[Fictionary] hatchets across the world

[Jean-Joseph Cote]

Pierre Abbat wrote:
> I just found a Nahuatl word of Japanese origin, "gadana", which refers to a 
> cutting weapon. Another word for a cutting tool that has traveled far 
> is "tamiok", a Tok Pisin word from Algonquian. Is there something about words 
> for big cutting tools that makes them want to travel around the world?
>
> Pierre
>   
Although it may have made it into Tok Pisin, the word has not survived 
that well into modern American English.  A year or so ago, I was having 
dinner with four kids aged 11 to 17 (one boy, three girls), and somehow 
the word "tomahawk" came up.  Not a single one of them showed any sign 
of recognition at all.  The word might as well have been Tok Pisin, or 
Algonquian.  These kids are all ballet dancers, and maybe they just 
didn't play enough Cowboys'n'Injuns growing up, but I suspect that 
nobody does that any more at all, and there are few westerns on TV these 
days, either.

Jean-Joseph