How far/how long?

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 14 Nov 2001 bi1 at soas.ac.uk wrote:
> Does anyone know the Lakota equivalent of 'how far' in distance.  I
> presume tohanyan is something like that.  But I wonder how one
> would say 'how far is it to Rapid city from here?' and indeed would
> one say that or would one say 'how many days march is it?' or
> something.  I am surprised that in none of my texts is there any
> such sentence?  It is the sort of thing a foreigner in Lakota contry
> might ask and Lakota would not need to.  Any hints from other
> Siouan languages.

Well, for Omaha-Ponca a close match in syntax would be.  There's no "from
here" or "to there" phrase.

Dorsey 1890:690.4-5

S^e' SiN'de Gdhe'ska a=thaN' gdhiN'  e'=iN=the e'   iNwiN'dh(a)
that Spotted Tail    how far he sits perhaps   that to tell me

idha=i  ga!
send it IMPm

Note that  a=thaN'     (stress seems irregular?) is analogous to
          to=haN' yaN

a is the indefinite, and the particle thaN is actually cognate with haN,
one of various cases where the rare OP th corresponds to Dakotan h, like
thi : hi 'to arrive there'.  There doesn't seem to be any analogue of the
-ya (nasalized in context?).

There are a couple of additional examples in the Dorsey texts, but they
are relatives (as far as ...).