Origin and history of patten

region at the southern extremity of South America, with -ia + Patagon, name given by Europeans to the Tehuelche people who inhabited the coasts of the region, sometimes said to mean literally "large-foot," from Spanish and Portuguese pata "paw, animal foot" (see patten) in reference to the people's llama-skin shoes. But elsewhere said to be from Patagon, name of a dog-headed monster in the prose romance "Amadís de Gaula" (1508) by Garci Ordóñez de Montalvo (which also might have yielded California). Related: Patagonian.

"a provincial dialect, a dialect peculiar to a district or locality," especially among the uneducated classes, 1640s, from French patois "native or local speech" (13c.), a word of uncertain origin, probably from Old French patoier "handle clumsily, to paw," from pate "a paw," from Vulgar Latin *patta (see patten), in other words, a "clumsy" manner of speaking. Compare French pataud "properly, a young dog with big paws, then an awkwardly built fellow" [Brachet]. Especially in reference to Jamaican English from 1934.