CHIWERE etymology

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 21 Feb 2000, Alan H. Hartley wrote:

> The Hdbk. Amer. Indians (1907, I. 287) gives the meaning of CHIWERE as
> 'belonging to this place; the home people', presumably following Dorsey.
> Can anyone confirm that and/or amplify on it? And provide the earliest
> occurrence (? Dorsey c. 1880).

I can't access the file at the moment, but doesn't Dorsey discuss the
Dhegiha term in the Phonology of 5? (4?) Siouan languages paper, too?  I
think that's c. 1895.  That might be the place to look, by analogy.

Chiwere is from Jiwere (or jiwele, c^iwere, c^iwele, depending on how the
liquid and the unaspirated c^ are written).  Rankin generally recommends
using j^ for c^ (vs. c^h, I think, for c^h), in order to maximize the
attention drawn to the aspiration distinction, which is regularly and
thoroughly (though not universally) overlooked in Ioway-Otoe-Missouria
work.  The j^i stem should be *t-hi 'to arrive here' (<**re-hi), as PS
(post)aspirates end up as voiced in Ioway-Otoe and Winnebago.  If it were
c^h it would be from *hti (the PREaspirate), which would be 'to dwell'.
The latter is not the root that occurs here.

The -were part could, I suppose, involve the we 'horizontal positional'
stem.  That is, this could be based on one of the 'suddenly' verbs,
analogous to Dhegiha (cf. OP) thihe.  Cf.  Good Tracks's dictionary j^iwe
'to fall, come down lying'.  (Here and below I convert his j to j^.)

But the final -re is a problem, I think, as this slot should have the
causative, if anything, which would be -hi.  That would produce *j^iwehi
(not attested, but probably valid, though not as the name in question!).

Good Tracks does list j^irehi 'to remove, subtravct, take away', which is
the causative of j^ire, another 'suddenly' stem, which is glossed 'to get
up, rise up, begin, commence'.  Good Tracks cites the ablauted form j^ira.
This is analogous to OP thidhe, or Dakota hiya.  These forms reduplicate
as j^irara, thidhadha, and hiyaya.

If the stem in j^iwere is j^ire, then we is some sort of inflectional or
derivational inclusion, apparently -wa-(something?)i-.  I'm not sure what
at the moment.

All things considered, probably the simplest thing is to mark the form
'name in Ioway-Otoe-Missouria of the Otoe (not certainly analyzable)'.