Show origin of yankee doodle Is traced to dutch words meaning little johns toot tool for all our american pride and pleasure in the song yankee doodle neither the origin of the nor the derivation of the two words in the title has ever been determined ter mined with certainty so harold davis dayis reminds us in a recent issued issue ot american n speech mr davis reviews the various arguments and shows that any number of derivations have been suggested but the real purpose of his article is to make known some nelv new evidence I 1 J it seems that there were recently discovered in the basement of the calais free library in calais maine 42 diary notebooks which once belonged to james S pike this pike was a versatile fellow having been a famous newspaper correspondent and american minister to holland from 1861 to 1868 1866 in one of these notebooks was found a draft of a letter written from holland to in 1864 to the ed of the boston advertiser this letter reports on pikes investigation into yankee yanked doodle and a most enjoyable letter it la is here we can only give you d a summary un unary ya akee 1 pike said quite likely came from jantje jan meaning little john Johm doodle probably came from 1 doe doddel do edel delt which the dutch used as a part of their description of a scotch bagpipe liag pipe it meant toot thus pike found the ori origins gilis ot of yankee doodle in the dutch jantje jan diedel meaning little johns toot from The Pleasures of i Publish publishing inC columbia sity press |