Ethnic Terms

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 23 Jul 2002, Koontz John E wrote:
> The only problem would be that Dorsey writes wa'qe, i.e., with the letter
> (q) that represents the voiceless fricative.  The issue is somewhat
> confused by the fact that Dorsey wrote q : x for x : gamma (or gh), i.e.,
> with the use of x reversed.  And LaFlesche just wrote x for both.

It seems to me that there are a couple of near homophones for gaghe, which
actually are gaxe - something like 'branch (of a stream)' and/or 'comb',
maybe?  Even if I have the glosses and stem forms correct, these don't
seem to be a lot of help ... 'maker' seems to me to make more sense than
'comber' or 'brancher'.

I've wondered if the form was borrowed, but I've never encountered any
plausible sources.  The closest I could come up with was actually
monsieur, but is'a bit of a step from ?mas^e to waxe or waghe.  I think
one of the Missouri River area Siouan languages does have ?mas^i or ?was^i
something like that.  I'll try to look it up.

JEK