Ponca

Alan H. Hartley ahartley at d.umn.edu
Tue Feb 12 00:06:06 UTC 2002


Alan Knutson wrote:
>
> Now that we are on the subject of ethnonyms--what is the origin of the term
> Minatari?

There's more in the archives of this listserv, but here's my stab at it:

Eng. < Mandan /wríNtari/ [miníNtari], or directly from its etymon
Hidatsa /wiríta:ri/ [miníta:ri] 'crosses the water', i.e.,
'river-crossing'. The Eng. forms in w- and m- reflect the use in Hidatsa
of rapid and careful speech respectively.

Alan



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