curiously enough, with a slight change in pronunciation or suffixion they also mean "man" and "Indian."
ALGONQUIAN
The Algonquian languages, which are among the most thoroughly studied of all the North American tongues, yield many curious instances of the intention of the natives to convey the equivalent of "genuine." The two words chiefly used by them in this sense are lénia or léni, and iníni; both are etymologically identical, with the phonetic change from l to n, and both stand for "man" and for "genuine" with their various synonyms.
Peoria, Miami.—Among the Indians formerly settled in Illinois' and Indiana, léni, läni, is the word for "real," "genuine," and lä′nia for "man," "male," and "Indian." But the Shawnee, whose ancient home was farther eastward from Mississippi river, use hiléni for all the above terms. In Peoria and Miami läni kú‘sia is "muskrat," i.e., "the real mouse" or "the genuine rat"; léni mahuéwa, "prairie-wolf," literally, "the genuine wolf," or, more accurately, "the genuine jacal." Lenapízha or Länapízhia is a mythologic name sometimes applied to persons and totemic clans. It is interpreted "whale," "monster," "water-monster," and designates any large animal. The Lenapizha is said to live in the water and to become visible only when lightning strikes a lake or river. A literal rendering of the name is "the real tiger," for pízhi is identical with the Ojibwe bishiw, pīzhiu, "wildcat," "tiger," "tiger-cat," and would apply also to the cougar of Central America and South America. The term for "right," as opposite to "left," also contains léni; the Miami say länadshónshi anekí, "right hand." The form iníni is represented in Peoria, Miami, and other dialects also, but not as a substantive; it is the demonstrative pronoun "that one," "that," referring to distance (hine in Shawnee), whereas uníni is "this one," "this here," close to the speaker.
Shawnee.—The Sháwanoa or Shawnee dialect of Algonquian
