Note 136 — SENECA FICTION, LEGENDS, AND MYTHS (continued 9)

Ganyodaes for Skăniōʹdaes or Tkăniōʹdaes is a proper name. The prefixed s-sound has an intensive force that is characteristic of descriptive appellatives; it denotes a marked degree of the quality or property named by the adjective or a noteworthy proficiency in the action stated by some verbs; with nouns it connotes the meanings, “large,” “important,” or “noted.” Hence, Skăniōʹdaes signifies, “It is a very long lake,” or idiomatically, “It is the well-known long lake.” The prefixed t-sound in Tkăniōʹdaes is the affix t or ti of remote place, meaning approximately, “there,” “yonder,” and it is applied to sentence words of the second and third persons. So Tkăniōʹdaes means, literally, “There it-lake long (is),” or freely, “There where the long lake (is).”