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<DIV></DIV>>klahowya,
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<DIV></DIV>>it has been suggested by Rigsby, in his Ph.d diss, that 'nine' has an early Pre-Sahaptin form
<DIV></DIV>>[c'imiskt] and a borrowed form originating from Chinookan such as Wishram [k'wis] and Lower Chinook
<DIV></DIV>>[kuist]. the borrowed Chinookan form appears to be restricted only to Umatilla-Sahaptin and for Nez
<DIV></DIV>>Perce.
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<P>What I'm curious about here is why it's only 'nine' that was borrowed; why not more obvious numbers like one, two, five, or ten? Chinook Jargon has a decimal counting system; do original Chinook(an) and Nootka and others as well, or might this be a Euro-culture import? St'at'imcets uses a base-10 system _now_, using what seems to be the Jargon's conjunction 'pe' to form numeric compounds (e.g. kump pe pala' = eleven) but maybe someone knows if the -pe- formation is older than colonization. It's worth noting here that English began with a base-12 counting system, which was shared by other Germanic and European languages and is why there are special words for eleven, twelve, etc. Are there any NW native languages that have a non-base-10 counting system?</P>
<P>I've often wonder what the lexical relationship between 'moxt' and 'sinamoxt' might be, by the way; obviously seven is "two more than five" and "kwinnumoxt" looks a bit too much like "kunamoxt" and not at all like sinamoxt; unless the -moxt ending has a completely different context than in moxt as a standalone word......</P>
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<P>Mike</P><br clear=all><hr>Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at <a href="http://www.hotmail.com">http://www.hotmail.com</a>.<br></p></html>