Dakotan 'wakhaN'

[Rankin, Robert L]

The recent discussion of the lexical class of Dakota 'wakhaN' brought to
mind a historical comment I recently made in a paper that Giulia Oliverio
and I are publishing.  It is possible that the nominal status of 'medicine'
has affected the status of 'sacred, mysterious', ordinarily a stative verb.


Is it also possible that the root of 'sacred' was just -hkaN and that the
wa- nominalized it?  Here, in any event are the two cognate sets.

    	  		'medicine'		 'sacred'
*PSI:			*wáN:hka		*wahkáN
Dakotan:					 wakháN 'spirit, sacred'
Chiwere: 		 máNkhaN 		 wakháN 'snake'
Winneb:  		 maN:káN 	 	 wakáN  'snake'
Omaha:   		 maNkkáN 	  	 wakkáNda 'sacred,  god'
Omaha:		         maNkkáN 	  	 wakkáNdagi'water monster'
Kansa:   		 mokkáN 	  	 wakkáNda 'holy, god'
Osage:   		 maNhkáN 	  	 wahkáNta 'holy, god'
Quapaw:  		 makkáN 	  	 wakkáNtta 'spirit, god'
*OVS:			*muNka    'snake'
Biloxi:   		  n-dé:si 'snake'
Ofo:      		  oNktéfi 'snake'
Saponi		        "moka" 	  'snake'

In 'medicine' and 'sacred' we have two semantically similar, but
derivationally unrelated, roots which, quite by chance, differ only in
nasalization and accent placement.  Their superficial similarities appear to
have led to a certain amount of mixing.  The 'medicine' column is where this
Ohio Valley Siouan set properly belongs phonologically, but it has undergone
the semantic specialization, acquiring the meaning 'snake', that is typical
of the 'sacred' set in particular geographical areas.

'Sacred' underwent an exactly parallel change in Winnebago, Chiwere and
Omaha.  Here it should be noted that the concepts 'God, sacred' and 'snake'
were related in much of the prehistoric eastern and central U.S.
Nevertheless, there is identical semantic specialization in all three OVS
languages.

Paul Voorhis provided comments on the areal nature of this phenomenon.
Voorhis points to similar parallel conflation of 'snake' and 'deity' in
Kickapoo.  Shawnee maneto is similarly 'snake' (David Costa, personal
communication).

Here, as usual, Biloxi and Ofo lose initial labial resonants, while Virginia
Siouan keeps them.  The -(k)desi portion of the Biloxi and Ofo cognates
means 'striped' or 'spotted' and has good cognates throughout Siouan.

Bob