Sky and clouds

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 16 Feb 2001, John P. Boyle wrote:
> Just to throw out the Hidatsa forms for sky and clouds.  'Sky' is ahpaaxi
> which can also be used for 'clouds'.  'Clouds' can also be
> ahpaaxi-aru-ohxaadi 'sky-REL-white' or 'those that are white in the sky'
> which can be compared to 'sky-blue' ahpaaxi-aru-do'ohi 'sky-REL-blue'.
> 	Clearly the Hidatsa sky/cloud word is cognate with the other
> (cloud) words discusseds thus far.

It's nice to see 'sky' and 'cloud' again conflated.  I'm a little puzzled
by the ahp- vs. m (or w) correspondence, though otherwise this looks good
and convinced the CSD team. The hardening in Hidatsa is what puzzles me,
not the nasality, since CH loses this.  On the other hand, I don't really
remember the correspondences for PS vs.  CH!  The prefixal a- does remind
me of the mechanism exhibited in a number of the Mississippi Valley
languages of verbalizing the 'cloud/sky' stem(s)  with a- as 'be cloudy
(there/on it)'. Some of these are then renominalized.

JEK