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[N.B.:  If you don't have time to read through this long and complicated post, cut to the "Closing note" at the bottom.]

Lately when I do Google searches, especially on obscure and challenging subjects, AI Overview leaps into the fray and takes precedence at the very top, displacing Wikipedia down below, and even Google's own responses, which have been increasingly frequent in recent months, are pushed over to the top right.

AI Overview, on first glance, seems convenient and useful, but — when I start to dig deeper, I find that there are problems.  As an example, I will give the case of the name of the Snake River, and maybe mention a few other instances of AI Overview falling short, but still being swiftly, though superficially, helpful.

I'm in Boise ID, scouting out my route westward for the next month.

As I was scrutinizing the maps, my eye kept focusing on the Tri-Cities (Pasco, Richland, and Kennewick [about which I will likely have more to say in a future communication]) area of Washington state, trying to figure out why that minor conurbation developed there in the hinterland.  Finally, I realized that it's probably because of its location at the confluence of three significant rivers:  the Columbia, the Yakima, and the Snake.

Then I started to think, how did the Snake get all the way over in south central Washington State, when I've been following it for hundreds of miles to the southeast in Idaho?  Tracing its path, I see that "snake" is indeed an apt name for that amazing river, though it's probably not the true etymology, which I shall write about below.  The Snake River twists and turns through the mountains and high plains mimicking, for me, the movements of its erstwhile namesake.  It's an amazing phenomenon of nature, carving spectacular canyons and deep gorges in the land as it wends its way, leaving in its wake impressive falls and cascades.

I wanted to see if the Snake got its name from its super-sinuous movement throughout the mountainous terrain.  Naturally, I looked it up on Google ("Why is it called the Snake River"), and right away up popped AI Overview:

The Snake River is named after the Shoshone people, who lived along the river's banks and used a hand sign that European explorers misinterpreted as a snake. The sign actually represented swimming fish and meant "the people who live near the river with many fish".

The Snake River has also been called by other names, including: Lewis River, Great Snake River, Shoshone River, Saptin River, and Yam-pah-pa River.

I just noticed this sentence at the bottom of the AI Overview:  "Generative AI is experimental."

Contrast the AI Overview answer with this from Wikipedia:

The river's modern name comes from a misunderstanding of the Shoshone Tribal Sign in PISL [Plains Indian Sign Language]. The Plains Indians referred to the Shoshone people as "Snake People", while the Shoshone are believed to have referred to themselves as "People of the River of Many Fish". However, the Shoshone sign for "salmon" was the same or similar to the Plains Indian common sign for "snake."  The English name for the river was likely derived from this interpretation of the hand gesture, although it is uncertain when the name was first used.

Not very satisfying.  Wikipedia usually does a better job with its etymologies (see, e.g., the "Appendix").

While we're at it, and nothing seems very definitive yet, we'll run through some other accounts of how the Snake River got its name, especially since some of them have interesting linguistic aspects.  Here, by a man who has lived the Snake for more than four decades, Dave Hansen Whitewater:

Still a lot of surmises, so now we turn to the Idaho State Historical Society, whose Reference Series, Number 38 (February 1964) begins thus:

The Snake River is named for the Snake Indians, through whose country the greater part of the river flows. The Indians, in turn, were named "Snake" by their Plains neighbors to the east, possibly because they reputedly used snake heads painted on sticks to terrify their Plains enemies. (At least the Blackfeet on upper Bow River reported finding such Shoshoni snake sticks in about 1784.) Or possibly the sign employed to designate the Snake Indians in conventionalized sign language—a snake-like motion—may have suggested the name to the Plains Indian. In any event, the name used to identify the Snake Indians in various Plains Siouan languages was the word for snake or rattlesnake. The French picked up the name from the Plains Indians, and the British, in turn, translated it from the French.

Although it comes from the Idaho State Historical Society, this convoluted explanation is not satisfying to me.

A Tri-Cities radio station (10/10/23) has a record of an earlier version of Wikipedia that gives an even more whimsical explanation of the Shoshone sign language for the river:

It would have been so much more helpful if the many European explorers who passed through this region had asked the Shoshone or other tribes who lived along the Snake how they said its name in their spoken language.  As a matter of fact, we already apparently do have this datum, and that is David Thompson's 1800 [more likely 1811 — see below] "Shawpatin" (probable contraction "Saptin")*.  I put it as a task for Native American language specialists to interpret what that means (but see the Appendix).

Enough for the Snake River (for now; I may find additional information as I continue to follow its serpentine path through the mountains).

My brother and his partner were blessed to have lived for years not far from the Tri-Cities area in Walla Walla.  Let's see what AI Overview has to say about the origin of its unusual-sounding name:

The name "Walla Walla" comes from a Nez Perce word that means "place of many waters" or "running waters":

Every time I look up "Walla Walla" on Google –> AI Overview, I get slightly different answers, so I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the one given above.

History Link.org:

On November 17, 1859, Walla Walla County commissioners name the town that has grown up around the U.S. military Fort Walla Walla.  They elect to name the town Walla Walla. The town begins with a rich history, which includes Native North Americans, fur traders, missionaries, soldiers, and pioneers.  Walla Walla's earliest businesses are raising cattle and supplying the fort.  The town will be incorporated and become the county seat in 1862.  A gold rush followed by a growing agricultural industry will help Walla Walla become the largest city in Washington Territory by 1880.  During the twentieth century, Walla Walla will continue to develop as an agricultural center for various crops, including wheat, onions, apples, peas, and wine grapes.

The Time before the Town

“Walla Walla” was a Nez Perce name given to one of the indigenous groups who lived in what is now the Walla Walla Valley.  The name means “running waters” or, more specifically, the place where a small stream runs into a larger one.  A number of rivers flow across the valley into the Walla Walla River and join the Columbia River.  In addition to the Walla Wallas, native North American groups who lived in this area included the Nez Perce, the Cayuses, and Umatillas.  In 1806, the Lewis and Clark expedition camped near the mouth of the “Wallahwollah river” on the Columbia and encountered the “honest and friendly … Wallah wallahs.”

I do scores, maybe hundreds, of Google searches every day.  It is increasingly evident that AI Overview is doing more and more of the heavy lifting in replying to such routine searches, but also daring to take on esoteric topics as well.  When responding to my queries, AI Overview does something cute before spewing out its responses — a flashing nanosecond whirl akin to cogitation, while formulating (putting / pulling together) what it is going to tell me.  A cosmic dance.  Utterly fascinating.

Closing note

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics (mind you!) went to two scientists, John J Hopfield (a physicist most widely known for his study of associative neural networks in 1982) and Geoffrey E Hinton (computer scientist, cognitive scientist, cognitive psychologist, known for his work on artificial neural networks which earned him the title as the "Godfather of AI"), for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.  The laureates themselves were astonished to hear the news that they were the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics.  That tells you something about where we're headed.

Selected readings

• "The unreasonable hilarity of recurrent neural networks" (5/21/17)
• "Generative linguistics and neural networks at 60" (11/13/17)
• "AI encroachments" (7/21/23)

Appendix

Here, on "Sahaptin language (Name)", is a good example of Wikipedia showing its stuff (with plenty of footnotes [omitted from this post]).

Sahaptin is typically known as Ichiskiin in its various dialects. In the Yakama dialect, it is called Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit, spelled variously Ichishkíin, Íchishkin, Íchishkink, or Chishkíin. In the Umatilla dialect, it is called Čiškíin or Ičiškíin.

The words Sahaptin, Shahaptin, and Sahaptian are derived from the Columbia-Moses name for the Nez Perce, sħáptənəxʷ. Cognates appear in other Interior Salishan languages, such as Okanagan sʕaptnx 'Nez Perce' or Spokane saʕáptni 'Nez Perce', indictating the ancient age of the ethnonym. The name Sahaptin has also been spelled "Shahaptin", "Sahapten", "Shahaptian", and "Shawpatin".

The first usage of the word "Sahaptin" dates to 1811, in the journal of fur trader David Thompson, who wrote of the "Chief of all the Shawpatin Tribes", referring to the Nez Perce. At the time, "Sahaptin" (and variants) was used to refer to the Nez Perce, while "Walla Walla" was used to refer to the Sahaptin-speaking peoples. Alexander Ross visited a large camp on the Walla Walla River later that year, identifying "the Walla-Wallas, the Shaw Haptens, and the Cajouses". In 1844, Horatio Hale wrote of the "Sahaptin or Nez-Perces" language and the "Walawala" language. At the same time, the Snake River was also sometimes called the Sahaptin River, because it led from the Columbia River to the country of the Nez Perce.

In the 1960s, the name "Sahaptin" was used by linguists, but it was rare for Sahaptin speakers to even be aware of the term. Most speakers used the terms Ichishkínk (Yakama) or Chishkín (Walla Walla and Umatilla), which mean literally "in this way/manner"

October 10, 2024 @ 10:26 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Artificial intelligence, Etymology, Language on the internets, Toponymy

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