Talk:Chipmunk

Name

On a name "chipmunk" was an Indian word, probably from the Algonquin languages; not onomatopoeic. Can anyone prove me right or wrong? Then again, if it was an Algonquin word, perhaps they took it from onomatopoeia.

That's right. "Chipmunk" comes from the Ojibwe word ajidamoo (pronounced approximately like "uh-jid-duh-mow"), which means "red squirrel." English speakers applied the name to chipmunks, and changed the name by analogy with the existing English words "chip" (probably also influenced by its vocalizations, but that's speculation on my part) and "mink". This is partly attested by the fact that it used to be spelled "chitmunk", anyway. See [1], [2], and [3], for example (the word may have been borrowed from the Southeastern dialect of Ojibwe, where the word is ajidamoonh, with a nasalized final vowel, as in French, which would explain the n in the English borrowing and in the sources I just gave, but that's more speculation on my part). I'm going to change the etymology given in the article. --Whimemsz 04:56, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Close. The word for "red squirrel" in the Anishinaabe language is indeed ajidamoo, but the word "chipmunk" in English comes from the Odaawaa Language form for ajidamoo: jidmoonh. CJLippert 17:50, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

EDA program

there doesnt appear to be an entry for the EDA program "chipmunk" anyone care to add it to the disambiguation list?

Household pest

Chipmunks are listed on the list of common household pests. Information on how to get rid of them or otherwise dissuade them from scampering around inside the walls of a house should be added Pendragon39 16:04, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Recent revert conflict

I have objections with this edit for the following reasons. --Aranae 00:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

1. I'm not convinced the Giant Chipmunk (Tamias minor) is legitimate. Anyone have a reference? --Aranae 00:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
2. Image:Chipmunk 222.jpg - Species is not identified. Are we looking to encourage hand feeding of wild animals? The animal is not particularly visible. There are better images at commons than this. --Aranae 00:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
3. Image:Chipmunk 210.jpg - Species is not identified. If any should stay, it should be this one. --Aranae 00:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
4. Image:Chipmunk 254.jpg - Species is not identified. Poor quality image. This adds nothing to the article. --Aranae 00:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I note that the edit has been restored. Would you please explain why this information should be included? --Aranae 03:11

Activeness on College Campus

Recently I did a week long workshop at Frostburg State University in Western Maryland, I just would like to make note that I saw almost no squirrels there, but a high number of rabbits and even more so chipmunks, I was wondering if this possibly common on other campuses as well, as I read the Squirrel article and it mention the activity of squirrel's on Campuses I just figured it might be something that might want to be addressed on this page. Arkkeeper (talk) 16:16, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Recent images & reverts

i'm going to have to go with Mgiganteus on this -- the new images add little to the entry. one shows an obstructed view of a chipmunk in a cage, ironic given the admonition in the text below. the other is okay and all but, again, is a little blurry, not bad, but not really contriuting to the article overall. note that each of the photos aside from the one in the taxobox refer to nearby text! reverting. - Μετανοιδ (talk, email)

Taxonomy

I intend to update the Wikipedia article to add the genera Neotamias and Eutamias recognized by molecular work by Piaggio and Spicer (2000, 2001) and reconfirmed by Banbury and Spicer (2007).Strawmd (talk) 17:05, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Chipmunk on hand

I feel that the description of the chipmunk on the hand is a little deceptive. I do not believe the hand was included in the photograph soley for size comparison, and was instead only included due to selfish reasons expressed by the photographer (the photographer wanting to interact with the chipmunk due to humans strong desire to form inter-species relationships espically with the small mammals). 219.90.192.25 (talk) 03:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Rodents

This is a notice to inform interested editors of a new WikiProject being proposed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Rodents --ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 02:05, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Edit request from 124.149.37.121, 4 April 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} Please fix spelling in link text by changing

arder hoarding and scatter hoarding

to

larder hoarding and scatter hoarding

(ie arder -> larder) 124.149.37.121 (talk) 12:33, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the suggestion. Ucucha 12:46, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Split

We needn't slavishly follow the 5-year-old Mammal Species of the World, and scientists like Guy Musser has supported the split of Tamias [4], which is based on each of the chipmunk groups being at least as distinct as any of the other genera of the Marmotini. I also doubt that most taxonomies over the past century have followed the one-genus taxonomy from what older books I've seen, but I have no reason to believe the opposite either. —innotata 18:30, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Chipmonk or chipmunk in earliest sources

I'm aware of the nuances of original research, and I don't get why you'd call my reference to this Google Books listing OR:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22chipmunk%22&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1,cd_min:1800,cd_max:1834&lr=lang_en

I've just eliminated the words "catalogued in Google Books" and turned the link into a reference, which it certainly is. I hope that sets your mind at ease. I suppose one could make separate references for each of the individual books, but that would merely be cumbersome. I don't think an efficient reference to a group of sources is OR--any more than, say, a reference to a Google NGRAM graph would be, even though it accumulates data from innumerable sources. And contrary to what you claimed in your edit summary, almost all of the books listed are clearly scans of the original 1820s and 1830s books. I'm guessing the second one caught your eye, but it's an exception. Jbening (talk) 00:42, 20 May 2011 (UTC)