Picard's methodology has three stages: establishing the sound correspondences between a source language (such as Proto-Algonkian) and a target language (such as Arapaho); exploiting the concept of naturalness in phonological change to the fullest in order to construct working hypotheses as to what the most likely historical processes could have been, and to determine in a nonarbitrary fashion which processes could have taken place simultaneously; and ordering these processes in accordance with the various feeding, bleeding, counterfeeding, and counterbleeding relations that exist between a...

This dictionary contains data not only on the origins of French surnames in Quebec and Acadia, a great many of which eventually spread to many parts of North America, but also on those which arrived in the United States directly from various French-speaking European and Caribbean countries. In addition to providing the etymology of the original surnames, it also lists the multifarious variants that have developed over the last four centuries. A unique feature of this work in comparison to other onomastics dictionaries is the inclusion of genealogical information on most of the Francophone...