Osage...

Carolyn Quintero cqcqcq at pgtv.net
Thu Mar 21 02:53:49 UTC 2002


**Reply is below
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Kaufman" <dvklinguist at hotmail.com>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 5:34 PM
Subject: Re: Me Hi


Hi Carolyn,

You don't know me--my name is David Kaufman and I'm now a member of SSILA as
well as of John's Siouan list.  I'm finishing my MA Linguistics here at San
José State in California.  I'm considering pursuing a Ph.D. in Linguistics.
I'm actually going next week to Chicago to meet with John Boyle and the head
of the dept. at U. of Chicago.  I've been studying Hidatsa, and John and I
have been in email contact as he patiently answers my gazillion questions!
So I wanted to go back and visit him and learn more about what he's doing
for his Ph.D. and field work with Hidatsa.
**Hi David,  Well, welcome to the small group of us interested in Siouan
languages.  John certainly is a good person for you to talk to.

The reason I'm emailing you is because I understand you are one of the few
(perhaps the ONLY?) person working on Osage.  I am a small part Osage (mixed
with a huge part European) and have been interested in trying to get more
info on the language.  John mentioned that you did a dissertation on it.
I'm wondering how I can get a copy of your dissertation and perhaps whatever
other materials you may have on the language.
**I believe I'm the only person working on Osage.  And now I've just
recently lost my main speaker to ill health.  There are only a couple of
other speakers, and they are so "rusty" (as they say), not having spoken
Osage for 30 years, that they are not really comfortable trying to produce
the information I need at this point.  So, while there is work to be done on
a limited set of older texts (La Flesche), there is no longer a possibility
of working with speakers, I believe.  If you'd like to work from texts, or
to try your hand with these very few speakers, I'd be delighted to give you
whatever guidance I can.  I should mention that there is one elderly
gentleman in Missouri who could just possibly be able to recall some of the
language, with whom I have never tried to work.

Both John Boyle and John Koontz have indicated the need for someone to work
on Winnebago, and I have expressed my interest in the possibility of working
on it myself, hopefully as part of a Ph.D. dissertation.  I still need to
take the GRE and actually apply to programs, but I am trying to meet people
and make connections and get info about the different programs.  So far,
Chicago and Boulder both sound quite promising!
***Both are good schools for what you want to do.  Bob Rankin at the U.
Kansas at Lawrence is absolutely tops in this area, but he is retiring or
semi-retired, I believe.  University of Indiana has a good program, too, at
Bloomington (Doug Parks, Ray DeMallie).

I'd appreciate whatever information or advice you can offer me about Osage
and Native American studies in general.  And if you have any info about
Ph.D. programs where you live, please let me know.  I'll have my phone and
email info at the end of this email.  (I'm also listed in the SSILA member
directory.)  Thank you so much!
**Please feel free to ask whatever you like about Osage.  I don't know much
about other programs, since I came into the Indian languages field from the
University of Massachusetts graduate program, and we didn't do descriptive
work when I was there.  That program is one of the top four in the country,
if you want to use your native languages materials to try to contribute to
linguistic theory, which can be a lot of fun!
**Regards,
***Carolyn Quintero

**PS. I guess I should mention that I have a Grammar of Osage at the
publisher's.  And I'm trying to finish up a dictionary by summer or fall.
Both of these efforts were quite difficult given the obsolescence of the
language.  I've self-published a brief textbook, fairly informal, for
beginning Osage language.

Dave Kaufman
MA Linguistics (May 2002)
San José State University
Phone: 408-266-8946
Email: dvklinguist at hotmail.com


>From: "Carolyn Quintero" <cqcqcq at pgtv.net>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
>Subject: Re: Me Hi
>Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 14:52:40 -0600
>
>Just for fun, here's my attempt at what the Osage of John's spring wish
>would be.  The first part in parenthesis is based on one occurence I've
>seen
>of wie miNks^e used like 'chez moi' in French.
>
>[dhie niNks^e] pe hidhe apa ska, dhaaNce dhaliN dhihkoNbra
>Carolyn
>PS The desert in west Texas turned green in the last two days.
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu>
>To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
>Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 10:32 AM
>Subject: Re: Me Hi
>
>
> >
> > > (?) Eskana me hi the, naNde dhiudaN kkaNbdha.
> >
> > >     Eskana me hi tHe, noNde thiudoN koNbtha.
> >
> > I would loosely gloss this as:
> >
> >      I suppose spring has arrived where you are,
> >      which hopefully makes your heart glad.
> >
> > Is this from one of the Ponca Letters?
> >
> > Rory
> >
>




Check out my personal web site:
http://dvklinguist.homestead.com/Homepage1.html


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