Shuswap

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An Indigenous nation of the interior of British Columbia, Canada, also called the Secwépemc ; the Salishan language spoken by that nation ; a large lake in south-central British Columbia
2. A First Nations people living in the interior of British Columbia, Canada, known in their own tongue as the Secwépemc ; the Salish language historically spoken by that people ; a lake in south-central British Columbia
3. The Indigenous group of the Canadian interior whose name comes from their homeland region ; the Salishan tongue used by that group ; a body of water in south-central British Columbia named after the same people

Etymology: The Shuswap are an Indigenous people of the Interior Plateau of British Columbia, Canada, and "Shuswap" is the English form of their own name for themselves, "Secwepemc" (pronounced roughly "sek-WEP-emk"). The name is a Salishan word, and the Shuswap language belongs to the Interior Salish branch of the Salish family. Early European traders and explorers, working through the Canadian fur trade in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, recorded a variety of spellings of the name, and the form "Shuswap" came to be standard in English. The name is closely tied to the place it refers to. Shuswap Lake, in the southern interior of British Columbia, and the Shuswap region around it take their names from the people, and the people's territory has long centred on the rivers and lakes of that area. Because the English word was a rendering of a sound from another language rather than a coinage with an English meaning, it carries no sense beyond the name of the people, the language, and the lands associated with them.