course, teh stats which demonstrate that 'missing important facts', as you allege, are on the side of the moves in question.Skookum1 (talk) 02:15, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Assessment comment
Substituted at 02:12, 30 April 2016 (UTC)