From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 1 23:24:07 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 17:24:07 -0600 Subject: 14.2554, Qs: Trivalent Verbs (fwd) Message-ID: Please excuse this repost from Linguist, which I thought of general interest to at least Mississippi Valley Siouanists. I know not all of you follow Linguist. John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 02:34:56 -0000 From: LINGUIST List To: LINGUIST at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG Subject: 14.2554, Qs: Trivalent Verbs ... -------------------------------- Message 1 ------------------------------- Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2003 14:05:32 +0000 From: Florian Zellmayer Subject: Trivalent verbs with 1/2 person theme or patient Divalent verbs in head-marking languages with two-slot agreement reference agent and patient. With trivalent verbs, in many of those languages the agent and the goal rather than the agent and the patient are agreed with. The same is the case in beneficatives and other applicatives where the agent and the benefactee or applied object rather than the agent and the patient is agreed with. In trivalent verbs, beneficatives, and applicatives the patient is often restricted to 3rd person, then, because it is not indicated in the agreement system. [JEK: This seems generally reasonable as a description of how things work in Siouan verbs, e.g., basic verbs like 'give' (rare, I think) and dative verbs fall under the heading of "trivalent verbs ... and beneficatives ...," collectively or separately. Such verbs generally can have a third person patient that is unmarked in the verb, except as the dative prefix itself, or its traces, might be considered in this role. We tend, of course, to refer to the person markers - concords, if you prefer - as the agent and patient series, using agent and patient as surface category terms, which conflicts with using agent, patient, and benefactee as terms for the underlying or semantic relationship of the NP to verb. Verbs with locative prefixes that govern the patient agreement fall under the heading of "other applicatives." Some locatives do this; others don't, more or less on a case by case basis. Resume Zellmayer:] Now, many of these head-marking languages (without case) do have possibilities of expressing 1st or 2nd person patients in trivalent verbs, benefactive verbs, or applicative construction. Some of them encode e.g. ''I killed you for him'' as ''I killed your body for him'' or the like, thereby providing an ''escape hatch construction'', so to say, for the 1st or 2nd person patient that cannot be expressed by agreement. Information on how 1st or 2nd patients in trivalent verbs or beneficatives or beneficatives or applicatives is expressed or circumlocuted in head-marking languages with two-slot agreement is rarely contained in the relevant grammars. So, if you work on such languages, or if you have materials or references on this topic, please let me know. [JEK: I'm not really aware of escape hatch constructions like this in Siouan languages, though I think causatives are perhaps sometimes used in this way - "I made him have you." - and then there are transitivized serial verb patterns like "having him, he came here" which in Omaha-Ponca could be combined with the s^u 'near you' locative to produce forms like "having me, he came here near you." I haven't checked to see if there are any examples in the texts with "having you/me/us."] From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Oct 5 04:46:59 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 22:46:59 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set Message-ID: I just happened to notice this *py set, not in the CSD: PMV *pyo (?), *pyu (?) IO pyu'braN 'mint, Indian perfume' Good Tracks IO haN'pyubraN 'mint, tall Indian perfume (pink flower)' Good Tracks NB These forms under 'mint' in the English side of Golod Tracks, but not under han- or py- in the IO side. JEK OP *ppe.z^e nu'bdhaN "Pezhe NubthoN" 'wild mint (Mentha canadensis)' Gilmore:90 NB The relevant part here is the IO pyubraN compared with OP nubraN. The braN is probably 'to have an odor', however, so really it's just the pyu- and nu- prefixal element that interestrs us. OP u is from PS *o, but IO has u here, too, not a perfect match. I looked around for c^ho- or c^hu-, without or without mnaN in Dakotan without finding anything. Also, no dice in Winnebago for *rupaNnaN or *ropaNnaN, and nothing under 'mint' or 'perfume' anywhere that looked reasonable. JEK John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From mary.marino at usask.ca Sun Oct 5 06:09:16 2003 From: mary.marino at usask.ca (Mary Marino) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 00:09:16 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: Message-ID: John, What is the CSD? Mary At 10:46 PM 10/4/2003 -0600, you wrote: >I just happened to notice this *py set, not in the CSD: > >PMV *pyo (?), *pyu (?) > >IO pyu'braN 'mint, Indian perfume' Good Tracks >IO haN'pyubraN 'mint, tall Indian perfume (pink flower)' Good Tracks > >NB These forms under 'mint' in the English side of Golod Tracks, but not >under han- or py- in the IO side. JEK > >OP *ppe.z^e nu'bdhaN "Pezhe NubthoN" 'wild mint (Mentha > canadensis)' Gilmore:90 > >NB The relevant part here is the IO pyubraN compared with OP nubraN. The >braN is probably 'to have an odor', however, so really it's just the pyu- >and nu- prefixal element that interestrs us. OP u is from PS *o, but IO >has u here, too, not a perfect match. I looked around for c^ho- or c^hu-, >without or without mnaN in Dakotan without finding anything. Also, no >dice in Winnebago for *rupaNnaN or *ropaNnaN, and nothing under 'mint' or >'perfume' anywhere that looked reasonable. JEK > >John E. Koontz >http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From wablenica at mail.ru Sun Oct 5 13:14:35 2003 From: wablenica at mail.ru (Wablenica) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 17:14:35 +0400 Subject: CSD (privately) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hello John: This is me, Connie from Moscow, if you forgot me. I keep on learning LDN, together with Jan Ullrich (perhaps you know, he is in IU with Parks and deMallie now) we are working on some joint project aimed at presenting online dictionary, grammar and some text corpus online. We've converted in electronic format Riggs DED, Buechel LED, Boas-Deloria DG, besides, Jan has lotsa texts himself. Just as a sample of our work you can check the test page: http://iyapi.net/search.php --where the access to Buechel dictionary database is provided. (the link will exist for roughly a week, it is for our private testing). There is a small bug in the search form: you should put a wildcard "%" in the Lakota field in case you want to look in the English definitions only, e.g. Lakota word: % AND English definition: temple Results:... The max. number of matching word entries is 25 for this page. Our task is to merge the Buechel with Riggs, add more lexicon from the texts, so the resulting database will be devoid of some traits of separate sources, perhaps copyrighted. Once you published the "raw" Bushotter Texts in the Siouanist List, and I saved a copy for myself, converted it into "human" coding, so I can make global search in the BO now (of course, there are many typos in it, this is what Jan and David are coping with). This preface is just to prove that I'm "a good boy" :-), I haven't published BO online (as well as many texts that Jan shared with me) or the Dorsey texts that you kindly sent me, etc. During the years of Siouanist List existence I often hear about the CSD and quite comprehend that it is a very valuable thing. You once said that CSD is stored in the Unix format that is incompatible with DOS/Win format, that's why it is unavailable. If this problem is "for real", you can send me a small sample of it and I'll try to convert it to DOS/Win format (I'm 99% certain that I can do it). Otherwise, I could suggest either to exchange with you - in this case I'll need Jan's OK on the deal, or make some additional electronic stuff - for example, I have a hard-copy of Osage dictionary (Fletscher, iirc), so I could convert it to make "a good trade" :-). Of course, if the only problem with CSD is its format, and the folks in CU won't object, I could convert it to Win format and send you for further distribution among Siouanist List members or whoever you think fit. And I would agree to any conditions of using and non-distribution of CSD, e.g. printing a single hard copy with erasing the soft-copies altogether. Toksha akhe Connie. From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sun Oct 5 13:36:25 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan Hartley) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 08:36:25 -0500 Subject: private message Message-ID: John, Connie's private message to you somehow got sent to the list (or at least to me). Alan From goodtracks at GBRonline.com Sun Oct 5 15:02:36 2003 From: goodtracks at GBRonline.com (Jimm GoodTracks) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 10:02:36 -0500 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set Message-ID: John: "pyúbraN" (mint; Indian perfume plant) is from: pi = good ubráN = to smell; emit an odor The "y" is the contracted sound resulting from "pi + ubráN". I am aware that many of the entries on the English side do not appear in the IOM side. In the enlarged unabridged edition of the dictionary, these lapses will be added. Jimm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Koontz John E" To: "Siouan List" Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2003 11:46 PM Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set > I just happened to notice this *py set, not in the CSD: > > PMV *pyo (?), *pyu (?) > > IO pyu'braN 'mint, Indian perfume' Good Tracks > IO haN'pyubraN 'mint, tall Indian perfume (pink flower)' Good Tracks > > NB These forms under 'mint' in the English side of Golod Tracks, but not > under han- or py- in the IO side. JEK > > OP *ppe.z^e nu'bdhaN "Pezhe NubthoN" 'wild mint (Mentha > canadensis)' Gilmore:90 > > NB The relevant part here is the IO pyubraN compared with OP nubraN. The > braN is probably 'to have an odor', however, so really it's just the pyu- > and nu- prefixal element that interestrs us. OP u is from PS *o, but IO > has u here, too, not a perfect match. I looked around for c^ho- or c^hu-, > without or without mnaN in Dakotan without finding anything. Also, no > dice in Winnebago for *rupaNnaN or *ropaNnaN, and nothing under 'mint' or > 'perfume' anywhere that looked reasonable. JEK > > John E. Koontz > http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz > > From wablenica at mail.ru Sun Oct 5 16:17:27 2003 From: wablenica at mail.ru (Wablenica) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 20:17:27 +0400 Subject: private message In-Reply-To: <3F801E59.9060204@d.umn.edu> Message-ID: Dear John and all, I apologize for using the wrong e-mail address (it was under "John Koontz" in my address book) and thus sending private message to the List. I'm awfully sorry. Constantine Chmielnicki From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Oct 5 17:17:35 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 11:17:35 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20031005000814.00b9e150@sask.usask.ca> Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Mary Marino wrote: > What is the CSD? Sorry for the unintended obscurity! CSD = draft, or textual database, of the Comparative Siouan Dictionary. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Oct 5 18:17:18 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 12:17:18 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: <002501c38b51$dc82d740$3c430945@JIMM> Message-ID: Note that this was a follow up on the discussion of *py and *ky in conneciton with 'pot' and 'ice'. On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Jimm GoodTracks wrote: > "pyúbraN" (mint; Indian perfume plant) is from: > pi = good > ubráN = to smell; emit an odor > > The "y" is the contracted sound resulting from "pi + ubráN". Aha! After I got done kicking myself for not seeing this it occurred to me that next question was what does OP nubdhaN mean? If it has some fairly straightforward analysis that explains nu from another source, then this set is just a figment of my imagination. Otherwise it offers a nice example of how *py clusters can arise. The obvious possibilities for nu that occur to me are niN 'water' + ubdhaN or compounds with nu 'male' or nu 'potato'. None of these seem especially plausible, but I may well be missing something. If this is a valid example, then note that *py here is from *hpi + u. > I am aware that many of the entries on the English side do not appear in > the IOM side. In the enlarged unabridged edition of the dictionary, > these lapses will be added. Jimm I wouldn't worry too much about this - in the sense of being embarrassed about it, anyway. Essentially all hand-compiled bilingual dictionaries have this problem, I think, e.g., the LaFlesche Osage Dictionary. My comment was more in the sense of warning people how to find the reference, and that the problem could occur, since your dictionary is actually pretty reliable about having words on both sides. One way to be fairly certain this doesn't happen, though it is not an absolute guarantee, is to not maintain the two halves of the dictionary as separate databases, but produce one or the other from the other by mechanical (computer-programmed) inversion. For example, Bob Hsu's seminal dictionary software would allow you to precede any word in a definition (or other field) with an asterisk, like this: hw phyubraN ma phi good ma ubraN have smell def *mint def Indian *perfume ... When you ran the inversion module it would produce an English variant of the database with entries like this: hw mint gl phyubraN hw perfume, Indian gl phyubraN There's nothing magic about the use of asterisk as the marker, but this is definitely an extremely important idea. Bob Hsu's programs were called Lexware, as I recall, though I've tended to think of them as Hsubox since Bob Rankin came up with that version. I couldn't resist throwing in those ma fields, too. Of course what the formatter produces from this entry is something like: phyubraN 1. mint, 2. Indian perfume, = phi ubraN 'good' + 'have smell'. And you can hav a tool that generates temporary supplementary entries for the IO side from the ma fields, e.g.: hw phi xref phyubraN hw ubraN xref phyubraN leading to formatter output like phi see phyubraN Of course, with appropriate modifications you can get the definition in here, too: hw phi xref phyubraN def mint def Indian perfume phi cf. phyubraN mint, Indian perfume The more you do mechanically, the easier it is to avoid simple editorial gaffes. Of course, you have to be alert from programming errors ... From mary.marino at usask.ca Sun Oct 5 18:49:43 2003 From: mary.marino at usask.ca (Mary Marino) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 12:49:43 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: Message-ID: John, Thanks . Is it possible for me to access the CSD, and if so, how? I think we talked about this at the Siouan Conference, but if we got into the details I have forgotten what you said. Mary At 11:17 AM 10/5/2003 -0600, you wrote: >On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Mary Marino wrote: > > What is the CSD? > >Sorry for the unintended obscurity! CSD = draft, or textual database, of >the Comparative Siouan Dictionary. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Oct 5 19:02:53 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 13:02:53 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20031005124736.020f13b0@sask.usask.ca> Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Mary Marino wrote: > Thanks . Is it possible for me to access the CSD, and if so, how? I think > we talked about this at the Siouan Conference, but if we got into the > details I have forgotten what you said. Well, I haven't let its lack of completion or publication prevent me from quoting form it at need, and I believe Bob Rankin and David Rood have, too, occasionally by delegating the task to me, but the issue of general access is really in the hands of the senior editors, Robert Rankin, Dick Carter, and Wes Jones, and the project manager David Rood. JEK From rankin at ku.edu Sun Oct 5 19:42:12 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 14:42:12 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: > IO pyu'braN 'mint, Indian perfume' Good Tracks > IO haN'pyubraN 'mint, tall Indian perfume (pink flower)' Good Tracks Jimm's segmentation tells us why IO has /u-/ instead of /o/. Proto-Siouan *o > u in IO in word-initial position. So at least the V correspondences are regular, and they also demonstrates that his analysis is correct. Initial position is the only place Omaha and IO /u/ should correspond. The Kaw form for 'Indian perfume' is ppezhe blaN yaali, where yaali is 'good', so we wouldn't expect the reflex of phi there. I can't identify the Omaha nu- either. There doesn't seem to be a Kaw analog. Bob From rankin at ku.edu Sun Oct 5 20:10:07 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 15:10:07 -0500 Subject: CSD (privately) Message-ID: No need to apologize for getting the wrong email address; everybody does it. The CSD is the product of several years of work done with the help of grants between about 1984 and 1992. David Rood applied for the grants through his institution, the University of Colorado, with the understanding that he would be the PI but that the reconstruction would be in the hands of the senior editors, myself, Dick Carter and Wes Jones. Many of the cognate sets were assembled during the Summer of 1984 with participation by the above four, plus John Koontz, Paul Voorhis, Pat Shaw, Willem DeReuse and I'm sure another one or two that I'm forgetting. We got quite far along before the money ran out, but a few tasks remain to be completed before we can publish the results of the research. The CSD is in a DOS file, but it uses a special DOS font. It is the font that needs to be converted from ASCII to Windows (ANSI). I think John, who has done most of the computer work with the file, has it in a Unix format for formatting purposes. I don't think anyone minds giving people access to information from the files at this point, but the file itself isn't very "portable" because of the font problems and the fact that we use a special Program Editor to read and search it. Wes Jones put the PE together for us as I recall. What we need to do now, I think, is to convert the database so that it can be "sucked up" into Doug's IDD and edited further there. That should ultimately produce publishable copy. Wally Hooper has a font conversion program that works with IDD, and I took tutoring in using IDD at Bloomington last June. The remaining tasks include a more thorough work-up of the kinship terminology that Dick Carter promised to do, some pronominal reconstruction that needs to be refined and maybe one or two other things. The database contains about 1200 cognate sets. Generally we have insisted that, in order to qualify as a cognate set, an etymon must be represented in at least two of the 4 major subgroups of Siouan -- preferably with some geographical separation. The dictionary could be expanded enormously if words found only in the Mississippi Valley Siouan subgroup were allowed to constitute sets. That's about where things stand today. David and John have a published paper in which they talk about the logistics of the project. They can provide the source for you. If scholars need some particular cognate set, I'm sure we can provide it, but access to the whole database is quite cumbersome at the moment. Hopefully this situation will soon improve. Bob From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Sun Oct 5 20:37:54 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 15:37:54 -0500 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set Message-ID: >On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Jimm GoodTracks wrote: >> "pyúbraN" (mint; Indian perfume plant) is from: >> pi = good >> ubráN = to smell; emit an odor >> >> The "y" is the contracted sound resulting from "pi + ubráN". > > Aha! After I got done kicking myself for not seeing this it occurred to > me that next question was what does OP nubdhaN mean? If it has some > fairly straightforward analysis that explains nu from another source, then > this set is just a figment of my imagination. Otherwise it offers a nice > example of how *py clusters can arise. The obvious possibilities for nu > that occur to me are niN 'water' + ubdhaN or compounds with nu 'male' or > nu 'potato'. None of these seem especially plausible, but I may well be > missing something. > > If this is a valid example, then note that *py here is from *hpi + u. I suppose "smelly wild potato [plant]" would be an obvious parsing of OP /nubdhaN/, assuming there is some reason for semantically associating mint with wild potatoes. The next question would be the meaning/cognancy of u- in IOM /ubraN/. I assume -braN is the root that actually means "smell", along with OP /bdhaN/. In OP, u- relates to MVS? o-, and means "in", or "in context of". But IOM u- ought to relate to some variety of OP i-. So what is the meaning of pre-verbal u- in IOM? One possibility is that OP /nubdhaN/ is a reinterpreted loan word from IO. There seems to be an historical friendship and association between these two groups, and it shouldn't be too hard to imagine a well-constructed IO term /pyubraN/ < /hpi=u=braN/ being heard by Omahas who understood that the -braN meant -bdhaN, but couldn't make sense of the phyu-. In this case, they might have heard the /y/ as /n/, rejected the initial /ph/ as phonologically unacceptable, and mapped the IO /u/ to OP /u/. This would give them /nu/, meaning "potato", which might be an odd species association, but still quite plausible, grammatical and memorable as the name of a plant. Thus, IO "mint", "smells good", being loaned into OP, becomes "mint", meaning "smelly potato" through the Omahas' best interpretation of the IO word. John's intuition that IO /pyubraN/, "mint", and OP /nubdhaN/, "mint", form a set would be correct, though not at the level of proto-MVS. Rory From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Sun Oct 5 20:55:11 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 15:55:11 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: Rory wrote: > The next question would be the meaning/cognancy of u- in IOM /ubraN/. > I assume -braN is the root that actually means "smell", along with OP > /bdhaN/. In OP, u- relates to MVS? o-, and means "in", or > "in context of". But IOM u- ought to relate to some variety > of OP i-. So what is the meaning of pre-verbal u- in IOM? Bob wrote: > Jimm's segmentation tells us why IO has /u-/ > instead of /o/. Proto-Siouan *o > u in IO in > word-initial position. So at least the V > correspondences are regular, and they also > demonstrates that his analysis is correct. > Initial position is the only place Omaha and IO > /u/ should correspond. I think Bob has answered my question. So pre-verbal u- in IO is in fact the same locative prefix as MVS o- and OP u- ? (Sorry if I'm scrambling linguistic jargon here-- I know what I mean, even if I don't know how to say it!) Rory From goodtracks at GBRonline.com Mon Oct 6 04:31:13 2003 From: goodtracks at GBRonline.com (Jimm GoodTracks) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 23:31:13 -0500 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set Message-ID: The suggestion for the Ponca term below suggested a "smelly potato" seem to be suggestive that the plant had an unpleasant odor. If the Ponca term does referr to "potato", the reference would be that of the Wild Potato, which is identified as the Arrow root, which grows in marsh or swappy wetland areas. I have seen the plant but never had the pleasure of digging up the root tubers. Some swappy areas do seem to emit an unpleasant odor, I believe, for which I am at a loss to explain. Perhaps the Botanist at Haskell Ind.Nat. University could explain the odor or smell, if any, of digging up the wild potato. Meanwhile, IOM has separate words that do convey "smelly; stinky" namely "xu'mi"; and when somthing is really stink, they say "nax'ta" (nax'tHa). The IOM sound of "i + u = y" heard in "pyu'braN" (mint; wild mint; Indian perfume" from (pi [good]) + (ubran [to smell, emit an odor]). This term is really meant for "wild mint" and includes another plant, the "Indian Perfume" plant, which is more specifically, as John found: "HaN'pyubraN", which is tall and has a pink/ purplish flower that resembles clover. While it is used as an herbal tea and also in the water used in the sweat lodge (yu'gwe chi), it is referred to in English as "perfume" because it is used to sweeten the smell within a suitcase of one's clothing. Also, it is tied into the two handkerchiefs worn on the bandoliers of the traditional Iroshka or "straight dancers" clothing, to form a small ball. IOM is quite consistant with this contraction as seen in the words: "ñyu'wagu (spring) from "ñi [n~iN (water) + uwe' (go along) + gu (start to come")]; "byu'wahu" (East) from: "bi (sun) + uwe' + hu (come from)" ; "byu'ware" (West) from: "bi + uwe' + re (go to). These are some words that come to mind. The prefix "u-" refers to "in; into; within". Some words in which it is used are: ube' (throw in; put into); ut^a'we (jump into). Sometimes its use is not so clear as in: uch^e' (talk to; converse; talk over), ugi'saN (help; aide), etc. Jimm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rory M Larson" To: Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2003 3:37 PM Subject: Re: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set > > >On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Jimm GoodTracks wrote: > >> "pyúbraN" (mint; Indian perfume plant) is from: > >> pi = good > >> ubráN = to smell; emit an odor > >> > >> The "y" is the contracted sound resulting from "pi + ubráN". > > > > Aha! After I got done kicking myself for not seeing this it occurred to > > me that next question was what does OP nubdhaN mean? If it has some > > fairly straightforward analysis that explains nu from another source, > then > > this set is just a figment of my imagination. Otherwise it offers a nice > > example of how *py clusters can arise. The obvious possibilities for nu > > that occur to me are niN 'water' + ubdhaN or compounds with nu 'male' or > > nu 'potato'. None of these seem especially plausible, but I may well be > > missing something. > > > > If this is a valid example, then note that *py here is from *hpi + u. > > I suppose "smelly wild potato [plant]" would be an obvious parsing of > OP /nubdhaN/, assuming there is some reason for semantically associating > mint with wild potatoes. > > The next question would be the meaning/cognancy of u- in IOM /ubraN/. I > assume -braN is the root that actually means "smell", along with OP > /bdhaN/. > In OP, u- relates to MVS? o-, and means "in", or "in context of". But IOM > u- ought to relate to some variety of OP i-. So what is the meaning of > pre-verbal u- in IOM? > > One possibility is that OP /nubdhaN/ is a reinterpreted loan word from > IO. There seems to be an historical friendship and association between > these two groups, and it shouldn't be too hard to imagine a > well-constructed > IO term /pyubraN/ < /hpi=u=braN/ being heard by Omahas who understood that > the -braN meant -bdhaN, but couldn't make sense of the phyu-. In this > case, > they might have heard the /y/ as /n/, rejected the initial /ph/ as > phonologically > unacceptable, and mapped the IO /u/ to OP /u/. This would give them /nu/, > meaning "potato", which might be an odd species association, but still > quite > plausible, grammatical and memorable as the name of a plant. Thus, IO > "mint", > "smells good", being loaned into OP, becomes "mint", meaning "smelly > potato" > through the Omahas' best interpretation of the IO word. John's intuition > that IO /pyubraN/, "mint", and OP /nubdhaN/, "mint", form a set would be > correct, though not at the level of proto-MVS. > > Rory > > > > > From rankin at ku.edu Mon Oct 6 14:19:54 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 09:19:54 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: > I think Bob has answered my question. So > pre-verbal u- in IO is in fact the same locative > prefix as MVS o- and OP u- ? Yes. The initial *o- > u in IOM is/was originally a strictly phonological change. I don't know what happens nowadays if you have something like ubraN but then add another prefix in front of the u-. Does it remain /u/ by analogical generalization, or does it revert to /o/? Originally, it certainly reverted, but this may have changed. (This is one of the ways you can *appear* to get "grammatically conditioned sound changes".) Bob From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Mon Oct 6 18:22:49 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 13:22:49 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: >> I think Bob has answered my question. So >> pre-verbal u- in IO is in fact the same locative >> prefix as MVS o- and OP u- ? > Yes. The initial *o- > u in IOM is/was originally > a strictly phonological change. I should add that this fact makes it quite possible that the IOM /pyubraN/ - OP /nubdhaN/ set is indeed from proto-MVS as John originally suggested, rather than a later garbled loan from IO to OP as I hypothesized yesterday. Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Oct 6 20:30:22 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 14:30:22 -0600 Subject: Indian perfume set. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 6 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > I should add that this fact makes it quite possible > that the IOM /pyubraN/ - OP /nubdhaN/ set is indeed > from proto-MVS as John originally suggested, rather > than a later garbled loan from IO to OP as I > hypothesized yesterday. I'm a little bothered by the chronology, I have to admit. ProtoMVS hpi opraN (h)pyopraN PostMVS pyobraN RobraN Modern (?) pyubraN nubdhaN The OP works out, assuming I've been right all along (more or less following in the footsteps of the CSD editors) in asserting that *py > *pr > *R, the last in word initial position only, in Dhegiha. The developments *R > n and *o > u are across the board in OP. But in IO, as I undestand it, *o > u is initial only. I had thought it was perhaps something more like "in pre-stem inflectional syllables," which would work, but if it's strictly initial, then this wouldn't work unless the sequence is new in IO or has remained essentially analyzable in parts since ProtoMVS. Of course, what I was actually assuming here was a certain degree of fuzziness or reanalysis in the IO transcription. I know the sources here are quite varied and not all entirely reliable. So maybe it's really pronounced pyobraN? Or may be in the context u and o don't contrast? Another alternative is that the OP form represents a really old instance of *hp(i)=opraN, where as the IO one is fairly recent, but accidentally parallel. It does seem to me that the IO analysis is a very plausible explanation of the OP form. As far as the nu '(wild) potato' analysis of nu in OP nubdhaN, I rather doubt that. Mint does spread by rhyzomes, very agressive rhyzomes, somewhat fleshy, but thin, but it's not usually the rhyzomes that interest someone who encounters it, unless they happen to plant it in their garden. Note that nu is from *Ro < *pro, another case of *pr > *r, though without preceding *py. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Oct 6 20:32:37 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 14:32:37 -0600 Subject: More Mint Etymology Message-ID: Here's an interesting question. What do Dakota etymologists make of c^heyaka (Gilmore has chiaka)? I have an idea what c^he might be, but I have no idea what the rest would be, which suggests I'm on the wrong track. John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 04:40:23 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 22:40:23 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: <009b01c38bc2$b0d1c680$3c430945@JIMM> Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Jimm GoodTracks wrote: > The suggestion for the Ponca term below suggested a "smelly potato" seem to > be suggestive that the plant had an unpleasant odor. If the Ponca term does > referr to "potato", the reference would be that of the Wild Potato, which > is identified as the Arrow root, which grows in marsh or swappy wetland > areas. I think that the traditional, though not necessarily only wild or Indian potato is identified as Apios americana (Te blo, OP nu, Wi doo). Arrow root as a regional English plant term per se I can't place, though I'm sure I've heard it as a term fo a starchy root product. Arrowleaf is Sagittaria latifolia (Te ps^ithola, OP siN, Wi siNiNporo). Wild onions are Allium canadense (Te ps^iN, OP maz^aNxe (also maz^aNkka?), Wi s^iNiNghop). There's also the tipsin or Psoralea esculenta (Te thipsiNla, OP nugdhe, Wi dookewehi). The roots of the words (*pro, *psiN ~ ps^iN), and maybe the roots of the plants, too, are similar enough in to show that there is a process of association here. A quick look through Buechel and other sources shows a fair number of plant terms with the root psiN, ps^iN, psi, ps^i, psiNc^a, etc., and I think we'd have similar numbers of forms in siN, s^iN, etc., for those languages that lose the initial p if we had better lists of plants for them. In some cases it's hard to know where a notion of similarity leaves off and one of considering the plants to be one taxon in ethnobotanical terms begins, though I think the three above were clearly all considered distinct plants by Gilmore's consultants. The word for 'rice' is psiN (> siN in OP, Wi, etc.), but I think this is just a chance similarity, though it's possible that the association here is one of edible wetland plant. > Meanwhile, IOM has separate words that do convey "smelly; stinky" namely > "xu'mi"; and when somthing is really stink, they say "nax'ta" (nax'tHa). The xu'mi form has a resemblant, in Omaha-Ponca xwiN. They're probably actually cognate, those this is something of an iconic sound. > IOM is quite consistant with this contraction as seen in the words: > "ñyu'wagu (spring) from "ñi [n~iN (water) + uwe' (go along) + gu (start > to come")]; "byu'wahu" (East) from: "bi (sun) + uwe' + hu (come from)" ; > "byu'ware" (West) from: "bi + uwe' + re (go to). These are some words > that come to mind. OK, this shows that there's no question of inconsistency or irregularity in the transcription of p(h)yubraN. Whatever the process, contractions with u- have u. Also, since we have a contrast of pyubraN and byuware, it's clear that the issue of p vs. ph is purely orthographic. Jimm writes p : b, t : d, etc., while I've been writing ph : b, th : d, etc., under the influence of Bob Rankin, to help clarify the tendency in some sources to write b, d, etc., as b ~ p, d ~ t, etc. Now if 'mosquito' were just attested as gyawaNge somewhere ... As far as I know it's not. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 05:06:11 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 23:06:11 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: <009b01c38bc2$b0d1c680$3c430945@JIMM> Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Jimm GoodTracks wrote: > This term is really meant for "wild mint" and includes another plant, the > "Indian Perfume" plant, which is more specifically, as John found: > "HaN'pyubraN", which is tall and has a pink/ purplish flower that resembles > clover. While it is used as an herbal tea ... This sounds like it might be what is variously called horsemint or bergamot or blazing star in English. It does usually have a very pleasant smell to it. The common garden varieties smell a bit like a cross between mint and basil. The smell is strong enough that it can be unpleasant if smelled too much. The genus is Monarda, a member of the mint family, with the diagnostic square stems and characteristic strong smell. It's not genus Mentha in the strict Linnaean sense. I noticed Gilmore has an interesting discussion for horsemint. In the theory of the groups he consulted there are two varieties of Monarda fistulosa: a bitter or bad smelling variety and a pleasant smelling variety. The former is used medicinally, while the latter is considered a perfume. He mentions that Dorsey says that the Dakota use the latter in connection with the Sun dance, which recalls Jimm's comment on its use by Iroshka. The first variety is: Da xexaka tha phez^uta 'elk medicine' or xexaka tha wote 'elk food' OP ppez^e ppa 'bitter herb' Pa "tsusahtu" 'ill smelling' The second variety is: Da waxpe was^temna 'fragrant leaves' OP is^na=khidhe igahi 'hair pomade' or ppez^e ppa miNga 'female bitter herb' Pa "tsostyu" (meaning unknown) Gilmore indicates that the Pawnee distinguish two more forms, and indicates that at least the first two are distinct genetic strains in his own experience, and not seasonal or locational variations. He says he has found them sometimes quite close to each other. Dorsey has a story about the elk having to eat bitter weeds. Notice that the Dakota name of the second variety of these follows the pattern for mint names that we have been noticing - waxpe 'leaves' refers to the plant, which is then characterized as was^te 'nice' mna(N) 'having a smell', where mnaN is the equivalent of the (u)bdhaN, (u)braN form we've seen in the other languages. I wonder about the first element in the IO term - the haN. I couldn't find anything that would fit. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 05:24:26 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 23:24:26 -0600 Subject: CSD (privately) In-Reply-To: <004301c38b7c$bf5c5210$d1b5ed81@Rankin> Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > Many of the cognate sets were assembled during the Summer of 1984 with > participation by the above four, plus John Koontz, Paul Voorhis, Pat > Shaw, Willem DeReuse and I'm sure another one or two that I'm > forgetting. Randy Graczyk, and briefly Allan Taylor, Josie White Eagle, and Ray (?) Gordon that I can immediately recall. > The CSD is in a DOS file, but it uses a special DOS font. It is the > font that needs to be converted from ASCII to Windows (ANSI). This is really the main issue. A few things were done with diacritics, when we couldn't squeeze everything into one font. David Rood has, I think, a set of fonts for this in Windows, and those are easy enough to create, but I don't know that any recoding software was ever created. > I think John, who has done most of the computer work with the file, has > it in a Unix format for formatting purposes. No. It's formatted with a nod to AskSAM's textbase format, but I always converted to the SIL SFM format for practical use. This involves the major notational change of fieldname[ field contents to \fieldname field contents I then would convert the various asterisks, daggers, and quotation marks used in the fields to what was in the last versions |subfieldcode{...}. The SIL tool that I used to convert the file to an MS Word DOC file needed that to encode formats. The main issue here was that subfields were often missing, or inconsistantly coded, or interlarded with arbitrary commentary, so I would have to deduce the correct coding heuristically. This worked 9 times out of 10, but that's a lot of not-working cases. I ultimately tried to get the editors to work with the data in the form \lg phonemic form | source form | gloss | source code \rem-lg .... but I didn't come up with this version until I had exhausted their patience with earlier cruder versions. Using those |subfieldcode{...} constructs directly, for example. > I don't think anyone minds giving people access to information from the > files at this point, but the file itself isn't very "portable" because > of the font problems and the fact that we use a special Program Editor > to read and search it. Wes Jones put the PE together for us as I > recall. I don't mind myself, but I think the actual, senior participants - i.e., not me - have to make that decision formally. > What we need to do now, I think, is to convert the database so that it > can be "sucked up" into Doug's IDD and edited further there. I could be wrong here, but I wonder if the IDD has the right set of fields and/or subfields? The general technology would work, of course. > That should ultimately produce publishable copy. There are various ways of getting from a database format to a publishable format. In a way that's a less strenuous problem than just getting the database edited into the regular form that feeds whatever is used. Many of the changes needed there are trivial, but it's often the non-automatable trivialities that are most laborious. > The remaining tasks include a more thorough work-up of the kinship > terminology that Dick Carter promised to do, some pronominal > reconstruction that needs to be refined and maybe one or two other > things. I thimk there was one other "domain" issue (like kinship terms), but I can't think what it was. Also, I discovered that many of the missing Omaha-Ponca forms are readily available in Dorsey's texts. > The dictionary could be expanded enormously if words found only in the > Mississippi Valley Siouan subgroup were allowed to constitute sets. That seems almost certain, though in the long run I'd like to see it actually done, of course. The CSD shouldn't be delayed for that, however. > That's about where things stand today. David and John have a published > paper in which they talk about the logistics of the project. They can > provide the source for you. Rood, David S., and Koontz, John E. 2002. The Comparative Siouan Dictionary Project. pp. 259-281 in Making Dicitonaries: Preserving Indigenous Languages of the Americas, ed. by William Frawley, Kenneth C. Hill, and Pamela Munro. U of California Press, Berkeley, CA. From alber033 at tc.umn.edu Tue Oct 7 06:47:43 2003 From: alber033 at tc.umn.edu (Patricia Albers) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 01:47:43 -0500 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I am also pretty certain from Jimm GoodTracks description that this is wild bergamot because this is the perfume plant Plains Apache collected in the 1960s and tied into handkerchiefs when I attended Bill Bittle's field school. The Plains Apaches also used this as a love medicine. The Plains Apache, as Judy Jordon writes, also distinguish between the varieties considering one the "true" perfume plant and the other a "look alike." Blazing star is an alternate name for the dotted gayfeather, Liatris punctata, which is a member of the aster or composite family. Another set of Lakota perfume plants found in Buechel come from the madder family. These are the bedstraws: wahpe wacanga hu winyela [sweet smelling leaf for women] Galium trifolium and wahpe wacanga hu bloka [sweet smelling leaf for men] G.alium aparine.. >On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Jimm GoodTracks wrote: >> This term is really meant for "wild mint" and includes another plant, the >> "Indian Perfume" plant, which is more specifically, as John found: >> "HaN'pyubraN", which is tall and has a pink/ purplish flower that resembles >> clover. While it is used as an herbal tea ... > >This sounds like it might be what is variously called horsemint or >bergamot or blazing star in English. It does usually have a very pleasant >smell to it. The common garden varieties smell a bit like a cross between >mint and basil. The smell is strong enough that it can be unpleasant if >smelled too much. The genus is Monarda, a member of the mint family, with >the diagnostic square stems and characteristic strong smell. It's not >genus Mentha in the strict Linnaean sense. > >I noticed Gilmore has an interesting discussion for horsemint. In the >theory of the groups he consulted there are two varieties of Monarda >fistulosa: a bitter or bad smelling variety and a pleasant smelling >variety. The former is used medicinally, while the latter is considered a >perfume. He mentions that Dorsey says that the Dakota use the latter in >connection with the Sun dance, which recalls Jimm's comment on its use by >Iroshka. > >The first variety is: > >Da xexaka tha phez^uta 'elk medicine' or xexaka tha wote 'elk food' >OP ppez^e ppa 'bitter herb' >Pa "tsusahtu" 'ill smelling' > >The second variety is: > >Da waxpe was^temna 'fragrant leaves' >OP is^na=khidhe igahi 'hair pomade' or ppez^e ppa miNga 'female bitter >herb' >Pa "tsostyu" (meaning unknown) > >Gilmore indicates that the Pawnee distinguish two more forms, and >indicates that at least the first two are distinct genetic strains in his >own experience, and not seasonal or locational variations. He says he has >found them sometimes quite close to each other. > >Dorsey has a story about the elk having to eat bitter weeds. > >Notice that the Dakota name of the second variety of these follows the >pattern for mint names that we have been noticing - waxpe 'leaves' refers >to the plant, which is then characterized as was^te 'nice' mna(N) 'having >a smell', where mnaN is the equivalent of the (u)bdhaN, (u)braN form we've >seen in the other languages. > >I wonder about the first element in the IO term - the haN. I couldn't >find anything that would fit. > >JEK -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rankin at ku.edu Tue Oct 7 14:42:02 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 09:42:02 -0500 Subject: CSD (privately) Message-ID: > > Many of the cognate sets were assembled during the Summer of 1984 with > > participation by the above four, plus John Koontz, Paul Voorhis, Pat > > Shaw, Willem DeReuse and I'm sure another one or two that I'm > > forgetting. > Randy Graczyk, and briefly Allan Taylor, Josie White Eagle, and Ray (?) > Gordon that I can immediately recall. Aaargh, sorry Randy! You came to mind with the others but my fingers didn't do the necessary walking. I had forgotten Ray Gordon, who came for a few days. Allan was mostly doing his fieldwork on Plains Algonquian as I recall. Ken Miner contributed his Winnebago lexicon and Kathy Shea her Catawba lexicon, but they were not physically present. The Workshop was funded by NSF, I believe, and organized very successfully by David Rood. > ... but I don't know that any recoding software was ever created. Wally Hooper has a conversion program that works within IDD. The particular ASCII/ANSI values can be plugged in. > > I don't think anyone minds giving people access to information... > I don't mind myself, but I think the actual, senior participants - i.e., > not me - have to make that decision formally. Agreed, but what we *really* need is to get it published and maybe distribute the book along with a CD. > I could be wrong here, but I wonder if the IDD has the right set of > fields and/or subfields? The general technology would work, of course. I looked at this problem last June, and the "other dialects" or "other languages" field could be used. It's set up so you can specify any number of other languages. it would make very heavy use of that one field, but it would work. And there are other fields for grammatical class, gloss, etc. Bob From rankin at ku.edu Tue Oct 7 14:58:32 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 09:58:32 -0500 Subject: Fw: Job announcement, Osage Language Director Message-ID: RE: The position of language coordinator for the Osage Nation that I forwarded to this list a few weeks ago. I have received further communication -- below. Please note the rather early closing date for applications. I assume it refers to October. Bob Rankin > The position IS being advertised externally. It doesn't appear on the osagetribe.com website (yet) but it is open. The closing date is the 10th. > The phone number to human resources is 918-287-5323. From rankin at ku.edu Tue Oct 7 15:10:33 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 10:10:33 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: > The OP works out, assuming I've been right all along (more or less > following in the footsteps of the CSD editors) in asserting that *py > *pr > > *R, the last in word initial position only, in Dhegiha. The > developments *R > n and *o > u are across the board in OP. But in IO, as > I undestand it, *o > u is initial only. I had thought it was perhaps > something more like "in pre-stem inflectional syllables," which would > work, but if it's strictly initial, then this wouldn't work unless the > sequence is new in IO or has remained essentially analyzable in parts > since ProtoMVS. As I mentioned, the *o > u change may affect locative o- when other elements are grafted on as prefixes or proclitics. This simply hasn't been determined yet. Jimm may know. The problem is that relatively few elements can precede the locative prefixes. Also it would be good for us to keep in mind that the sequence John reconstructs as *pr has two (at least) proto-Siouan sources. One is *wr (most of the instances, actually) and the other may be *pr (but there were precious few *p in these sequences, 'flat' may have been one). So *py may behave like one or the other or differently because it had a different chronology. Bob From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Tue Oct 7 16:49:52 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 11:49:52 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: > As far as the nu '(wild) potato' analysis of nu in OP nubdhaN, > I rather doubt that. Mint does spread by rhyzomes, very > agressive rhyzomes, somewhat fleshy, but thin, but it's > not usually the rhyzomes that interest someone who > encounters it, unless they happen to plant it in their garden. > Note that nu is from *Ro < *pro, another case of *pr > *r, > though without preceding *py. Two possible replies to this: If OP nubdhaN is original, the '(wild) potato' analysis could work assuming that nu < *Ro < *pro originally had a wider semantic salience than the modern word, such as 'vegetable', 'herb', 'plant sought for consumption'. The meaning of the unrestricted term would then have been narrowed across the MVS daughter languages to refer only to the wild potato, perhaps in conjunction with an increased exploitation of this resource. At the same time, some older compounds of this term, such as "smelly-herb", might still survive with the original root. Compare English 'starfish', 'cuttlefish', 'jellyfish', and 'whalefish', which are not fish in the modern sense of the word, but were 'fish' at a time when the term referred to any aquatic animal. On the other hand, if OP nubdhaN << IO pyubraN as a reinterpreted loan, the choice of the first element is conditioned jointly by the IO phonetic sequence /pyu/ and by OP vocabulary that both sounds something like that and makes grammatical and semantic sense in context. In this case, their word for 'potato' might simply be the best possible candidate. The 'odoriferous' part is clear, and if folks seem to be calling the mint plant a type of potato, that's as easily learnable and understandable as 'jellyfish' is to an English-speaking child. Rory From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU Tue Oct 7 16:49:10 2003 From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 10:49:10 -0600 Subject: CSD (for everyone) In-Reply-To: <001b01c38ce1$407beee0$d1b5ed81@Rankin> Message-ID: As the keeper of the CSD files, let me chime in here for a moment. I arranged about a year ago to have a character set conversion for the old files, so we can view the whole product in current versions of Word, I think (I need to do some more checking, and probably can't get to that til Thurs. or Fri.) The primary reason it's not ready for distribution is the incredibly inconsistent formatting from entry to entry. In the past 10 years, technology has made a lot of what we need to do much simpler, but I'm seriously committed to Wichita at the moment, and not thinking much about Siouan. Let me review what I did do with it last year and report back. If you haven't heard from me again by Monday, please remind me. The reference to John's and my paper on the project is Frawley, William, Kenneth C. Hill and Pamela Munro, eds., Making Dictionaries: Preserving Indigenous Languages of the Americas, pp. 259-281. Univ. of Calif. Press, 2002. David David S. Rood Dept. of Linguistics Univ. of Colorado 295 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0295 USA rood at colorado.edu On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > > > Many of the cognate sets were assembled during > the Summer of 1984 with > > > participation by the above four, plus John > Koontz, Paul Voorhis, Pat > > > Shaw, Willem DeReuse and I'm sure another one > or two that I'm > > > forgetting. > > > Randy Graczyk, and briefly Allan Taylor, Josie > White Eagle, and Ray (?) > > Gordon that I can immediately recall. > > Aaargh, sorry Randy! You came to mind with the > others but my fingers didn't do the necessary > walking. I had forgotten Ray Gordon, who came for > a few days. Allan was mostly doing his fieldwork > on Plains Algonquian as I recall. Ken Miner > contributed his Winnebago lexicon and Kathy Shea > her Catawba lexicon, but they were not physically > present. The Workshop was funded by NSF, I > believe, and organized very successfully by David > Rood. > > > ... but I don't know that any recoding software > was ever created. > > Wally Hooper has a conversion program that works > within IDD. The particular ASCII/ANSI values can > be plugged in. > > > > I don't think anyone minds giving people > access to information... > > I don't mind myself, but I think the actual, > senior participants - i.e., > > not me - have to make that decision formally. > > Agreed, but what we *really* need is to get it > published and maybe distribute the book along with > a CD. > > > I could be wrong here, but I wonder if the IDD > has the right set of > > fields and/or subfields? The general technology > would work, of course. > > I looked at this problem last June, and the "other > dialects" or "other languages" field could be > used. It's set up so you can specify any number > of other languages. it would make very heavy use > of that one field, but it would work. And there > are other fields for grammatical class, gloss, > etc. > > Bob > > From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 17:16:56 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 11:16:56 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Patricia Albers wrote: > Blazing star is an alternate name for the dotted gayfeather, Liatris > punctata, which is a member of the aster or composite family. Oops, quite right. I was trying to recover a third name I seemed to recall and fished up something quite wrong. Another nice flower, but not the right one! JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 17:36:50 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 11:36:50 -0600 Subject: CSD (privately) In-Reply-To: <001b01c38ce1$407beee0$d1b5ed81@Rankin> Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > Wally Hooper has a conversion program that works within IDD. The > particular ASCII/ANSI values can be plugged in. I think this approach would work for the CSD. Because it used a single set of characters plus some supplementary digraphs it is easier to handle than files which use different sets in different fields and subfields. > I looked at this problem last June, and the "other dialects" or "other > languages" field could be used. It's set up so you can specify any > number of other languages. it would make very heavy use of that one > field, but it would work. And there are other fields for grammatical > class, gloss, etc. Well, I still wonder, because one of the functions of the fieldname in cases like this is to key what formatting is needed. If the other language field is used only for consistantly formatted data fields and the language in question is coded as a new initial subfield, then this might work. It might be useful if they could add a field or set of fields for comparative citations. The information we need in that context has certain subfields: 1) Language name. 2) Phonemic form, optionally tagged to indicate that it is an internal reconstruction itself. 3) Source form, as transcribed in the original source. 4) Source gloss. 5) Source code, usually some mnemonic plus a page or item number. There has to be some way to attach comments or remarks to this at this level, which might be a 6th subfield or a paired field. This can be handled as multiple fields, but in that case it's desirable that editing copy consolidate the fields on one line or successive lines. It can be useful in the phonemic form and gloss to be able to bracket the part compared, but whatever bracketing there is should be invisible to searches, e.g., nu should be locatable as nubdhaN. The other sorts of fields we used were Proto-X, and Pre-X, where X is some language, a rather limited set of these, and Other Reconstructions, for citations of reconstructions by others. Those could be handled as a variant of the general citation field. We had a general comment field. In comments in multiperson work it's useful to be able to sign and date your comment. I've often thought that we needed something like CVS - a tool for keeping track of changes. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 17:55:16 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 11:55:16 -0600 Subject: Indian perfume set. In-Reply-To: <003e01c38ce5$3aabe890$d1b5ed81@Rankin> Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > As I mentioned, the *o > u change may affect locative o- when other > elements are grafted on as prefixes or proclitics. This simply hasn't > been determined yet. Jimm may know. The problem is that relatively few > elements can precede the locative prefixes. Jimm confirmed that *o- appears as u- in all cases of incorporation of some element before it that he could think of. > Also it would be good for us to keep in mind that the sequence John > reconstructs as *pr has two (at least) proto-Siouan sources. One is *wr > (most of the instances, actually) and the other may be *pr (but there > were precious few *p in these sequences, 'flat' may have been one). So > *py may behave like one or the other or differently because it had a > different chronology. We've discussed this before. Bob prefers to distinguish *wr and *pr, while I consolidate all these sets phonologically. There are sets of this type or types arising in nouns root initials, in verb root initials, in *r with first person pronominals, and medially (basically, in 'three'). Dakota pretty nuch treats all of them as *pr, which becomes bl/bd/md/mn before orals depending on the dialect, and mn before nasals generally. Dhegiha treats the nouns (*wr in Bob's analysis) as *R, n/d ~ j^/t ~ c/t depending on the dialect, but n before nasals, and the rest appear as *pr (bdh/bl/br/pd, depending on the dialect, and no nasal variant, e.g., bdhaN 'to smell of something'). \ IO and Wi treat the nouns and the inflected verb forms and the medial form as *R (d with nasal variant n), but retains *pr in verb stem initials (br/pVrV, depending on the dialect and no nasal variant). So, the verb-stem initial forms (like 'flat' *pras(ka)) are the only ones that never get reduced anywhere. Of course, though I don't find any reason but this last to distinguish *wr from *pr, I don't claim that there are not multiple origins for *pr, or perhaps we should always write *wr. In particular, most of the polymorphemic cases of *pr (or *wr) clearly have a paired uncontracted variant *wV-r, suggesting that these are from *w + *r or perhaps that a lot of earlier **pV sequences "soften" to *wV. From rankin at ku.edu Tue Oct 7 19:44:19 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 14:44:19 -0500 Subject: CSD (privately) Message-ID: > Well, I still wonder, because one of the functions of the fieldname in > cases like this is to key what formatting is needed. I admit I didn't think much about things like formatting. I just wanted to get something lined up so I could see the thing through to completion from a scholarly point of view so that I wouldn't tread off this mortal coil someday with the thing still in limbo. Not to mention the fact that a lot of people are out there waiting for access. Being able to read it in Micorsoft Word would be useful too, but we have to actually do it. B. From ahartley at d.umn.edu Tue Oct 7 20:03:12 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan Hartley) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 15:03:12 -0500 Subject: CSD (privately) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Would it be impossibly time-consuming to convert the CSD into XML, which seems to be gaining currency rapidly in lexicography? Alan From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 22:49:27 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 16:49:27 -0600 Subject: Indian perfume set. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > If OP nubdhaN is original, the '(wild) potato' analysis could work > assuming that nu < *Ro < *pro originally had a wider semantic > salience than the modern word, such as 'vegetable', 'herb', > 'plant sought for consumption'. This is all certainly possible. The parallels in IO, Ks, Da, etc., terms all suggest that something like 'good-smelling plant' is the best bet, but it doesn't necessarily follow that this is a *py cluster form parallel with the IO one. However, it occurs to me that there are a couple more necessary observations here. One is that while Gilmore is generally pretty reliable, it would be worthwhile asking if anyone else knows this term in this form. More generally, it might be useful revisiting the issue of names of plants and animals, though I'm afraid we might be a little too late on this. In the case of mint and/or bergamot we might luck out because of the ceremonial connections that Jimm Good Tracks points out. Another point, which the Dhegihanists are aware of, but maybe not others, is that OP *ppi 'good' is completely obsolete. In fact, I think *ppi is obsolete throughout Dhegiha. It exists in a few fossil forms, e.g., ppi'=az^i ~ ppez^i' 'bad < good + not'. The usual OP term for 'good' is u(u)daN. The Osage cognate of this - o(o)taN - means essentially 'be a coup'. Bob cited the Kaw form for 'good' as yaali and I seem to recall that the Osage form is dha(a)li, cognate with that. Anyway, if nubdhaN < *p(p)y=obdhaN then it isn't likely to be a recent form. This is also evident in the necessity that any such form has undergone the *py > *pr > *R changes, with *R subsequently becoming n in OP by regular sound changes. Corresponding Osage, Kaw, and Quapaw forms would be *tobraN, *doblaN, and, I think, *topdaN or *dobdaN - I forget how the *R and *pr sounds come out in Quapaw at the moment! I don't believe there are any cases of n ~ bdh alternations in OP at present. That is, there is no perceptible contemporary connection between the two. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 23:02:03 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 17:02:03 -0600 Subject: Fw: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set (fwd) Message-ID: Posted for Mark Awakuni-Swetland. John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Mark-Awakuni Swetland" To: "Siouan List" Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 7:25 AM Subject: Fw: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set > > Mentha canadensis > > pezhe nubthoN, "fragrant herb" (Gilmore 1977:60) > > Omaha Man's Perfume: > > Grandma Elizabeth Stabler and several other ladies of her generation told > > stories of elder men taking the seeds from this mint plant, masticating > > them, spitting the crushed pulp into the hands, then rubbing their hands > > through their hair as a perfume. It was said to be quite effective in > > attracting women. Caveat: they never specified if it attracted young > > women or old women... > > > > uthixide > > > > Mark Awakuni-Swetland > > University of Nebraska > > Anthropology/Native American Studies > > Bessey Hall 132 > > Lincoln, NE 68588-0368 > > 402-472-3455 > > FAX 402-472-9642 > > mawakuni-swetland2 at unl.edu From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 23:04:15 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 17:04:15 -0600 Subject: Fw: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set (fwd) Message-ID: Posted for Mark Awakuni-Swetland. John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Mark-Awakuni Swetland" To: "Siouan List" Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 7:24 AM Subject: Fw: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set > > Jimm's reference to the use of pezhinubthoN in dance regalia and clothing > > trunks matches with Omaha usage in the first half of the 20th century. > Small > > balls are tied up in handkerchiefs and attached to the bandoleers of Omaha > > Gourd Dancers and Straight Dancers. The ability to attract women still > > holds. More recently (post AIM days), patchouli oil is used as male and > > female perfume. > > > > uthixide > > > > Mark Awakuni-Swetland > > University of Nebraska > > Anthropology/Native American Studies > > Bessey Hall 132 > > Lincoln, NE 68588-0368 > > 402-472-3455 > > FAX 402-472-9642 > > mawakuni-swetland2 at unl.edu From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 23:11:07 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 17:11:07 -0600 Subject: CSD (privately) In-Reply-To: <3F831C00.5060102@d.umn.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Alan Hartley wrote: > Would it be impossibly time-consuming to convert the CSD into XML, which > seems to be gaining currency rapidly in lexicography? That's an option, though I think that the ... encoding would be very difficult to edit directly, i.e., without a tool that hid that encoding from the editors in the way that Word et al. hide the similarly cumbersome internal representation for Word documents from Word users. The editors didn't care for |tag{...} (and I don't blame them) and my alternative of |tag ... (to be converted back to |tag{...} for publication formatting came too late. XML would make a pretty good web publication format, of course. It has a tag notation for Unicode characters, I believe, too, though this makes for bulky files, and, again, wouldn't be very plesant to edit directly. From ahartley at d.umn.edu Tue Oct 7 23:31:28 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 18:31:28 -0500 Subject: CSD (privately) Message-ID: > That's an option, though I think that the ... encoding would be > very difficult to edit directly, i.e., without a tool that hid that > encoding from the editors in the way that Word et al. hide the similarly > cumbersome internal representation for Word documents from Word users. Check out Corel's XMetaL, which lets you view the file in plain text (showing all the XML tagging); with color-coded graphical tags; or normally (without any markup visible). It's very easy to work with, requiring only a nodding acquaintance with XML. Alan From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 23:50:58 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 17:50:58 -0600 Subject: CSD (privately) In-Reply-To: <3F834CD0.9040307@d.umn.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Alan H. Hartley wrote: > > That's an option, though I think that the ... encoding would be > > very difficult to edit directly, i.e., without a tool that hid that > > encoding from the editors in the way that Word et al. hide the similarly > > cumbersome internal representation for Word documents from Word users. > > Check out Corel's XMetaL, which lets you view the file in plain text > (showing all the XML tagging); with color-coded graphical tags; or > normally (without any markup visible). It's very easy to work with, > requiring only a nodding acquaintance with XML. That certainly sounds like one way to go. From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Wed Oct 8 03:05:59 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 22:05:59 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: John wrote: > Another point, which the Dhegihanists are aware of, > but maybe not others, is that OP *ppi 'good' is > completely obsolete. In fact, I think *ppi is > obsolete throughout Dhegiha. It exists in a few fossil > forms, e.g., ppi'=az^i ~ ppez^i' 'bad < good + not'. > The usual OP term for 'good' is u(u)daN. This is a good point, and it might help to explain the outcome in OP of the first syllable. For a Dhegihan speaker, the first syllable *hpi=u- would be unanalyzable because they no longer had the word *ppi. But since the second syllable *braN was clear, there would be some motivation to reanalyze the first syllable into a familiar morpheme. > The Osage cognate of this - o(o)taN - means essentially > 'be a coup'. "Be a coup"?? Do you mean as in 'counting coup'? I don't understand this translation. > Anyway, if nubdhaN < *p(p)y=obdhaN then it isn't > likely to be a recent form. This is also evident > in the necessity that any such form has undergone > the *py > *pr > *R changes, with *R subsequently > becoming n in OP by regular sound changes. > Corresponding Osage, Kaw, and Quapaw forms would > be *tobraN, *doblaN, and, I think, *topdaN or *dobdaN - > I forget how the *R and *pr sounds come out in Quapaw > at the moment! I don't believe there are any cases > of n ~ bdh alternations in OP at present. That is, > there is no perceptible contemporary connection > between the two. If nubdhaN is coming from MVS (Hypothesis 1), then it certainly wouldn't be recent. If it is coming as a loan from a prehistoric IOM *pyobraN or *pyubraN (Hypothesis 2), then the most likely time for it to happen would be at the *pr stage of the above sequence (assuming OP nu < *pro, but not < *pyo). Since all the Dhegihan languages have single consonant sounds where the *pr should be, I would suppose that *pr had gone to *R before Dhegihan diverged. That would favor putting the borrowing after proto-MVS but before proto-Dhegihan (Hypothesis 2a). On the other hand, the circumstantial considerations that this set apparently exists only in IOM and OP, and that there are traditions of OP and IO associating with each other after the divergence of OP, and that the IO template pyu- is a significantly modified contraction of the hypothetical proto-MVS *hpi=o-, make the idea of a later transference tempting (Hypothesis 2b). For Hypothesis 2, these considerations might be resolved if we imagine proto-Dhegihan existing as a dialect field over a wide area for a period of several centuries. During this period, *pr > *R, and thence toward its reflexes in the various Dhegihan daughter languages, which are still contiguous dialects. During the same period, proto-IOM lives in a neighborhood adjacent to the pre-proto-OP part of Dhegihan, and maintains especially close relations with these people. Early in the proto-Dhegihan phase, pre-proto-OP adopts and readapts the proto-IOM word for mint, IOM *pyubraN > pre-proto-OP *prubraN, where *pru is reinterpreted as 'potato'. Later in the phase, this evolves to *RubraN and still later to *nubdhaN. Finally, in the course of some crisis, the proto-OP people move away from the other Dhegihan groups, accompanied by their IO associates. Otherwise, we always have Hypothesis 3, which holds that the first syllables of IOM pyubraN and OP nubdhaN are only coincidentally similar! Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 8 16:04:01 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 10:04:01 -0600 Subject: Indian perfume set. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > "Be a coup"?? Do you mean as in 'counting coup'? Yes. I think LaFlesche terms it an honor, but I have't rechecked the reference. > If nubdhaN is coming from MVS (Hypothesis 1), then > it certainly wouldn't be recent. If it is coming > as a loan from a prehistoric IOM *pyobraN or *pyubraN > (Hypothesis 2), then the most likely time for it > to happen would be at the *pr stage of the above > sequence (assuming OP nu < *pro, but not < *pyo). > Since all the Dhegihan languages have single > consonant sounds where the *pr should be, I would > suppose that *pr had gone to *R before Dhegihan > diverged. Yes. So it *couldn't* be a loan from IO per se. In fact, one would be forced to say that the IO form was not so much a correspondance as a later parallel in another language, showing where *R < *pr might have come from, possibly a preservation of a Proto-Mississippi Valley age form. The former strikes me as more likely, because Cy clusters seem fairly rare and/or unstable in Siouan. In regard to assuming *py in OP, since we know from the first person of 'to think' that *py > *pr in Dhegiha, and we know from forms like 'potato' and 'male' that *pr > *R in initial position, and we can suspect from forms like 'pot' and 'frost' that *py in initial position leads to *R in Dhegiha, too, we can suspect that nu < *Ro (the only source of nu in OP) comes from either *pro or *pyo. The IO form shows how *pyo could occur in the context. We'd expect *hpi-o- to contract to either *hp-o- or *hpy-o-. We have to assume that *hpyo- simplifies to *pyo-, or, effectively, does not contrast with it. All this would have to have occurred in or before Proto-Dhegiha, however, making it likely to be independent of the IO form. Unfortunately, however, another possibility, relevant to *pro, i.e., to nu 'male', occurs to me, which is that nubraN refers to the 'scent for male(s)', as opposed to, say, 'smelling like a male' (not necessarily a good thing). Jimm Good Tracks and Mark Awakuni-Swetland (and Dorsey, cited by Gilmore) refer to the significance of horsemint in male adornment contexts, and Patricia Albers has referred to distinctions between scented plants suitable for males and scented plants suitable for females. One problem with this is that I'd expect some sort of dative stem for the verb. From rankin at ku.edu Wed Oct 8 17:13:06 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 12:13:06 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: > "Be a coup"?? Do you mean as in 'counting coup'? >Yes. I think LaFlesche terms it an honor, but I have't rechecked the reference. Osage otaN is 'military honors'. Also look up taNhe' in LaFlesche. DoN-he' in the old spelling. It describes the virtues necessary in a man in order to qualify as taNhe (where -he) is one of the verbs of being, presumably the same one we get in thaN-he 'standing animate', miNk-he 'sitting animate', k-he 'lying', etc.). In modern Kaw daNhe is found in the various forms of "How are you doing?" If the answer is 'OK' or 'well', it would be daNhe. Bob From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU Wed Oct 8 20:03:21 2003 From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 14:03:21 -0600 Subject: CSD report Message-ID: I just looked at what I have for CSD files, and have both good and bad news to report. The old database has been converted into a shoebox file, which is good news; all the field names we used now have shoebox codes, etc. In addition, there is a formatting program which, when applied to that file, produces paragraphs with various type faces for different kinds of information -- essentially what John did for formatting the original database. The output of the formatting is a Word file, so it will be very easy to edit on screen. There should be no need to involve the IDD at any stage now, and it seems to me that Shoebox would convert to xml, etc. without too much trouble, too. The bad news is that, as of today, I'm not getting the right fonts to go with the formatting. My recollection is that my programmer fixed that, but I can no longer remember what she told me to do to make it work. I'll have to get her to tell me again. Meanwhile, Armik is taking the cd home with him tonight to see if running it on a mac with the Siouan fonts installed will matter (my programmer, poor misguided child, used a mac for this work). The really bad news, however, is that none of this takes care of the messy editing that still needs doing. Because the conversion to Shoebox was automatic, all the errors in demarking stuff in the original database have translated into formatting errors in the currently "final" version. Amazing what a missing period can do!! David S. Rood Dept. of Linguistics Univ. of Colorado 295 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0295 USA rood at colorado.edu From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 8 23:57:38 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 17:57:38 -0600 Subject: Gentium Message-ID: It looks like the folks at SIL (Victor Gaultney) have created a new Unicode-supporting font called Gentium. It is freely available. http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=Gentium John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Oct 9 00:12:53 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 18:12:53 -0600 Subject: CSD report In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, ROOD DAVID S wrote: > I just looked at what I have for CSD files, and have both good and bad > news to report. The old database has been converted into a shoebox file, > which is good news; all the field names we used now have shoebox codes, > etc. In addition, there is a formatting program which, when applied to > that file, produces paragraphs with various type faces for different kinds > of information -- essentially what John did for formatting the original > database. I don't know how Taime did this, but there are at least three ways. One is that Shoebox has limited abilities to export directly (http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software.asp?id=26). Another is SF Converter (http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software.asp?id=44): "The SF Converter is a utility designed to read a plain text file tagged with SIL Standard Format Markers and produce a file in Microsoft's Rich Text Format (RTF) suitable for printing with Word and many other word processors. It can be used to format and print dictionaries and other documents." SF Converter works with the Shoebox database files (SF or Standard Format files), but doesn't work through Shoebox itself. It's just another program that knows about SF. The third was something called, I believe, Multilingual Dictionary Formatter. It was quite elaborate. I don't see it anymore. It was OK for bilingual dictionaries of some sorts, but the set of fields was fixed in advance and didn't look like it would work well with either Siouan materials in specific or comparative dictionaries in general. I suspect Taime used method one or two. > The output of the formatting is a Word file, so it will be very easy to > edit on screen. However, it would probably not be a good idea to edit that Word document, because there is probably nothing to reverse the process and convert it back to the underlying database. I suppose someone could copy the changes by hand. It would probably be better to edit using the Showbox interface. > There should be no need to involve the IDD at any stage now, and it > seems to me that Shoebox would convert to xml, etc. without too much > trouble, too. I'm not sure if it supports this directly, but Word might be able to export the Word-formatted version. > The bad news is that, as of today, I'm not getting the right fonts to go > with the formatting. My recollection is that my programmer fixed that, > but I can no longer remember what she told me to do to make it work. My direct experience with the newer Shoeboxes is limited, but my recollection is that there is a menu that allows you to attach a particular font to each field. If Taime set this up and it was saved, but it's not working now, then I'd suspect that the problem might be that Shoebox was unable to find the file or files that describe its configuration for the CSD files. Probably you have a copy of the new CSD that omits these files and you opened up that copy instead of the one with the configuration information added. That's just a guess. > I'll have to get her to tell me again. Meanwhile, Armik is taking the > cd home with him tonight to see if running it on a mac with the Siouan > fonts installed will matter (my programmer, poor misguided child, used a > mac for this work). I might be able to figure this out, too, if needed. > The really bad news, however, is that none of this takes care of the messy > editing that still needs doing. Because the conversion to Shoebox was > automatic, all the errors in demarking stuff in the original database have > translated into formatting errors in the currently "final" version. > Amazing what a missing period can do!! I can try to fix the conversion, if you started with my version of it. I know I haven;t gotten around to this in the past. I'm pretty sure I still have and more or less understand the series of AWK scripts I used. From rankin at ku.edu Sat Oct 11 15:37:35 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 10:37:35 -0500 Subject: IPA declared a virus by Microsoft Outlook Express Message-ID: I recently bought a new Dell desktop running Windows XP Professional and typically use Outlook Express as my email program. I have recently received messages with attachments, one containing Osage vocabulary and another with IPA symbols from our department phonologist. Both messages were declared to contain a "dangerous" material and were unceremoniously stripped of their attachments. At first I thought the university anti-virus program had done this, but after investigating I discovered that Outlook Express provides this "service". And new computers come with the "feature" turned ON. Thus, the Osage language (and all other upper-ANSI characters) and the IPA are "viruses" and they trigger this genocidal software. So, if this happens to you in Outlook Express, just click on TOOLS > OPTIONS > SECURITY. Then UNcheck the box that says "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus." Otherwise, apparently OE only allows the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet, numerals and punctuation in your attachments. Bob Rankin From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Oct 12 00:36:12 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 18:36:12 -0600 Subject: IPA declared a virus by Microsoft Outlook Express In-Reply-To: <000b01c3900d$ab402c30$d1b5ed81@Rankin> Message-ID: On Sat, 11 Oct 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > So, if this happens to you in Outlook Express, just click on TOOLS > > OPTIONS > SECURITY. Then UNcheck the box that says "Do not allow > attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus." > Otherwise, apparently OE only allows the 26 letters of the Roman > alphabet, numerals and punctuation in your attachments. I don't know if I understand the details fully, but it sounds like OE thinks that character material with bits set reflecting use of characters in the upper 128 character range implies covert presence of non-textual material. This is certainly worth knowing, but, of course, sometimes it might be right ... From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sun Oct 12 22:45:15 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan Hartley) Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 17:45:15 -0500 Subject: Partisan Message-ID: William Clark records as "Torto-hongar, Partezon (Bad fellow)" the name of the second chief of a band of Tetons encountered in Sept. 1804. Moulton, in a footnote says the name may be blotahungka 'war leader'. Though the context is Teton, Clark's version shows no trace of bl-. Is inital bl- a recent development in Lakota (or might Clark have got the name through a non-Teton (but Sioux) interpreter? Riggs has mde-tang'-hung-ka and Teton blo-tang'-hung-ka 'leader of a war party': could Clark be recording something like mdotanghungka? (His R's here are silent, and it isn't surprising that he omits the initial m- and the eng after the second vowel.) Thanks, Alan From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sun Oct 12 23:10:14 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan Hartley) Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 18:10:14 -0500 Subject: Partisan In-Reply-To: <3F89D97B.70502@d.umn.edu> Message-ID: > could Clark be recording something like mdotanghungka? On second thought, his tor- may just represent tV-, where V is unstressed. From nancyh at linguist.umass.edu Mon Oct 13 14:24:01 2003 From: nancyh at linguist.umass.edu (Nancy E Hall) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:24:01 -0400 Subject: Dorsey's Law Message-ID: Miner's Hocank Lexicon contains the word [k'orok'oros] 'be hollow'. This looks like a Dorsey's Law root in that it contains identical vowels flanking a sonorant, and it behaves like a DL root in that it reduplicates in its entirety. But while Miner 1979 lists [kr] among the clusters that trigger DL, [k'r] is not mentioned. Similarly, the Lexicon contains [haik'InI] 'stay to protect' ([I] = nasalized [i]). This is like a DL root in that the vowel before the nasal is nasalized, but again it involves [k']. Can anyone tell me if these are indeed cases of DL, and if so, is there any other information on DL after [k']? Thanks, Nancy Hall University of Haifa From rankin at ku.edu Mon Oct 13 14:20:34 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 09:20:34 -0500 Subject: Partisan Message-ID: > > could Clark be recording something like mdotanghungka? I don't see why not. If he really heard it from a Teton speaker, you might expect bl-, but, as you say, it could have been from a D-dialect interpreter. The *wR- sequence is quite variable across Mississippi Valley Siouan. Reflexes of the *w are often missing and the *R evolves regularly into [l, d, t, n] at least in different languages/dialects. At some point there may have been variability within Teton too. Bob From rankin at ku.edu Mon Oct 13 14:22:22 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 09:22:22 -0500 Subject: Partisan Message-ID: BTW, the cited Riggs form with mdetaN is very strange. This word has /o/ everywhere else, at least within Dakotan and Dhegiha. Bob > > could Clark be recording something like mdotanghungka? From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Mon Oct 13 15:30:17 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:30:17 -0500 Subject: Partisan Message-ID: > William Clark records as "Torto-hongar, Partezon (Bad fellow)" the name > of the second chief of a band of Tetons encountered in Sept. 1804. > Moulton, in a footnote says the name may be blotahungka 'war leader'. > Though the context is Teton, Clark's version shows no trace of bl-. Is > inital bl- a recent development in Lakota (or might Clark have got the > name through a non-Teton (but Sioux) interpreter? Riggs has > mde-tang'-hung-ka and Teton blo-tang'-hung-ka 'leader of a war party': > could Clark be recording something like mdotanghungka? (His R's here are > silent, and it isn't surprising that he omits the initial m- and the eng > after the second vowel.) Moulton's suggestion makes sense to me, along with Alan's ideas that the name came to Clark through a non-Teton Sioux interpreter, and that the accent was not on the first syllable. In OP, the corresponding word is /nudoN'hoNga/, again meaning 'war leader'. I believe the initial *R consonant goes to an oral stop (d/t) in the other Dhegihan languages. If Clark's R's are silent, and Moulton's view is correct, I would guess that Clark's "Torto-hongar" was intended to represent /tota'-hoNga/. This would be very similar to the OP pronunciation, except for the first few phonemes. How about Osage or Kaw? Wouldn't the Osage version be pronounced something like /totaN'-hoNka/? I don't suppose the expedition had picked up any temporary followers from downstream who might have been helping with the interpretation? Or could Clark and the others have already learned enough words themselves from the Dhegihans they had passed through earlier to prejudice their pronunciation of Dakotan? Otherwise, a Santee version like /mdota'-huNka/ would be pretty close too. Perhaps by the time they reached the Tetons, their representation of the local varieties of common Siouan words would have become something of a pastiche. Rory From bi1 at soas.ac.uk Mon Oct 13 16:51:10 2003 From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (bi1 at soas.ac.uk) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 17:51:10 +0100 Subject: Indian perfume set. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On the subject of plants, rice is I think psiN and onion ps^iN in Lakota (haven't got a dictionary to hand). This looks like the familiar Lakota sound symbolism. Does it work that way in other Siouan languages? Bruce On 7 Oct 2003 at 11:55, Koontz John E wrote: Date sent: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 11:55:16 -0600 (MDT) Send reply to: siouan at lists.colorado.edu From: Koontz John E To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Indian perfume set. > On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > > As I mentioned, the *o > u change may affect locative o- when other > > elements are grafted on as prefixes or proclitics. This simply hasn't > > been determined yet. Jimm may know. The problem is that relatively few > > elements can precede the locative prefixes. > > Jimm confirmed that *o- appears as u- in all cases of incorporation of > some element before it that he could think of. > > > Also it would be good for us to keep in mind that the sequence John > > reconstructs as *pr has two (at least) proto-Siouan sources. One is *wr > > (most of the instances, actually) and the other may be *pr (but there > > were precious few *p in these sequences, 'flat' may have been one). So > > *py may behave like one or the other or differently because it had a > > different chronology. > > We've discussed this before. Bob prefers to distinguish *wr and *pr, > while I consolidate all these sets phonologically. There are sets of this > type or types arising in nouns root initials, in verb root initials, in *r > with first person pronominals, and medially (basically, in 'three'). > > Dakota pretty nuch treats all of them as *pr, which becomes bl/bd/md/mn > before orals depending on the dialect, and mn before nasals generally. > > Dhegiha treats the nouns (*wr in Bob's analysis) as *R, n/d ~ j^/t ~ > c/t depending on the dialect, but n before nasals, and the rest appear > as *pr (bdh/bl/br/pd, depending on the dialect, and no nasal variant, > e.g., bdhaN 'to smell of something'). \ > > IO and Wi treat the nouns and the inflected verb forms and the medial form > as *R (d with nasal variant n), but retains *pr in verb stem initials > (br/pVrV, depending on the dialect and no nasal variant). > > So, the verb-stem initial forms (like 'flat' *pras(ka)) are the only ones > that never get reduced anywhere. > > Of course, though I don't find any reason but this last to distinguish *wr > from *pr, I don't claim that there are not multiple origins for *pr, or > perhaps we should always write *wr. In particular, most of the > polymorphemic cases of *pr (or *wr) clearly have a paired uncontracted > variant *wV-r, suggesting that these are from *w + *r or perhaps that a > lot of earlier **pV sequences "soften" to *wV. > > From ahartley at d.umn.edu Mon Oct 13 18:29:24 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan Hartley) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 13:29:24 -0500 Subject: Partisan In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks, Bob and Rory. > I don't suppose the expedition had picked up any temporary followers > from downstream who might have been helping with the interpretation? > Or could Clark and the others have already learned enough words > themselves from the Dhegihans they had passed through earlier to > prejudice their pronunciation of Dakotan? Otherwise, a Santee > version like /mdota'-huNka/ would be pretty close too. Perhaps > by the time they reached the Tetons, their representation of the > local varieties of common Siouan words would have become something > of a pastiche. You're probably right, Rory. Pierre Cruzatte was a permanent member of the expedition, and he spoke Omaha, the language of his mother. Moulton suggests that he may have been interpeting through some Omaha prisoners of the Tetons. (Cruzatte was also a renowned fiddler. And he had only one eye, which may help explain how he shot Lewis in the rear end while hunting.) Alan From rankin at ku.edu Mon Oct 13 18:32:09 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 13:32:09 -0500 Subject: Dorsey's Law Message-ID: Nancy, et al. These are indeed interesting forms. Actually, there should be NO underlying sequences of /k?r/ in any Siouan language. Glottalized stops do not participate in such clusters at the phonological level (nor do aspirates, although a few secondary aspirate clusters occur in some languages, notably Ofo and Dakotan). The only historical explanation I can think of for these relates to the fact that 'hollow, empty' does have a glottalized k?, but not as part of the cluster. E.g. in Kansa it is /xlok?a/. I suppose that the root could have been reanalyzed in Winnebago as the ordinarily-forbidden /k?ro/. If that is the case, then I guess you would have to consider /k?orok?oros/ to be a genuine DL output in that language. /haik?iNniN/ is a little different, but the same constraint OUGHT to apply. The problem is that the root here is from proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan */kriN/ 'stay, sit, continue', and the /k/ is not glottalized in any other dialect as far as I know. In Dhegiha it comes out /kriN/ with dialect variants Omaha-Ponca /gthiN/, Quapaw /kniN/, Kansa, Osage /liN/. Here there is no obvious source for glottalization at all in Winnebago, and I'd first check for a transcription error. Nobody's perfect. But it may be that Winnebago simply lacks the constraint against such complex underlying clusters in these (very) few forms. Bob > Miner's Hocank Lexicon contains the word [k'orok'oros] 'be hollow'. This looks like a Dorsey's Law root in that it contains identical vowels flanking a sonorant, and it behaves like a DL root in that it reduplicates in its entirety. But while Miner 1979 lists [kr] among the clusters that trigger DL, [k'r] is not mentioned. Similarly, the Lexicon contains [haik'InI] 'stay to protect' ([I] = nasalized [i]). This is like a DL root in that the vowel before the nasal is nasalized, but again it involves [k']. > Can anyone tell me if these are indeed cases of DL, and if so, is there any other information on DL after [k']? From rankin at ku.edu Mon Oct 13 18:46:40 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 13:46:40 -0500 Subject: Dorsey's Law again Message-ID: I just checked Marino's 1968 dictionary, based on Radin's slip file, and she lists /koro/ 'to rattle' (no ejective). So either some sort of sound symbolism is at work here, or you may have another transcription error. Couldn't find any of the forms you have from Miner, but that doesn't mean they don't occur, just that they weren't in the Radin file. Bob > Miner's Hocank Lexicon contains the word [k'orok'oros] 'be hollow'. From rankin at ku.edu Mon Oct 13 18:57:57 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 13:57:57 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: I'm not crazy about the semantics if this is indeed fricative symbolism. There's been quite a bit of innovation in these sets though. The Kansa term for 'onion', mazhaNghe, is cognate with Dakotan for 'sweetgrass'. > On the subject of plants, rice is I think psiN and onion ps^iN in Lakota (haven't got a dictionary to hand). This looks like the familiar Lakota sound symbolism. Does it work that way in other Siouan languages? From mary.marino at usask.ca Tue Oct 14 06:51:19 2003 From: mary.marino at usask.ca (Mary Marino) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 00:51:19 -0600 Subject: Indian perfume set. In-Reply-To: <6CFE0AAEA0B7E84A9E6292B3A056A68D164D94@meadowlark2.home.ku.edu> Message-ID: I'm not crazy about it either, and I have looked at a lot of "sound symbolism" (consonant ablaut) sets, in both Dakota and Hotchunk. /s/ and /s^/ do not invariably interact with each other in c ablaut sets, if I may state the obvious. In these parts, among my consultants, 'sweetgrass' is pez^uta was^temna. I think there is likely to be as much regional variation is this as in other plant and animal lexica. I don't quite have the hang of e-mail phonetic orthography in Siouan, so if my usage is deficient, please set me straight. Mary At 01:57 PM 10/13/2003 -0500, you wrote: >I'm not crazy about the semantics if this is indeed fricative symbolism. >There's been quite a bit of innovation in these sets though. The Kansa >term for 'onion', mazhaNghe, is cognate with Dakotan for 'sweetgrass'. > > > On the subject of plants, rice is I think psiN and onion ps^iN in >Lakota (haven't got a dictionary to hand). This looks like the familiar >Lakota sound symbolism. Does it work that way in other Siouan >languages? From Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc Tue Oct 14 12:41:46 2003 From: Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc (Louis Garcia) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 07:41:46 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set Message-ID: Hi gang: I would like to bud in here. The Dakota word for Sweetgrass is Wacanga. The 'g' is gutteral. LouieG From rankin at ku.edu Tue Oct 14 14:05:31 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 09:05:31 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: Sorry -- I don't think I included the whole cognate set for Kansa 'onion' : Lakota 'sweetgrass'. Kansa /maNz^aNghe/ : Lakota /wachaNgha/. That would be common Mississippi Valley Siouan */wayaNghe/ with a meaning involving some smelly plant. All but the final vowel a/e correspondence is completely regular. My /gh/ is IPA gamma, Lakota orthographic "g". Nasalization with upper case N. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mary Marino" To: Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 1:51 AM Subject: RE: Indian perfume set. > I'm not crazy about it either, and I have looked at a lot of "sound > symbolism" (consonant ablaut) sets, in both Dakota and Hotchunk. /s/ and > /s^/ do not invariably interact with each other in c ablaut sets, if I may > state the obvious. > > In these parts, among my consultants, 'sweetgrass' is pez^uta was^temna. I > think there is likely to be as much regional variation is this as in other > plant and animal lexica. > > I don't quite have the hang of e-mail phonetic orthography in Siouan, so if > my usage is deficient, please set me straight. > > Mary > > > > At 01:57 PM 10/13/2003 -0500, you wrote: > >I'm not crazy about the semantics if this is indeed fricative symbolism. > >There's been quite a bit of innovation in these sets though. The Kansa > >term for 'onion', mazhaNghe, is cognate with Dakotan for 'sweetgrass'. > > > > > On the subject of plants, rice is I think psiN and onion ps^iN in > >Lakota (haven't got a dictionary to hand). This looks like the familiar > >Lakota sound symbolism. Does it work that way in other Siouan > >languages? > > > From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 14 16:02:13 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 10:02:13 -0600 Subject: Indian perfume set. In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20031014004028.00ba2d38@sask.usask.ca> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Oct 2003, Mary Marino wrote: > I'm not crazy about it either, and I have looked at a lot of "sound > symbolism" (consonant ablaut) sets, in both Dakota and Hotchunk. /s/ and > /s^/ do not invariably interact with each other in c ablaut sets, if I may > state the obvious. I agree that these are probably only coincidentally similar, though looking at the whole range of *pSi(N)-based tuber/wetland plant terms I sometimes wonder. To answer Bruce, though, yes these terms do recur across Mississippi Valley Siouan, though presumably most of the groups knew rice mainly by hearsay or possibly trade. The original terms sometimes gets applied to imported rice, too. In Winnebago it's (part of) a personal name, I think, though the reference I know for it is in Omaha form. Except in Dakotan the initial p- is lost, as part of the regular reduction of *CS clusters to S. Terms for onion are replaced in Dhegiha, as far as I recall. > In these parts, among my consultants, 'sweetgrass' is pez^uta was^temna. I > think there is likely to be as much regional variation is this as in other > plant and animal lexica. Definitely. > I don't quite have the hang of e-mail phonetic orthography in Siouan, so if > my usage is deficient, please set me straight. There are some idiolectal variants, but your usage is regular. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 14 16:45:31 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 10:45:31 -0600 Subject: Dorsey's Law In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, Nancy E Hall wrote: > Miner's Hocank Lexicon contains the word [k'orok'oros] 'be hollow'. This > looks like a Dorsey's Law root in that it contains identical vowels > flanking a sonorant, and it behaves like a DL root in that it reduplicates > in its entirety. > Similarly, the Lexicon contains [haik'InI] 'stay to protect' ([I] = > nasalized [i]). This is like a DL root in that the vowel before the > nasal is nasalized, but again it involves [k']. I agree with Bob that in principle they can't be Dorsey's Law form because there is no underlying k?r cluster. On the other hand, the first does at least resemble a DL form for reduplication. I don't remember the examples, but there are one or two forms in Hollow's Mandan Dictionary that he reduced to CRV form in his process of presenting CVRV forms are underlyingly CRV that are probably underlyingly (or historically, anyway) CVRV. You have to be a bit careful with this sort of analysis, as there are occasional medial R's. The possible example in this line in Winnebago that I know of is the friend term, hic^akoro, if I recall it correctly. This is historically something like *i-hta-k(V)ro, with *i-hta- third person possessive. The exact form of 'friend' is debatable, as it is a pretty irregular set and may involve one or more borrowings from outside sources. Resemblants occur in Algonquian and Muskogean, for example, though, generally speaking everybody has been content to think of all these forms (Siouan included) as internal developments. In any event, compare Dakotan khola, suggesting *hkoRa. This is perhaps somehow related to the -khota root itself, with its dependent variant -khol, though in that case the -l- (etc., in the other dialects) in khola is rather irregular. We expect CCVta ~ CCVl, but not the third form CCVla. Given that third variant CCVla we know we have either something irregular or something unconnected. An easy assumption would be that khola is the irregular form, but it is also possible that the original is actually khola ~ khol, and that -khota is a back formation from the latter. This is consistant with the apparent lack of *hkot cognates, though, of course, this is a negative evidence argument. In that case the Dakotan and Winnebago forms are closer to matching, though Winnebago would have to have -d- (-t- in Miner's orthography) to match *R. That is, -koro could come from -hkoro, which might be an analogical modification of *hkora, but we have -r- here, and not -R-. *R comes out as d. Still, given the similarity in meaning, not to mention the weak appreciation of the *r : *R contrast between Dorsey and Kaufman, it's generally assumed that the Dakotan and Winnebago forms are related. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 15 16:22:45 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:22:45 -0600 Subject: Dorsey's Law again In-Reply-To: <6CFE0AAEA0B7E84A9E6292B3A056A68D164D95@meadowlark2.home.ku.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 rankin at ku.edu wrote: > > Miner's Hocank Lexicon contains the word [k'orok'oros] 'be hollow'. The Winnebago and Ioway-Otoe materials suggest a phonaestheme k?o 'hollow'. The relevant forms (except perhaps k?o(o) 'thunder') all have definitions in regard to shape. Forms include IO k?owe 'hollow'. Winnebago doesn't seem to have a corresponding *k?oop, but it does have several k?o hollow words, which I don't recall off the top of my head. I wonder if this form might not be characterized as the interesting collision of a CRVC 'make sound' phonaesthemic root with the k?o phonaestheme? In regard to haik?iNniN 'look after', I suspect that the stem here is gik?iN 'carry one's own on one's back'. The definitions in various sources suggest hovering animal mothers over their young or humans caring for sick and pregnant people. I'm not sure what niN is in the context. Some sort of auxiliary. In this case the two syllables k?iN and niN are not from original *kriN at all. The 'on, over' sense derives entirely from the locative (h)a-. From rankin at ku.edu Wed Oct 15 18:02:14 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:02:14 -0500 Subject: Dorsey's Law again Message-ID: The full meaning(s) given by Miner is 'stay in vicinity to protect young (animal); stay within earshot to protect inhabitants; stay with pregnant woman'. (Miner 1984:#575) Seems to me it matches *kriN 'stay, continue, sit, camp' a lot better than 'pack on the back' (which also leaves niN unidentified). But, of course, that leaves the glottal unaccounted for. I wonder if an earlier form might have been *ha?ikiNniN, with some sort of glottal transposition. In that case, it could just be a "Grenzsignal". Bob > In regard to haik?iNniN 'look after', I suspect that the stem here is gik?iN 'carry one's own on one's back'. The definitions in various sources suggest hovering animal mothers over their young or humans caring for sick and pregnant people. I'm not sure what niN is in the context. Some sort of auxiliary. In this case the two syllables k?iN and niN are not from original *kriN at all. The 'on, over' sense derives entirely from the locative (h)a-. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 15 18:41:19 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:41:19 -0600 Subject: Dorsey's Law again In-Reply-To: <6CFE0AAEA0B7E84A9E6292B3A056A68D164D9A@meadowlark2.home.ku.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 rankin at ku.edu wrote: > The full meaning(s) given by Miner is 'stay in vicinity to protect young > (animal); stay within earshot to protect inhabitants; stay with pregnant > woman'. (Miner 1984:#575) Seems to me it matches *kriN 'stay, continue, > sit, camp' a lot better than 'pack on the back' (which also leaves niN > unidentified). But, of course, that leaves the glottal unaccounted for. > I wonder if an earlier form might have been *ha?ikiNniN, with some sort > of glottal transposition. In that case, it could just be a > "Grenzsignal". I believe Winnebago hai- is usually < (h)a + gi-. There actually is an auxiliary niN, though I'm not sure if the example I remember is from Winnebago or Mandan (or both). The example is xop + niN 'be holy'. This may or may not be *riN 'to move', but say it was *riN 'to move', then the form would be something like 'go along carrying one's own on the back'. Which brings us to the gloss 'protect young (animal)', which I took as the root sense. I was thinking of the protector as the mother and recalling cases like the opossum, where the mother carries the young on her back. This would certainly make a good metaphor for a protective mother or, by extension, anyone else especially solicitous. I looked for comparable forms elsewhere, however, and didn't find any quickly. Forms like gik?iN 'carry one's own on back' do exist, of course. Anyway, that was my logic. JEK From rankin at ku.edu Wed Oct 15 20:04:58 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 15:04:58 -0500 Subject: Dorsey's Law again Message-ID: I take the WI auxiliary niN you mention in xopniN to just be the cognate with Dhegiha *dhiN 'be of class membership'. B-liN 'I am', $-niN 'you are', dhiN 's/he is', etc., as in KkaNze bliN 'I'm Kaw'. But the semantics point to 'stay, continue'. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Koontz John E" To: Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 1:41 PM Subject: RE: Dorsey's Law again > On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 rankin at ku.edu wrote: > > The full meaning(s) given by Miner is 'stay in vicinity to protect young > > (animal); stay within earshot to protect inhabitants; stay with pregnant > > woman'. (Miner 1984:#575) Seems to me it matches *kriN 'stay, continue, > > sit, camp' a lot better than 'pack on the back' (which also leaves niN > > unidentified). But, of course, that leaves the glottal unaccounted for. > > I wonder if an earlier form might have been *ha?ikiNniN, with some sort > > of glottal transposition. In that case, it could just be a > > "Grenzsignal". > > I believe Winnebago hai- is usually < (h)a + gi-. There actually is an > auxiliary niN, though I'm not sure if the example I remember is from > Winnebago or Mandan (or both). The example is xop + niN 'be holy'. This > may or may not be *riN 'to move', but say it was *riN 'to move', then the > form would be something like 'go along carrying one's own on the back'. > Which brings us to the gloss 'protect young (animal)', which I took as the > root sense. I was thinking of the protector as the mother and recalling > cases like the opossum, where the mother carries the young on her back. > This would certainly make a good metaphor for a protective mother or, by > extension, anyone else especially solicitous. I looked for comparable > forms elsewhere, however, and didn't find any quickly. Forms like gik?iN > 'carry one's own on back' do exist, of course. Anyway, that was my logic. > > JEK > From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Oct 16 07:27:14 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 01:27:14 -0600 Subject: Winnebago *p > w (long) Message-ID: This gathers together several threads in my reasoning about Proto-Siouan, or mainly Proto-Mississippi Valley, phonology and morphology as they underpin modern Mississippi Valley. Almost nothing here is new to those who have been listening to my chatter on the subject over the years will notice, but the issue of how to deal with the conundrum of final -p in Winnebago struck me forcibly recently, leading me to synthesize several of my arguments here. Naturally, most of the basic assumptions and phonology here trace historically to Wolff, Matthews, and Kaufman, separately, and occasionally even to Dorsey, as well as to Rankin, Carter, Jones, and Rood, collectively and severally, not to mention Rood and Taylor, who individually introduced me to all this and Taylor specifically relative to *th, discussed by him as *rh. I may be unique in my willingness to merge all cases of *wr and *pr and/or *br in at least Proto-Mississippi Valley, distinguishing them only by context, in my treatment of final *-e and *-[velar]a in Winnebago-Chiwere, and in my tendency to treat final -e/-a/-ka in PMV as morphemes. I think, however, that most recent students have considered most of these angles before me without necessarily coming to the same final conclusions or mentioning all the possibilities out loud or in print. One of the interesting things about Winnebago phonology is that *hC (preaspirates *hp/ht/hk) merge to such an extent with *C (inaspirates *p/*t/*k). The merged *ht and *t both come out c^, of course, while hp/p > p, and hk/k > k. Unmerged *C come out w, j^, g. For example, *hpe(e)t- 'fire' > peec^, *se(e)p- 'black' > seep, *pe(e)thaN 'to fold' > weej^aN, *pras-ka 'flat' > paras (*-ka not attested in Winnebago). These mergers occur because Winnebago eliminates the contrast of preaspiration vs. non-aspiration in favor of voicelessness vs. voice. As a result, it is syllable initial *C, mainly, remains distinct, as the voiced series w/j^/g. All cases of d come from *R (or *pr), e.g., *Reek- 'MoBro' > hi-dek ~ dee(k)-ga, *pro-ka 'male' > -dok 'augmentative'. Interestingly, the scarce true aspirates become *w/j^/g, too, so, for example, *thi becomes OP thi 'arrive here', but Winnebago j^ii. (Note for Dakotanists - *th > h in Dakotan, hence pehaN and hi for the verbs above.) The initial *hC sequences - some people like to think of such things as clusters, some don't - appear as p/c^/k, as does *C (where retained) in *Cr or *C when word final final, as in the examples in the first paragraph. Word final instances of -C occur quite frequently, as Winnebago seems to have lost all final *-e. And there are quite a few of these, since final *-a after velars seems to have become -e as well. Thus the proto-forms - nouns and verbs - in final *C-, which appear with -Ca or -Ce elsewhere, are just -C in Winnebago, per the examples above again. With *-a after velars this loss via *-e occurs with clear *-Ca forms like those in *-ka, e.g., the *pro-ka example, which is just nu in OP (no *-ka), but is -dok in Winnebago. The exception is cases where there is a sequence *-C-ka, which manifests as *-Cke. So *yaNt- 'heart', which manifests sometimes as if it had been *yaN(aN)t-e and sometimes as if *yaN(aN)t-ka (different classs of absolute marker?), appears in Winnebago as both naNaNc^ and naNaNc^ge. The same merger of post-velaric -a and -e is also attested in Ioway-Otoe. As the -Cke examples show, too, *C (when t or k) is voiceless in CC clusters, though *p becomes w, cf. *yaN(aN)tpa 'ear' > naNaNc^awa. The final -C forms do seem to voice when a resonant-initial enclitic is added to them, cf., -xjuk 'pulverized' (an instrumental stem), but xjuug-re 'be crushed'. Miner generally writes *C as voiced in SC clusters, again cf. -xjuk < *-xtuk-, or *ska 'white' > sgaa. With *p this voicing means w, as in *s^paN 'soft' > s^aN(aN)waN (length not expected here, but indicated by Miner). Probably the way to think of this is that *C is voiced in initial position and when it preceeds a resonant (before resonant-initial enclitics), and that *hC consistently loses preaspiration. (I think all initial voiceless stops are aspirated, and I think final ones probably are not, but merely unreleased.) This doesn't handle cases like *tp or *Sp, however. One very interesting thing about this system of changes though, is that final *-p actually does appear as -p ~ -b#r-. This is problematic because in Ioway-Otoe, where these final *-p are not final, since final *-e has not been lost, they appear as -w-, e.g., *sep- 'black' is e(e)we. The IO behavior suggests that all initial and final-medial *p > w in both Winnebago and Ioway-Otoe. In fact, since it is generally assumed that these two languages share a common ancestor later than Proto-Mississippi Valley, we could say this happened in Proto-Winnebago-Chiwere. But if it did happen that way, then when final *-e was lost, forms like Proto-Winebago-Chiwere (or Pre-Winnebago) *seewe (cf. IO (th>e(e)we) must have become seep, the form attested in Winnebago, with nominal reversal of *p > *w. What seems more likely is that Pre-Winnebago speakers were somehow aware that *w in this context was really or alternatively *p (or *b), perhaps because there were still at that time alternating forms like *seewe ~ *seep (or *seeb) in different contexts, not unlike the contemporary cases of (?) sapa ~ sap (or sab), *(wV-)ra(a)p- 'beaver' > c^hapa ~ c^hap (or c^hab) in Dakotan. Of course, such alternates are virtually eliminated in modern Winnebago, which is all seep, and modern Ioway-Otoe, which is all ewe. A possible exception to this is Winnebago was^c^iNiNk 'rabbit', but was^c^iNiNge-ga 'the Rabbit', in contrast with hi-dek, but dee(k)-ga 'uncle'. The -e- certainly looks like a relict *-e. Dhegiha tends to follow the Ioway-Otoe model, though we see probable reflexes of the *-C-e ~ *-C alternation in cases like *khet- 'shoulder' > OP iNkhede, but iNkhe-sabe 'black-shouldered' (epithet of the buffalo preserved in a clan name), with no -d(e). I believe the Dhegiha compounds with truncated first stems reflect phonetic loss of -C in relict *-C forms, since compounds are -C alternate contexts in Dakotan. In recalling the Winnebago-Chiwere shift of *p to *w, it might be appropriate to notice that something similar, occurring in a different and earlier context might explain the *b- (or *p-) ~ *wa- alternation in the Proto-Siouan first person. That is, perhaps we see here reflexes of **ba-, which becomes *wa-, except in contexts where it was reduced to *b- before certain consonants. (We might also wonder if *wa- (perhaps from **Ba-) occurs where it does (especially before *R and *CC-, including *hC- and *Ch- and *C?-) because epenthetic *a was needed there to simplify to *baCC- the **bCC cluster that would otherwise result. However, it is not necessary here to explain how we come to have the vocalic alternation that we find in *b- ~ *wa-.) John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Fri Oct 17 17:43:50 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 12:43:50 -0500 Subject: Winnebago *p > w (long) Message-ID: Thanks for the great overview, John! I'll be a while trying to absorb that! So for single-consonant, syllable-initial situations, we have: ? MVS Da OP Os IO Winn *p p b p w *t t d t j^ *k k g k g *hp ph pp hp ph *ht th tt ht th *hk kh kk hk kh *ph ph ph ph w *th h th th j^ *kh kh kh kh g Is this paradigm correct? One minor correction (I think): > *pro-ka 'male' > -dok 'augmentative' [...] > With *-a after velars this loss via *-e occurs with > clear *-Ca forms like those in *-ka, e.g., the *pro-ka > example, which is just nu in OP (no *-ka), but is -dok > in Winnebago. Actually, 'male' in OP is nu'ga, which matches *pro-ka. OP nu means 'man'. Based partly on this pair, I've been coming to the view that *-ka functions as a qualitative generalizer. I would suppose that it acted to abstract the quality of the base that it attached to, making either a stative verb, as in this case, or a noun as an oblique reference to an entity that characteristically manifested that quality. Does this seem likely to you? Rory Koontz John E o.edu> cc: Sent by: Subject: Winnebago *p > w (long) owner-siouan at lists.c olorado.edu 10/16/2003 02:27 AM Please respond to siouan This gathers together several threads in my reasoning about Proto-Siouan, or mainly Proto-Mississippi Valley, phonology and morphology as they underpin modern Mississippi Valley. Almost nothing here is new to those who have been listening to my chatter on the subject over the years will notice, but the issue of how to deal with the conundrum of final -p in Winnebago struck me forcibly recently, leading me to synthesize several of my arguments here. Naturally, most of the basic assumptions and phonology here trace historically to Wolff, Matthews, and Kaufman, separately, and occasionally even to Dorsey, as well as to Rankin, Carter, Jones, and Rood, collectively and severally, not to mention Rood and Taylor, who individually introduced me to all this and Taylor specifically relative to *th, discussed by him as *rh. I may be unique in my willingness to merge all cases of *wr and *pr and/or *br in at least Proto-Mississippi Valley, distinguishing them only by context, in my treatment of final *-e and *-[velar]a in Winnebago-Chiwere, and in my tendency to treat final -e/-a/-ka in PMV as morphemes. I think, however, that most recent students have considered most of these angles before me without necessarily coming to the same final conclusions or mentioning all the possibilities out loud or in print. One of the interesting things about Winnebago phonology is that *hC (preaspirates *hp/ht/hk) merge to such an extent with *C (inaspirates *p/*t/*k). The merged *ht and *t both come out c^, of course, while hp/p > p, and hk/k > k. Unmerged *C come out w, j^, g. For example, *hpe(e)t- 'fire' > peec^, *se(e)p- 'black' > seep, *pe(e)thaN 'to fold' > weej^aN, *pras-ka 'flat' > paras (*-ka not attested in Winnebago). These mergers occur because Winnebago eliminates the contrast of preaspiration vs. non-aspiration in favor of voicelessness vs. voice. As a result, it is syllable initial *C, mainly, remains distinct, as the voiced series w/j^/g. All cases of d come from *R (or *pr), e.g., *Reek- 'MoBro' > hi-dek ~ dee(k)-ga, *pro-ka 'male' > -dok 'augmentative'. Interestingly, the scarce true aspirates become *w/j^/g, too, so, for example, *thi becomes OP thi 'arrive here', but Winnebago j^ii. (Note for Dakotanists - *th > h in Dakotan, hence pehaN and hi for the verbs above.) The initial *hC sequences - some people like to think of such things as clusters, some don't - appear as p/c^/k, as does *C (where retained) in *Cr or *C when word final final, as in the examples in the first paragraph. Word final instances of -C occur quite frequently, as Winnebago seems to have lost all final *-e. And there are quite a few of these, since final *-a after velars seems to have become -e as well. Thus the proto-forms - nouns and verbs - in final *C-, which appear with -Ca or -Ce elsewhere, are just -C in Winnebago, per the examples above again. With *-a after velars this loss via *-e occurs with clear *-Ca forms like those in *-ka, e.g., the *pro-ka example, which is just nu in OP (no *-ka), but is -dok in Winnebago. The exception is cases where there is a sequence *-C-ka, which manifests as *-Cke. So *yaNt- 'heart', which manifests sometimes as if it had been *yaN(aN)t-e and sometimes as if *yaN(aN)t-ka (different classs of absolute marker?), appears in Winnebago as both naNaNc^ and naNaNc^ge. The same merger of post-velaric -a and -e is also attested in Ioway-Otoe. As the -Cke examples show, too, *C (when t or k) is voiceless in CC clusters, though *p becomes w, cf. *yaN(aN)tpa 'ear' > naNaNc^awa. The final -C forms do seem to voice when a resonant-initial enclitic is added to them, cf., -xjuk 'pulverized' (an instrumental stem), but xjuug-re 'be crushed'. Miner generally writes *C as voiced in SC clusters, again cf. -xjuk < *-xtuk-, or *ska 'white' > sgaa. With *p this voicing means w, as in *s^paN 'soft' > s^aN(aN)waN (length not expected here, but indicated by Miner). Probably the way to think of this is that *C is voiced in initial position and when it preceeds a resonant (before resonant-initial enclitics), and that *hC consistently loses preaspiration. (I think all initial voiceless stops are aspirated, and I think final ones probably are not, but merely unreleased.) This doesn't handle cases like *tp or *Sp, however. One very interesting thing about this system of changes though, is that final *-p actually does appear as -p ~ -b#r-. This is problematic because in Ioway-Otoe, where these final *-p are not final, since final *-e has not been lost, they appear as -w-, e.g., *sep- 'black' is e(e)we. The IO behavior suggests that all initial and final-medial *p > w in both Winnebago and Ioway-Otoe. In fact, since it is generally assumed that these two languages share a common ancestor later than Proto-Mississippi Valley, we could say this happened in Proto-Winnebago-Chiwere. But if it did happen that way, then when final *-e was lost, forms like Proto-Winebago-Chiwere (or Pre-Winnebago) *seewe (cf. IO (th>e(e)we) must have become seep, the form attested in Winnebago, with nominal reversal of *p > *w. What seems more likely is that Pre-Winnebago speakers were somehow aware that *w in this context was really or alternatively *p (or *b), perhaps because there were still at that time alternating forms like *seewe ~ *seep (or *seeb) in different contexts, not unlike the contemporary cases of (?) sapa ~ sap (or sab), *(wV-)ra(a)p- 'beaver' > c^hapa ~ c^hap (or c^hab) in Dakotan. Of course, such alternates are virtually eliminated in modern Winnebago, which is all seep, and modern Ioway-Otoe, which is all ewe. A possible exception to this is Winnebago was^c^iNiNk 'rabbit', but was^c^iNiNge-ga 'the Rabbit', in contrast with hi-dek, but dee(k)-ga 'uncle'. The -e- certainly looks like a relict *-e. Dhegiha tends to follow the Ioway-Otoe model, though we see probable reflexes of the *-C-e ~ *-C alternation in cases like *khet- 'shoulder' > OP iNkhede, but iNkhe-sabe 'black-shouldered' (epithet of the buffalo preserved in a clan name), with no -d(e). I believe the Dhegiha compounds with truncated first stems reflect phonetic loss of -C in relict *-C forms, since compounds are -C alternate contexts in Dakotan. In recalling the Winnebago-Chiwere shift of *p to *w, it might be appropriate to notice that something similar, occurring in a different and earlier context might explain the *b- (or *p-) ~ *wa- alternation in the Proto-Siouan first person. That is, perhaps we see here reflexes of **ba-, which becomes *wa-, except in contexts where it was reduced to *b- before certain consonants. (We might also wonder if *wa- (perhaps from **Ba-) occurs where it does (especially before *R and *CC-, including *hC- and *Ch- and *C?-) because epenthetic *a was needed there to simplify to *baCC- the **bCC cluster that would otherwise result. However, it is not necessary here to explain how we come to have the vocalic alternation that we find in *b- ~ *wa-.) John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Oct 17 23:39:54 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 17:39:54 -0600 Subject: PMS Correspondences [was Re: Winnebago *p > w (long)] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 17 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > MVS Da OP Os IO Winn > > *p p b p w *p p b p w w (I'm glossing over OP use of p in Sp clusters, and so on below for t and k.) > *t t d t j^ *t t d ~ j^ t ~ c d ~ j^ j^ ~ c^ OP has j^ in diminutives. Os has c before eiu and maybe some diminutives. IO has j^ before ei. Wi has c^ finally and in CC clusters. > *k k g k g *k k ~ c^ g k g g ~ k Da has c^ after i and some e. Wi has k finally and in CC clusters. > *hp ph pp hp ph *hp ph pp hp p p > *ht th tt ht th *ht th tt ~ c^c^ ht ~ hc t ~ c^ c^ OP, Os, and IO conditioning as for *t. > *hk kh kk hk kh *hk kh ~ c^h kk hk k k Da conditioning as for *k. > *ph ph ph ph w *ph ph ph ~ h ph ~ h w ~ h w ~ h Most of the languages have h in some forms, especially first person of 'to say'. OP also in *-phe 'travel' (uhe). Os ph is ps^/eiu ~ px. > *th h th th j^ *th h ~ th th ~ c^h th ~ ch d ~ j^ j^ Da has th in *waNtho 'grizzly', but mostly h. OP, Os, IO palatal variants as for *t. Os th is tx (tends to become kx). > *kh kh kh kh g *kh kh ~ c^h kh kh g g Da conditioning as for *k. Os kh is ks^ ~ kx, conditioning as for *ph. *p? p? p? p? p? p? *t? t? t? ~ c^? t? ~ c? t? ~ c^? c^? *k? k? ~ c^? ? k? k? k? Palatalization, again, as above. I seem to recall that one of the languages loses p in *p?, but ???? *s s s s t^ ~ h s *s^ s^/0 s^/h/0 s^/s s s^ *x x x x x x Here the /... variants occur in the second person of *r-stems and sometimes a few other forms (as in OP =s^na HABITUAL (or maybe better, EXCLUSIVELY). T^ is theta. IO has conservative variants that match Winnebago. The h alternant occurs in some clusters, e.g., sk can be sk, t^k, or hk. There is a voiced fricative set that parallels the voiceless one, and is often considered to derive from it. (See *y below for IO.) *s? s? s? c? t^? s? *s^? s^? s^? s^? s? s^? *x? x? ? k? x? x? *h h ~ 0 h h h h *? ? ? ? ? ? 0 is zero, of course! Da has 0 in at least the motion verbs, h mostly otherwise - nouns and statives. The ? set really refers to the ?-stem verbs, and is rather a vexed issue. You don't find ?-initial nouns or ? in medial or final position (except sporadically in Mandan). Usually ? otherwise in a sunchronic sense is a transition with some vowel sequences and an epenthetic initial before vowels. The ?-stem verbs usually lack ?, but sometimes have k? or s^? where k or s^ figure in some languages. They don't get epenthetic h in Wi. For the most part, however, ?-stems behave suspiciously like *V-initial stems, cf. *?uN leading to OP aN 'do': A1 m-aN < *w(a)-aN or *b-?aN or *p-?aN (?), A2 z^aN < *y(a)-aN or *s^-?aN (?). Wi is the only language that actually does have s^? in second persons. Other languages often borrow the *r-stem form and show n-. Interestingly enough, the only clear oral ?-verb known is ?o 'to shoot and wound' (or something like that) in older Wi. But *(h)u 'come' looks like one in the second part of older Da wahibu, yahinu, hiyu (A123). OP has phi, s^i, i (not *hi) (A123) even though it keeps h in verbs. [unk] 0 0 h h h This unknown initial occurs initially with the *[unk]aNp 'day(light)' set and at least one demonstrative *[unk]a- INDEFINITE. The first person agent behaves just a bit like this, if you consider only OP (a), IO (ha), Wi (ha). Os and Da break the pattern, with a and wa. *R l/... n t ~ c r d *W b/... m w w w Recall that *pr (or *wr or *br) often behaves as *R or *pR. So does *r in *sr and *s^r clusters, though the pattern do not correlate. Da l/.. refers to the dialect differences l ~ d ~ n, which get a bit more complex in conditioning around nasalization. Note that things like the diminutive =la are =daN in other dialects: presence of nasality varies with the dialect in certain morphemes. Da b/... seems to be b in Santee, but w in Teton. However, a few stems show m, e.g., me. Not sure what's up there. The stem *pi 'moon, sun' appears nasalized (miN) in Dhegiha. *r y dh dh r r *y c^h z^ z^ r ~ y r *w w w/0 w/0 w/h w/h Here the the /... alternates occur in the first person agent. Winnebago adds epenthetic h in the #V[short] context generally, but IO does not. Nobody can explain why IO has z^ in a few forms. For what it's worth, the one I remember is 'penis' PMV *ye. I've suggested that these are either loans from PDh (though they're very basic words, as can be seen), or that PCh was on the border between PDh and PWi and some words went one way and some another. Note that IO y and Dh z^ are essentially the same thing. I believe IO has y for z^ from *z^, too, but I'm not sure. I won't try to go into nasalized variants of *r (n) and *w (m). This is a rather vexed area. Basically, you get n and m with some unexpected oral reflexes, or n and m in nouns and oral reflexes (at least for *r) in verbs. I summarized this a while back to some extent with *r and *R and *pr. One example of a weird nasal set is *wiNh- 'female'. OP has miN (in names) and miNga 'female animal'. It doesn't sound especially nasal, at least in the latter. Da has wiN- (compounds) and wiNyaN. I take the latter to have the -a noun formant attached, with epenthetic y (from epenthetic *r, perhaps) and nasal spreading, i.e., *wiN-ra > wiNyaN. One possible explanation for the failure to nasalize w to m is the -h that is attested in some of the non-MV languages. I'd assume something like *wiNh-ra > *whiN-raN > wiN-yaN, but at least some reanalysis seems to be needed. By the way, Bob Rankin has been able to explain the Da -kha, OP -kka, IO/Wi -ke formant as what happens when you add *-ka to *h-final stems. So, you have to suppose that nouns like Da maNkha ~ OP maNkka are from *waNh-ka. But note that in this case you don't get *waNka in Da. You get -ke in IO and Wi because *a > e after a velar. Of course, you get -s-ke in *-s-ka nouns, too. But when you see apparent V-ke, it is from *Vh-ka. I couldn't seem to fit this in above without interrupting something: Os students like to write br (not bdh) for *pr in verb stems and verb inflection. I haven't dealt with clusters or vowels to any great extent in this summary, though they have been mentioned in passing. > One minor correction (I think): > > > *pro-ka 'male' > -dok 'augmentative' > [...] > > With *-a after velars this loss via *-e occurs with > > clear *-Ca forms like those in *-ka, e.g., the *pro-ka > > example, which is just nu in OP (no *-ka), but is -dok > > in Winnebago. > > Actually, 'male' in OP is nu'ga, which matches *pro-ka. > OP nu means 'man'. I omitted to say that OP has doublets for this form, with and without *-ka. Other languages don't. There's variation on *wiNh- 'female', too, with Dhegiha having doublets. I'm not sure that the qualifier reading of *-ka (applies in Dakotan, too) doesn't arise from its use as a nominalizer with what amount to relative clauses 'that which is a ...'. In any event, the glosses offered are the sort of generic glosses one might deduce for PMVS from the range of glosses in the individual languages. The CSD is more correct or assiduous with glosses. From Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc Wed Oct 22 13:14:31 2003 From: Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc (Louis Garcia) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 08:14:31 -0500 Subject: Hda / Sna Message-ID: Hi gang: I have a question for you guys: A new book was published by the Minnesota Historical Society this past summer "Being Dakota" The book is about the Amos OneRoad manuscript. Amos' Indian name is Mahpiyasna which he translated as Ringing Cloud. As far as I understand Hda is ringing. Sna is a rustling sound. We find this for the Dakota month for October Canwapekasna Wi or Rustling leaf moon. What are your thoughts? LouieG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcumberl at indiana.edu Wed Oct 22 17:13:04 2003 From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (lcumberl at indiana.edu) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 12:13:04 -0500 Subject: Hda / Sna In-Reply-To: <004901c3989e$6e08efc0$d200c90a@voced1> Message-ID: Hi Louie, Might -sna be a mis-transcription for s^na? In Assiniboine there is a root -s^na 'ring, jingle', (kas^sna 'to ring', s^na's^nana 'a bell') although we have one example in which snaN (with a nasalized a, and /s/ rather than /s^/)means 'jingle': snaNyena omanipi uNpi 'they're jingling as they walk around, as girls in jingle dresses' The root -xap is 'rustle', as in naxapxam 'making a rustling sound with the feet, as when walking in leaves' The root -xna is 'rattle', as in kaxna' and yuxna' 'to rattle, make a rattling sound' and kaxna'xnapina 'a rattle' Linda Quoting Louis Garcia : > Hi gang: > I have a question for you guys: > A new book was published by the Minnesota Historical Society this past summer > "Being Dakota" The book is about the Amos OneRoad manuscript. > Amos' Indian name is Mahpiyasna which he translated as Ringing Cloud. > As far as I understand Hda is ringing. Sna is a rustling sound. We find this > for the Dakota month for October Canwapekasna Wi or Rustling leaf moon. > What are your thoughts? > LouieG From Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc Wed Oct 22 21:04:27 2003 From: Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc (Louis Garcia) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 16:04:27 -0500 Subject: Hda / Sna Message-ID: Linda: The way sna is pronounced here, is unexasperated. I think that is the proper term. It is not xna. Just a plain old 's', ha!, ha! The name used here for Jingle dress is xdaxda sugsugnica. I hope I spelled sugnica correctly. The 'x' is an s with a dot over it. Toksta ake, LouieG From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Oct 23 04:07:19 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 22:07:19 -0600 Subject: Fricatives (was Re: Hda / Sna) In-Reply-To: <001a01c398e0$1460f2a0$d200c90a@voced1> Message-ID: On Wed, 22 Oct 2003, Louis Garcia wrote: > The name used here for Jingle dress is xdaxda sugsugnica. > I hope I spelled sugnica correctly. The 'x' is an s with a dot over it. Usage varies, historically, especially for Dakotan and Omaha and Winnebago - a function of the number of sources available. Under the one source - one orthography principle, the better documented a language is the more orthographies it has. There are three fricative series s, s^, x like English s, sh, and German ch, approximately. These also occur voiced (or less strident) z, z^, gh, like English s, English ge in garage (for some) or z in azure, essentially like French j. I can't think of any convenient widely known examples for gh! Like gh in ghage 'to cry' in OP, I guess. The s/z set is pretty much always written s/z, except in languages that change it to th/dh (like Ioway-Otoe), where theta and edh become more common. This is also what underlies LaFlesche's use of c-cedilla for both s and z in Omaha (and Osage). Apparently he spoke a variant of Omaha with th/dh for s/z. This is mentioned in once place in Dorsey's notes, as characteristic of Frank LaFlesche, and examples from Fletcher show it was fairly general in Bikkude (a/k/a Village of Make-Believe Whitemen). Dorsey used c-cedilla for theta and LaFlesche seems to have learned this from him. For sh/zh you see those diagraphs (not always convenient), or s^/z^ (representing s and z with a little "vee" (hacek) over them), the usual recent Americanist linguistic convention, or s-dot/z-dot, or s-accent/z-accent, or c or z for sh and j for zh or some combination of the last few. For x/gh (gh being a way to write gamma when you haven't got a gamma) you might see x and gamma (Greek g), the usual recent Americanist linguistic convention. The Colorado Lakota Project uses h^/g^ (same explanation of ^). Various sources use h-dot/g-dot. I haven't seen accents with h and g. Dorsey used q and x (q for x, x for gh!). LaFlesche crunches them together as x. Dakotanists are perfectly happy with g for gh, since contexts where gh occurs are contexts where g can't occur. You might find r for gh (based on what French r sounds like). Dorsey used this at one point. Of course, particular sources have some particular way of doing things, i.e., Riggs is internally consistent, Buechel is, Dorsey is, LaFlesche is, and so on. That is, these folks are consistent in a particular source. They often differ between publications, or between the draft in the archives and the published version, and so on. I haven't tried to list these particular schemes, however, but only to give a general idea of the variation you will encounter. I believe Linda used s, s^, x for Riggs's s, s-accent, h-dot and Buechel's s, s-dot, and h-dot. I'm not absolutely positive I remember these two gentlemens' practice! At this point I sort of see what it is when I open one of their books and go on without much of a pause. A Siouanist who isn't flexible in this respect is in a bad way ... As far as the precise senses of the sound symbolism sets for sounds, it wouldn't surprise me to see huge differences from one place to another, maybe from one family to another, maybe even from one idiom to another. One man's rattle is another man's buzz or ringing. Actually, in the high pitches a whistle in my left ear is a rattle in the right, I've discovered. Apparently something is broken in there. Particular names will probably always have the same sound value and same gloss, but might be wildly out of step with another person or place's preferred gloss of that sound value. This problem is even worse between languages. The CSD folks didn't want to allow themselves to freely compare any fricative to any other fricative - what we might call the Greenbergian approach - and had many anguished debates over this issue. They eventually developed some practical protocols - informed by the patterns of Siouan languages - under which they would look at sets with essentially a reconstruction of *S (a cover symbol for *s/*s^/*x) as opposed to *s, *s^ or *x. In such sets *S represents a set in which sound symbolism has been at work leaving non-corresponding fricative grades behind, e.g., forms that suggest *sra in one language, *s^ra and *xra not being in use; and forms that suggest *s^ra in another, *sra and *xra not being in use, and so on, but with clearly related glosses. These protocols interact with the requirement that a form be attested in at least 2 branches of Siouan as opposed to just Mississippi Valley. Actually, requiring attestation outside MV tends to clean up a lot of the worst cases of this sort of thing, I think. From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Thu Oct 23 15:44:26 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 10:44:26 -0500 Subject: Fricatives (was Re: Hda / Sna) Message-ID: John wrote: > I can't think of any convenient widely known examples for > gh! Like gh in ghage 'to cry' in OP, I guess. In teach-yourself language books, the example I've seen most often is German "sagen". (Accent on first syllable, pronounce 's' as [z], 'a' as [a], 'e' as schwa, 'n' as [n], and go into doing the 'g' in the middle as [g], except don't quite hit it. This produces a sound somewhere between [g] and [y]. English "say" is the same word; we took it all the way to [y].) > The s/z set is pretty much always written s/z, except in > languages that change it to th/dh (like Ioway-Otoe), where > theta and edh become more common. This is also what underlies > LaFlesche's use of c-cedilla for both s and z in Omaha > (and Osage). Apparently he spoke a variant of Omaha with > th/dh for s/z. This is mentioned in once place in Dorsey's > notes, as characteristic of Frank LaFlesche, and examples > from Fletcher show it was fairly general in Bikkude > (a/k/a Village of Make-Believe Whitemen). Dorsey used > c-cedilla for theta and LaFlesche seems to have learned this > from him. That's interesting. I've sometimes wondered too if one reason for LaFlesche's tendency to crunch the voiced and voiceless fricatives together wasn't related to the situation that Dorsey notes with a dot or cross under his 's' or 'c' ([s^]). As far as I can figure out, a properly voiceless sibilant ([s] or [s^]) appearing before a nasal consonant ([n] at least) or after a nasal vowel ([oN] at least) becomes somewhat voiced. I think what's happening is that the nasalization bleeds into the sibilant, so that the air stream goes out the nose. This mutes the hissing effect to the point that one might not be able to hear the sibilant at all without bringing voicing into that phase as well. In these situations, it's hard to decide whether to classify the phoneme as 's' or 'z', 's^' or 'z^'. An advantage of using c-cedilla is that one doesn't have to worry about that issue in dealing with [s] and [z]. He does distinguish [s^] from [z^] however, and I don't know that this nasal-muting issue involves the velar set of [h^] and [g^], which he also collapses. Rory From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU Thu Oct 23 15:42:59 2003 From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 09:42:59 -0600 Subject: Allan Taylor -- good news Message-ID: Many, if not most of you, know that Allan Taylor was diagnosed with bladder cancer a couple of months ago. He called me last night with some good news: he has just undergone an operation that took out the part of the bladder that was involved (it's a much longer story than that, but that's the important part), and it tested negative for cancer cells, as did the lymph nodes nearby. They'll continue to monitor him, of course, but for right now it looks like he caught it early and the prognosis is very good. Naturally, he's very happy. He'll be recovering at home for a while yet. David S. Rood Dept. of Linguistics Univ. of Colorado 295 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0295 USA rood at colorado.edu From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Oct 23 23:46:02 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 17:46:02 -0600 Subject: Fricatives (was Re: Hda / Sna) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 23 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > In teach-yourself language books, the example I've seen most > often is German "sagen". (Accent on first syllable, pronounce > 's' as [z], 'a' as [a], 'e' as schwa, 'n' as [n], and go into > doing the 'g' in the middle as [g], except don't quite hit it. > This produces a sound somewhere between [g] and [y]. English > "say" is the same word; we took it all the way to [y].) In Old English it is written sg ( = aesc, the ae digraph), but they usually put a dot over the g in modern student editions to remind you to pronounce it y. There's a long tradition among languages scholars of putting dots under and over things. JEK From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU Fri Oct 24 03:54:58 2003 From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 21:54:58 -0600 Subject: Fricatives (was Re: Hda / Sna) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: That's certainly not standard German pronunciation! For stage German and for the broadcast media, [g] between vowels is as much a voiced stop as it is in English. Only in the far south is orthographic "g" a fricative; in the northwest and in Berlin, it's usually become "y" (English y, IPA [j]). But either of those pronunciations will brand you as poorly educated anywhere outside the area where they're used regularly. David S. Rood Dept. of Linguistics Univ. of Colorado 295 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0295 USA rood at colorado.edu On Thu, 23 Oct 2003, Koontz John E wrote: > On Thu, 23 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > > In teach-yourself language books, the example I've seen most > > often is German "sagen". (Accent on first syllable, pronounce > > 's' as [z], 'a' as [a], 'e' as schwa, 'n' as [n], and go into > > doing the 'g' in the middle as [g], except don't quite hit it. > > This produces a sound somewhere between [g] and [y]. English > > "say" is the same word; we took it all the way to [y].) > > In Old English it is written sg ( = aesc, the ae digraph), but > they usually put a dot over the g in modern student editions to remind you > to pronounce it y. There's a long tradition among languages scholars of > putting dots under and over things. > > JEK > From johannes.helmbrecht at Uni-Erfurt.de Fri Oct 24 10:12:16 2003 From: johannes.helmbrecht at Uni-Erfurt.de (Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 12:12:16 +0200 Subject: Documentation of the Hocank language Message-ID: Dear Siouanists, I'd like to diseminate some information about a recently launched project for the documentation of the Hocank language via this list. It might be of interest for linguists working on other Siouan languages as well. The documentation project is one of about twenty or so projects within the large funding initiative for the documentation of endangered languages of the Volkswagen Foundation in Germany. The Volkswagen Foundation has nothing to do with cars as you might assume. It is a foundation with a remarkable budget (the money came originally from the privatization of the Volkswagen company - I guess way back in the 50ies)that aims at funding innovative research in various fields of science, and sometimes even in the humanities. The funding initiative for the documentation of endangered languages started a few years ago. The central goal of the specific projects is to create a representative text corpus of the specific endangered language including audio and video tapes of all kinds of text types such as narrations, conversations, and so on. The recordings of the texts have to be transcribed, grammatically glossed, and translated so that they are accessible for non-speakers of the language. The texts corpora will be archived at the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen (The Netherlands, they are supposed to be accessible to everyone, to the people of the community that is in danger of loosing its language, to linguists, to anthropologists etc. If you wish to learn more about the general outline of the funding initiative, check out the web sites of the Max Planck Institute and the Volkswagen Foundation: http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/ http://www.volkswagen-stiftung.de/suchen/index_e.html Now, I would like to turn over to an outline of the project for the documentation of the Hocank language. Within this three years project we try to accomplish several sub-projects. First of all, we work on a represenative corpus of texs, a kind of oral library of the Hocank language. We plan (and already have begun) to tape (audio and video)stories and conversations of all kinds of situations, participants, and genres. Because of the degree of endangerment of Hocank, there are some restrictions, e.g. it seems that parents - kids conversations are no longer possible to document and the like. But the situation is definitely much better in Hocank than in other languages such as in Wichita where only a few speakers and semi-speakers are left. The second sub-project of our project is the creation of a bidirectional dictionary Hocank-English and English-Hocank. We start from the various lexical studies that already exist and that are compiled in Valdis Zeps dictionary. We have already converted this dictionary into a shoebox database (with more than 6000 entries) and have begun to revise the entries linguistically. Josephien Withe Eagle's lexical study served in a way as a linguistic role model for the format of the entries. A lot of words are missing in the Zeps file, many entries lack grammatical information altogether, and many English glosses are wrong or rather missleading. Based on the glossing and translation of our recorded texts we will enrich and revise the whole dictionary within the next three years. The third sub-project is the grammatical description of the Hocank language. For quite a while, I am myself working on the grammar of Hocank. A first draft of the a grammar of Hocank will/ should (?) be written by the end of the next year. This grammar will go beyond the somewhat restricted morphological perspective of Lipkind and Susman. Currently, I am working hard to learn more about the syntax (simple and complex clauses etc.)of Hocank. I will also distribute some of my findings in form of papers to the Siouanists community so that they may be discussed from a wider Siouan point of view. The fourth sub-project is the development of linguistically structured teaching materials that should be helpfull useable for the language teachers of the Hocank Language Division (in Mauston, WI), as well as for the students. Here we are really starting from the scratch, although the Hocank Language Division has developed some materials mostly dealing with structured vocabularies. The grammar, the dictionary, and the text corpus we are working on should serve as a basis for this enterprise. It is also planned to teach the language teachers to use these materials efficiently. Such a project as the documentation of the Hocank language cannot be achieved by one person, we are a team and I should now introduce the individuals involved in this project. The directors of the project are Prof. Christian Lehmann and myself from the University of Erfurt, Germany. Prof. Lehmann has worked a lot on language endangerment and the possibilities of the docmentation of a language. He was also one of the group of German linguists who worked out a proposal for such a large funding initiative for the Volkswagen Foundation back in the second half of the 90ies. We have two co-workers, Nils Jahn, Juliane Lindenlaub (she joined us very recently), and a student aid, Iren Hartmann. This is the German side of the project that works in close cooperation with the Hocank side of the project. The Hocank side is basically the Hocank Language Division in Mauston, WI. The director of the Language Division, Willard Lonetree, has supported this project from the beginning. The trib al government, the legislators, approved this project as useful for the tribe and documented their commitment to this project by funding two additional positions in the Hocank Language Division particularly for this project. So there are two tribal members, Henning Garvin and Kjetil Lowe, who both graduated in linguistics. I think this should suffice for the moment, but I promise to add some news about the project occasionally in the future. **************************************************** Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht Universität Erfurt Seminar für Sprachwissenschaft Postfach 900221 D-99105 Erfurt, Deutschland Tel. ++49/ 361/ 737-4202 Fax. ++49/ 361/ 737-4209 E-Mail: johannes.helmbrecht at uni-erfurt.de **************************************************** From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Oct 24 19:40:40 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 13:40:40 -0600 Subject: Documentation of the Hocank language In-Reply-To: <3a6233c09d.3c09d3a623@uni-erfurt.de> Message-ID: On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht wrote: > I'd like to diseminate some information about a recently launched > project for the documentation of the Hocank language via this list. It > might be of interest for linguists working on other Siouan languages as > well. I'm looking forward to the results of this with great excitement! JEK From warr0120 at umn.edu Fri Oct 24 20:50:45 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (warr0120) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 15:50:45 CDT Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: This forward is in response to "General Motors Purchases Indian Languages" an spoof article from the Watley Review that someone posted to the Dakota and Ojibwe mailing lists at the university of minnesota a month ago. That article is available at: http://www.watleyreview.com/2003/072903-2.html Here's some of my thoughts: Sometimes funny things aren't so funny anymore. Here's a forward from the Siouan languages list. Keep in mind the key phrases "documentation of endangered languages", "so that they are accessible for non-speakers", "archived at the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics in The Netherlands", and "they are supposed to be accessible to everyone." It'll be great if it's true, right? While this may benefit the Hochank nation to some extent, the key attractiveness seems to be that it seems easy. A bunch of people want to do all this work for us? Great! But it scares me. It's the perennial outside expert problem magnified a thousand times. We, the experts, shall come to you, take your language, and store it for safe keeping in our museum in the Netherlands. Sounds kind of like Franz Boas' desperate need to import a few Eskimos from Greenland, then oops they died in his offices during their stay, and well, since they're already here, let's just put skeletons in these nice glass cases for 'posterity's sake'. It's so nice that all these academics can get paid, build their reputations, and help everyone feel good about "doing the right thing" and working like emergency room doctors to preserve these languages as they gasp their last breaths (while the cameras are rolling, of course). And then feel good that another large "corpus" (dead body) of data has been successfully removed from its environment to the safe keeping of some dominant cultural institution. What I would like to see is: Take that big chunk of money and GIVE IT TO THE HOCHUNK NATION to do this work themselves, and offer your expertise to help out. Use that money to put Hochank people in the position to be empowered, not further subjugated, objectified, and packaged for the museum. Like Darrell Kipp says, no you can't come make a movie about us. Give us the cameras, show us how to use them, and we'll make a movie about ourselves. And we'll make sure we get plenty of copies of the movie. But, no, look who's always got to be in the driver's seat (linguist, missionary, politician...) Here's the forward: Fwd: Documentation of the Hocank language: On 24 Oct 2003, Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht wrote: > Dear Siouanists, > > I'd like to diseminate some information about > a recently launched project for the documentation of > the Hocank language via this list. It might be of > interest for linguists working on other Siouan > languages as well. > > The documentation project is one of about twenty > or so projects within the large funding initiative > for the documentation of endangered languages of the > Volkswagen Foundation in Germany. The Volkswagen > Foundation has nothing to do with cars as you > might assume. It is a foundation with a > remarkable budget (the money came originally > from the privatization of the Volkswagen company > - I guess way back in the 50ies)that aims at funding > innovative research in various fields of science, > and sometimes even in the humanities. The funding > initiative for the documentation of endangered > languages started a few years ago. The central goal > of the specific projects is to create a > representative text corpus of the specific > endangered language including audio and video tapes > of all kinds of text types such as narrations, > conversations, and so on. The recordings of the > texts have to be transcribed, grammatically glossed, > and translated so that they are accessible for > non-speakers of the language. The texts corpora will > be archived at the Max Planck Institute of > Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen (The Netherlands, they > are supposed to be accessible to everyone, to the people of the community > that is in danger of loosing its language, to linguists, to anthropologists > etc. If you wish to learn more about the general outline of the funding > initiative, check out the web sites of the Max Planck Institute and the > Volkswagen Foundation: > > http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/ > http://www.volkswagen-stiftung.de/suchen/index_e.html > > Now, I would like to turn over to an outline of the project for the > documentation of the Hocank language. Within this three years project we try > to accomplish several sub-projects. First of all, we work on a represenative > corpus of texs, a kind of oral library of the Hocank language. We plan (and > already have begun) to tape (audio and video)stories and conversations of all > kinds of situations, participants, and genres. Because of the degree of > endangerment of Hocank, there are some restrictions, e.g. it seems that > parents - kids conversations are no longer possible to document and the like. > But the situation is definitely much better in Hocank than in other languages > such as in Wichita where only a few speakers and semi-speakers are left. > > The second sub-project of our project is the creation of a bidirectional > dictionary Hocank-English and English-Hocank. We start from the various > lexical studies that already exist and that are compiled in Valdis Zeps > dictionary. We have already converted this dictionary into a shoebox database > (with more than 6000 entries) and have begun to revise the entries > linguistically. Josephien Withe Eagle's lexical study served in a way as a > linguistic role model for the format of the entries. A lot of words are > missing in the Zeps file, many entries lack grammatical information > altogether, and many English glosses are wrong or rather missleading. Based > on the glossing and translation of our recorded texts we will enrich and > revise the whole dictionary within the next three years. > > The third sub-project is the grammatical description of the Hocank language. > For quite a while, I am myself working on the grammar of Hocank. A first > draft of the a grammar of Hocank will/ should (?) be written by the end of > the next year. This grammar will go beyond the somewhat restricted > morphological perspective of Lipkind and Susman. Currently, I am working hard > to learn more about the syntax (simple and complex clauses etc.)of Hocank. I > will also distribute some of my findings in form of papers to the Siouanists > community so that they may be discussed from a wider Siouan point of view. > > The fourth sub-project is the development of linguistically structured > teaching materials that should be helpfull useable for the language teachers > of the Hocank Language Division (in Mauston, WI), as well as for the > students. Here we are really starting from the scratch, although the Hocank > Language Division has developed some materials mostly dealing with structured > vocabularies. The grammar, the dictionary, and the text corpus we are working > on should serve as a basis for this enterprise. It is also planned to teach > the language teachers to use these materials efficiently. > > Such a project as the documentation of the Hocank language cannot be achieved > by one person, we are a team and I should now introduce the individuals > involved in this project. The directors of the project are Prof. Christian > Lehmann and myself from the University of Erfurt, Germany. Prof. Lehmann has > worked a lot on language endangerment and the possibilities of the > docmentation of a language. He was also one of the group of German linguists > who worked out a proposal for such a large funding initiative for the > Volkswagen Foundation back in the second half of the 90ies. We have two > co-workers, Nils Jahn, Juliane Lindenlaub (she joined us very recently), and > a student aid, Iren Hartmann. This is the German side of the project that > works in close cooperation with the Hocank side of the project. The Hocank > side is basically the Hocank Language Division in Mauston, WI. The director > of the Language Division, Willard Lonetree, has supported this project from > the beginning. The trib > al government, the legislators, approved this project as useful for the tribe > and documented their commitment to this project by funding two additional > positions in the Hocank Language Division particularly for this project. So > there are two tribal members, Henning Garvin and Kjetil Lowe, who both > graduated in linguistics. > > I think this should suffice for the moment, but I promise to add some news > about the project occasionally in the future. > > > **************************************************** > > Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht > Universit�t Erfurt > Seminar f�r Sprachwissenschaft > Postfach 900221 > D-99105 Erfurt, Deutschland > Tel. ++49/ 361/ 737-4202 > Fax. ++49/ 361/ 737-4209 > E-Mail: johannes.helmbrecht at uni-erfurt.de > > **************************************************** p.s. how much will it cost to put the Hochunk Nation on a plane to the Netherlands? From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Oct 24 21:32:47 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 15:32:47 -0600 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language In-Reply-To: <200310242050.h9OKojtP027259@dingo.software.umn.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, warr0120 wrote: > Sometimes funny things aren't so funny anymore. I guess reactions are mixed. I should perhaps point out for the benefit of those who don't know that warr0120 is Pat Warren at the U of Minnesota. It hadn't dawned on me that the "General Motors Acquires ..." humor articles were perhaps spoofing the Volkswagon grants. I guess I had those imbecilic (Sony?) ads with the clicks in mind. I have to admit that I consider documentation projects to be good things, and I believe that Volkswagon has a good track record as far as getting the contracted work done. Anyone who's every worked on language knows that the only way to get a reasonable amount of work done is to spend a lifetime on it. Several lifetimes, actually. If you can find somebody who will pay some of the incidental costs, so nuch the better. Apart from that, I have a pretty good opinion of Johannes Helmbrecht, based on his work on Winnebago to date. He's been a long term member of the list and occasional contributor. I appreciate him letting us know what's going on. JEK From hhgarvin at hotmail.com Sat Oct 25 15:04:53 2003 From: hhgarvin at hotmail.com (Henning Garvin) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 10:04:53 -0500 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: Since my name has been mentioned in the note from Johannes about the Hocank Documentation Project, I would like to reply to some of the apparent jeers directed at this project. The Volkswagen grant is a wholly cooperative venture Between our Nation and the administrators of the grant First of all, my self and another young lady are both enrolled members of the Hocank Nation, both of us born and raised within our communities. We have been put on this project because it has already been recognized that research is better if conducted from within the community rather than by an outsider. (yes, we have all read 'Deconstructing Methodologies' and realize it can be extrapolated to a variety of fields) An extensive project such as this has never been undertaken before, regarding the Hocank Language. We don't have the material this project has the opportunity to provide. Kjetil and I have degrees in Linguistics, but you should all know that an undergraduate degree does not provide the experience or expertise necessary to do a project such as this on our own. Johannes and his "crew" will provide that background. The data we gather will be archived in Nimjegen, but we also will have that Data in our own archives within the Nation. Our Division Manager coined the term "Oral Library" for this purpose and it will be used both as teaching tools and repository of data for future generations. The currciculum developers will be responsible for creating useable teaching material based on the outcomes of this project. We, as members of our tribe, will be ascertaining the needs of our potential learners and trying to determine the best method of presentation. WE will be determining how best to use what has been done. We also fully realize that the use of grammatically oriented material is not the only way to teach a language. Our Language Division is currently involved in numerous projects including, Immersion, Master-Apprentice Program, Language Nests, and others. The threat of Language extinction is too great to solely focus on one method. So rest assured we are not leaving other proven methods in the dust for the sake of an outsiders research. As far as the motivations of our researchers, I know plenty of people that do work such as this to further their own career. Fortunately, I have met Johannes and have been able to see his respectfulness and how genuine he is about preserving not only the Hocank language, but endangered languages in general. People tend to forget when they make off hand accusations such as this that they usually haven't met the people it is directed at and are, at that point, working off stereotypes. Even if Johannes' motivations were not solely for the sake of our language, which I think I have stated they surely are, he would still be providing something of benefit. We could still get alot of use out of what he will produce, even if he was "doing it for his own career". Lastly, it would have been great if the money were given to the tribe directly, but guess what? We don't have anybody in the tribe the expertise or experience necesary to do this project, so we probably would have had to hire an outside white linguist anyway, so what is the difference. Our language division, our president, and our legislators made the decision that this would be a good project and could benefit our Nation greatly. Most importantly, the men of our traditional Court, our Clan Leaders including our Traditional Chief, agreed that this could work well for our people. I was brought up not to question them, so those of you who disagree and insist on casting a shadow on what we are trying to do, I can put you into contact and you can take it up with them. Henning Garvin Linguistic research Ho-Chunk Nation Language Division >From: Koontz John E >Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu >To: Siouan List >Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language >Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 15:32:47 -0600 (MDT) > >On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, warr0120 wrote: > > Sometimes funny things aren't so funny anymore. > >I guess reactions are mixed. I should perhaps point out for the benefit >of those who don't know that warr0120 is Pat Warren at the U of Minnesota. >It hadn't dawned on me that the "General Motors Acquires ..." humor >articles were perhaps spoofing the Volkswagon grants. I guess I had those >imbecilic (Sony?) ads with the clicks in mind. > >I have to admit that I consider documentation projects to be good things, >and I believe that Volkswagon has a good track record as far as getting >the contracted work done. Anyone who's every worked on language knows >that the only way to get a reasonable amount of work done is to spend a >lifetime on it. Several lifetimes, actually. If you can find somebody >who will pay some of the incidental costs, so nuch the better. > >Apart from that, I have a pretty good opinion of Johannes Helmbrecht, >based on his work on Winnebago to date. He's been a long term member of >the list and occasional contributor. I appreciate him letting us know >what's going on. > >JEK _________________________________________________________________ Want to check if your PC is virus-infected? Get a FREE computer virus scan online from McAfee. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com Sat Oct 25 19:51:08 2003 From: dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com (David Kaufman) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 12:51:08 -0700 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Siouanists: While I can certainly understand Pat Warren's concerns about language and linguistic data being locked away in some "ivory tower" with only limited academic access and a continuation of European and/or European-American subjugation and dominance over indigenous peoples, I think we need to be careful about "reverse" prejudice or stereotyping (to use Henning's word) and lumping all "linguists" into a common mold who are only looking out for themselves and have no genuine interest in the people and culture who speak the languages they work with. I admit I'm still a "fledgling" linguist barely leaving the nest to try flying on my own, but I, for one, see my interest in Native American languages and linguistics less as a "linguist" and more as someone who can offer his language and linguistic skills and abilities to serve the benefit and betterment of the world by helping to at least slow down or, better, reverse the death process of endangered languages and cultures. Personally, I don't see how linguists can possibly be involved in such revitalization efforts without having any interest or respect for the people and culture who use the language. As a linguist/language teacher/language learner/writer, I think it's important to what I call "ground" yourself in the language, meaning have at least some knowledge of the land, people, and culture in order to successfully learn or research a language and help in these revitalization efforts. Personally, I have been invited by Henning to work with his tribe and Johannes in some capacity in their language documentation and revitalization efforts. I feel honored to be invited, by a member of the tribe no less, to assist in their revitalization efforts. I would hope that whatever work I do would NOT be stored away in some back office or closet somewhere. I would wholly intend for it to be shared and used for teaching purposes (maybe that's just the teacher in me!). When we leave the world, none of what we've accomplished will mean much except if it's shared and used for the benefit of future generations. That's my thought for the day, anyway! Dave Kaufman Koontz John E wrote:On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, warr0120 wrote: > Sometimes funny things aren't so funny anymore. I guess reactions are mixed. I should perhaps point out for the benefit of those who don't know that warr0120 is Pat Warren at the U of Minnesota. It hadn't dawned on me that the "General Motors Acquires ..." humor articles were perhaps spoofing the Volkswagon grants. I guess I had those imbecilic (Sony?) ads with the clicks in mind. I have to admit that I consider documentation projects to be good things, and I believe that Volkswagon has a good track record as far as getting the contracted work done. Anyone who's every worked on language knows that the only way to get a reasonable amount of work done is to spend a lifetime on it. Several lifetimes, actually. If you can find somebody who will pay some of the incidental costs, so nuch the better. Apart from that, I have a pretty good opinion of Johannes Helmbrecht, based on his work on Winnebago to date. He's been a long term member of the list and occasional contributor. I appreciate him letting us know what's going on. JEK --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From warr0120 at umn.edu Sat Oct 25 22:29:58 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (warr0120) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 17:29:58 CDT Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: John, Henning, and David: I forwarded your messages to the Dakota and Ojibwe mailing lists at the u of mn. These are the adresses for those lists, if anyone's interested: dakota-net at mail.socsci.umn.edu ojibwe-net at mail.socsci.umn.edu You can subscribe to them here: https://mail.socsci.umn.edu/mailman/listinfo/dakota-net https://mail.socsci.umn.edu/mailman/listinfo/ojibwe-net I hope you guys are okay that I make sure everyone gets your ideas. Thanks for responding, by the way. Pat Warren From warr0120 at umn.edu Sat Oct 25 22:52:50 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (warr0120) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 17:52:50 CDT Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: Well, Henning, I wish YOU had been the one to inform people in the first place about the project and a Hocank person and scholar's perspective on it. Thank you for addressing some of the issues that were not addressed in Johannes' email. Seeing the project from a Hocank perspective is exactly what I find most important, and almost always missing from linguists' and anthros' work who claim authorship or directorship and leave no space for the voices of the community being studied to come through enedited, as far as how they view the project. (except see Young Bear and Theisz 1994, Standing in the light a Lakota way of seeing, with an introduction written by the primary informant.) My immediate concern is the extreme emphasis on documentation, which to be done well and usefully does require expertise and much attention to detail. But documentation can be a distraction, one of those activities that can let you feel busy and productive while the real problems continue unhindered, and can even exacerbate the problems of identity as reliance on experts from outside the community becomes more acute. I know the powerful roles that documentation can play for self-empowerment and language revitalization in particular. But I wish people's first initiative when big sums of money came around was NOT to manufacture objects: dictionaries, grammars, "children's" books, videotapes, or interactive cdroms, that make you feel proud, but are static. It would seem much more important to spend every penny possible getting all the fluent speakers together with children in the community so the language can be passed on in the most efficient and natural way possible. And probably the only really lasting way of language transmission for a whole culture. I hope the Hocank nation is successful in its current use of natural language learning methods, but I will NOT rest assured. Every step toward strengthening natural language and culture transmission is an amazing and important experience. But it will never be enough. The tide against the language and culture is so very strong. (By the way I'm offering these thought in general, not just as response to you, Henning - you clearly emphasized much of this in your own email.) I see the training of new generations of teachers as essential, people with voracious scholarly appetites (I hope you're hungry Henning, and from the emails you send to the Siouan languages list, I think you fit my stereotype of a healthy native scholar) and acccess to great materials, who can create new materials: but all so that ADULTS who need to learn the language can learn. Kids don't need dictionaries or picture books. They need fluent adult speakers who care for them and spend extended time with them, giving them encouragement, love, and a positive identity in the language. You can't get that from materials, not matter how interactive they are. I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different when you do get to meet people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is minimized. When motives and hopes aren't discused, I fear the continuation of the colonization and genocide project. No one is doing it intentionally, but if the sum of many well-funded projects continues to shift focus away from the real activities of language empowerment (fluent speakers spending lots of caring time with younger people, most especially), I fear that people with amazing skills and inspiration like you, Henning, will spend mountains of effort on endeavors with very low leverage, as far as getting the language to the next generation, and insuring the language as a source of life-giving identity for everyone (not just the few kids who excel in language classes). At the very least when someone promotes a project, I wish they would say WHY they're doing it, what their feelings about the situation and propsed project are. Motivation, to me, is always more important than credentials, because motivation seems a greater determinant of good work than initials after your name. Though it seems the longer your CV, the less people feel they should explain themselves. But that is definitely my stereotype of academics (though not totally unfounded). I envision using all resources to get people who are fluent in the language and culture together with young people in a positive environment where healthy identities can be nurtured in the language. It is those people who learn the natural way that will grow up and produce the great literature appropriate to a healthy literate language. It's great when a few individuals create strong indentities in their traditional cultures, but a few people commited to acquiring and documenting the language, even supported by a whole army of (non-speaking) linguists isn't going to tip the balances against the forces of hundreds of years of ever more refined and invisible genocide. (see http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/ for the original United Nations definition of genocide, before the big nations who regularly practice it trimmed the convention down a lot, and see Churchill 1997, A little matter of genocide, Chapter 7 "The United States and the Genocide Convention" p.363-398, for an enlightnening discussion of the matter...actually no, you should just read the whole book.) When it comes down to it, I see myself and all other academics, as agents of the dominant culture. (see Churchill 1997 p.93-94, "The specter of Hannibal Lecter", for discussion of some unintended (at least consciously) consequences of academic work) Whether or not we want to admit it, and it's really better if we DO admit it, we are possbily the ones who will finalize the genocide (e.g., by focusing everyone's attention away from what would really make the difference, like dealing with the social problems that lead to negative identity and hence language loss), or else we finalize the acculturation of indigenous people into the dominant culture (e.g., by convincing people of the necessity of being liguists and converting the language to a corpus of bastardized english-dependent texts; when IS somebody going to write a real native language dicitonary? an english dictionary doesn't explain everything in Hocank, so why do native language dictionaries convert everything to english?). So when intiative (even my own) comes from outside a native community and works its way into the community, I fear for what we are all not seeing. At least the Hocank nation gets to archive the material at home, and they already do have strong language efforts underway. Now why didn't Johannes mention that? Sorry if I've attacked individuals too strongly (or whole nations). But criticism is a good thing, I think. It's all the talk about etymolgies and semantics and dictionaries (which I do enjoy) while I know there's little kids who could be learning the language who are being forgotten. If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... But why do academics RALLY do their work? (see Hull 1988, Science as a process, for the best psychosocial analysis of academia I've ever seen...then you'll see where my stereotypes come from, personified by real people I know/am.) I'll stop talking now, Pat Warren From kdshea at ku.edu Sun Oct 26 01:35:11 2003 From: kdshea at ku.edu (Kathleen Shea) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 20:35:11 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: I didn't know where to jump into this conversation. Just to get a cultural background from a Ponca perspective on "Indian perfume," I checked by phone with my main consultant, Uncle Parrish Williams. He called it i'nubdhaN'khidhe (with ' indicating that the preceding syllable is accented) 'You smell like a man' (his gloss). Several years ago he had shown me some that he kept in a handkerchief, and he repeated what he had told me then--that men would wear the perfume (an amount about the size of a silver dollar in a handkerchief in the pocket or elsewhere) as a deodorant. Sometimes it was used to attract women, but it could also be used every day and could be smelled about 10 feet away from a dancer who was wearing it. He said that there are four kinds of Indian perfume but only three are used. (The kind that isn't used is called nuga' 'male.') The three that are used vary from mild in fragrance with a smell like an orange peeling, a stronger smelling type, and a third that smells really strong. The second type of plant, with the smell of middle strength is the one preferred. He says that all the plants look alike, with purple flowers and leaves that are really green. They grow in clumps about two feet tall, except the very stong smelling one, which is small and grows only about 4-5" high. They can be replanted, but they won't propagate and will quit growing if someone keeps picking them. Uncle Parrish says that that's the reason that he would always keep three different plants going in the wild and would keep the knowledge of their whereabouts to himself, so that no one would over-harvest them. Most of the time, he would just use the leaves and not the flowers; the flowers can be used, but the seeds from the flowers are needed for new growth. Other people have told me that Indian perfume is hard to find and that you will usually smell it before you see it. Another of my consultants, Grandma Edna Hinman, sadly now dhiNge' ('gone'), told me that women would put the Indian perfume in their mouth and blow it on a shawl to perfume the shawl. Uncle Parrish confirms this and says that the women would chew the leaves (about 1/2 teaspoon) and just use their saliva for the liquid with which to spray the shawl. About the near non-existence of the word ppi 'good' in Ponca, I have a few thoughts about what might be some fossilized instances of it in certain words. One is a word for 'to love,' ppi/dhe (with the slash here to show where the person markers can attach), so that 'I love you' is ppiwidhe. Uncle Parrish describes this as "puppy love," and LaFlesche's Osage dictionary lists it as 'the love of a woman for a man or boy.' Another remnant of ppi might be seen in ppiduba 'some more' (duba 'more'), as in, MakkaN sabe ppiduba akkigdhize ttiNkhe, 'I'm going to get myself some more coffee.' I'm sure there must be some more instances of ppi.... Kathy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rory M Larson" To: Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 10:05 PM Subject: Re: Indian perfume set. > > John wrote: > > Another point, which the Dhegihanists are aware of, > > but maybe not others, is that OP *ppi 'good' is > > completely obsolete. In fact, I think *ppi is > > obsolete throughout Dhegiha. It exists in a few fossil > > forms, e.g., ppi'=az^i ~ ppez^i' 'bad < good + not'. > > The usual OP term for 'good' is u(u)daN. > > This is a good point, and it might help to explain > the outcome in OP of the first syllable. For a > Dhegihan speaker, the first syllable *hpi=u- would > be unanalyzable because they no longer had the word > *ppi. But since the second syllable *braN was clear, > there would be some motivation to reanalyze the first > syllable into a familiar morpheme. > > > > The Osage cognate of this - o(o)taN - means essentially > > 'be a coup'. > > "Be a coup"?? Do you mean as in 'counting coup'? > I don't understand this translation. > > > > Anyway, if nubdhaN < *p(p)y=obdhaN then it isn't > > likely to be a recent form. This is also evident > > in the necessity that any such form has undergone > > the *py > *pr > *R changes, with *R subsequently > > becoming n in OP by regular sound changes. > > Corresponding Osage, Kaw, and Quapaw forms would > > be *tobraN, *doblaN, and, I think, *topdaN or *dobdaN - > > I forget how the *R and *pr sounds come out in Quapaw > > at the moment! I don't believe there are any cases > > of n ~ bdh alternations in OP at present. That is, > > there is no perceptible contemporary connection > > between the two. > > If nubdhaN is coming from MVS (Hypothesis 1), then > it certainly wouldn't be recent. If it is coming > as a loan from a prehistoric IOM *pyobraN or *pyubraN > (Hypothesis 2), then the most likely time for it > to happen would be at the *pr stage of the above > sequence (assuming OP nu < *pro, but not < *pyo). > Since all the Dhegihan languages have single > consonant sounds where the *pr should be, I would > suppose that *pr had gone to *R before Dhegihan > diverged. That would favor putting the borrowing > after proto-MVS but before proto-Dhegihan (Hypothesis 2a). > On the other hand, the circumstantial considerations that > this set apparently exists only in IOM and OP, and > that there are traditions of OP and IO associating > with each other after the divergence of OP, and that the > IO template pyu- is a significantly modified contraction > of the hypothetical proto-MVS *hpi=o-, make the > idea of a later transference tempting (Hypothesis 2b). > > For Hypothesis 2, these considerations might be > resolved if we imagine proto-Dhegihan existing as > a dialect field over a wide area for a period of > several centuries. During this period, *pr > *R, > and thence toward its reflexes in the various > Dhegihan daughter languages, which are still > contiguous dialects. During the same period, > proto-IOM lives in a neighborhood adjacent to the > pre-proto-OP part of Dhegihan, and maintains > especially close relations with these people. > Early in the proto-Dhegihan phase, pre-proto-OP > adopts and readapts the proto-IOM word for mint, > IOM *pyubraN > pre-proto-OP *prubraN, where > *pru is reinterpreted as 'potato'. Later > in the phase, this evolves to *RubraN and still > later to *nubdhaN. Finally, in the course of > some crisis, the proto-OP people move away from > the other Dhegihan groups, accompanied by their > IO associates. > > Otherwise, we always have Hypothesis 3, which > holds that the first syllables of IOM pyubraN > and OP nubdhaN are only coincidentally similar! > > Rory > > > From kdshea at ku.edu Sun Oct 26 02:37:31 2003 From: kdshea at ku.edu (Kathleen Shea) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 21:37:31 -0500 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: I think that we all have our built-in biases and that learning to function within another culture can often be an uncomfortable process, even though it's ultimately worthwhile and rewarding. Often we don't learn without making mistakes and stepping on someone's toes, and it seems that growth doesn't occur without some struggle and overcoming obstacles. I don't know if Pat is Hocank or has ever tried to work within a community on language maintenance, but it can be a humbling experience. Often there are many seemingly more immediate problems to be overcome, hindered in their solution by many political and economic limitations. Every community is different, and a "one-size-fits-all" approach doesn't work. Sure, it would be great if languages could be passed down as they traditionally have been, orally, from parent to child, but what do you do if the speakers are all great-grandparents of not-very-good health, even if a preschool exists? What do you do if a federally funded program that helps parents with young children get their GED's (i.e., Even Start) won't let the parents or children learn their ancestral language as part of the program? And so on.... A grassroots effort is definitely needed, with people in the community aware enough of the need to be behind it, and it takes more than just one person--if that's what the community wants. The logistics can be daunting. I don't think any of us academic "experts" know what works best when it comes to passing on a language, other than the tried-and-true traditional way, but I would think that the more approaches used the better. I do agree with Pat, though, that linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying. (I believe it was Durbin Feeling at a sovereignty conference in Tulsa several years ago who first encouraged me to do this.) Kathy Shea ----- Original Message ----- From: "warr0120" To: ; ; Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 5:52 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language > Well, Henning, I wish YOU had been the one to inform people in the first > place about the project and a Hocank person and scholar's perspective on > it. Thank you for addressing some of the issues that were not addressed in > Johannes' email. Seeing the project from a Hocank perspective is exactly > what I find most important, and almost always missing from linguists' and > anthros' work who claim authorship or directorship and leave no space for > the voices of the community being studied to come through enedited, as far > as how they view the project. (except see Young Bear and Theisz 1994, > Standing in the light a Lakota way of seeing, with an introduction written > by the primary informant.) > > My immediate concern is the extreme emphasis on documentation, which to be > done well and usefully does require expertise and much attention to detail. > But documentation can be a distraction, one of those activities that can > let you feel busy and productive while the real problems continue > unhindered, and can even exacerbate the problems of identity as reliance on > experts from outside the community becomes more acute. > > I know the powerful roles that documentation can play for self-empowerment > and language revitalization in particular. But I wish people's first > initiative when big sums of money came around was NOT to manufacture > objects: dictionaries, grammars, "children's" books, videotapes, or > interactive cdroms, that make you feel proud, but are static. It would seem > much more important to spend every penny possible getting all the fluent > speakers together with children in the community so the language can be > passed on in the most efficient and natural way possible. And probably the > only really lasting way of language transmission for a whole culture. I > hope the Hocank nation is successful in its current use of natural language > learning methods, but I will NOT rest assured. Every step toward > strengthening natural language and culture transmission is an amazing and > important experience. But it will never be enough. The tide against the > language and culture is so very strong. (By the way I'm offering these > thought in general, not just as response to you, Henning - you clearly > emphasized much of this in your own email.) > > I see the training of new generations of teachers as essential, people with > voracious scholarly appetites (I hope you're hungry Henning, and from the > emails you send to the Siouan languages list, I think you fit my stereotype > of a healthy native scholar) and acccess to great materials, who can create > new materials: but all so that ADULTS who need to learn the language can > learn. Kids don't need dictionaries or picture books. They need fluent > adult speakers who care for them and spend extended time with them, giving > them encouragement, love, and a positive identity in the language. You > can't get that from materials, not matter how interactive they are. > > I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work > with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and > hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at > least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different when you do get to meet > people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That > may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship > as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is > minimized. > > When motives and hopes aren't discused, I fear the continuation of the > colonization and genocide project. No one is doing it intentionally, but if > the sum of many well-funded projects continues to shift focus away from the > real activities of language empowerment (fluent speakers spending lots of > caring time with younger people, most especially), I fear that people with > amazing skills and inspiration like you, Henning, will spend mountains of > effort on endeavors with very low leverage, as far as getting the language > to the next generation, and insuring the language as a source of > life-giving identity for everyone (not just the few kids who excel in > language classes). At the very least when someone promotes a project, I > wish they would say WHY they're doing it, what their feelings about the > situation and propsed project are. Motivation, to me, is always more > important than credentials, because motivation seems a greater determinant > of good work than initials after your name. Though it seems the longer your > CV, the less people feel they should explain themselves. But that is > definitely my stereotype of academics (though not totally unfounded). > > I envision using all resources to get people who are fluent in the language > and culture together with young people in a positive environment where > healthy identities can be nurtured in the language. It is those people who > learn the natural way that will grow up and produce the great literature > appropriate to a healthy literate language. It's great when a few > individuals create strong indentities in their traditional cultures, but a > few people commited to acquiring and documenting the language, even > supported by a whole army of (non-speaking) linguists isn't going to tip > the balances against the forces of hundreds of years of ever more refined > and invisible genocide. (see > http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/ for the original > United Nations definition of genocide, before the big nations who regularly > practice it trimmed the convention down a lot, and see Churchill 1997, A > little matter of genocide, Chapter 7 "The United States and the Genocide > Convention" p.363-398, for an enlightnening discussion of the > matter...actually no, you should just read the whole book.) > > When it comes down to it, I see myself and all other academics, as agents > of the dominant culture. (see Churchill 1997 p.93-94, "The specter of > Hannibal Lecter", for discussion of some unintended (at least consciously) > consequences of academic work) Whether or not we want to admit it, and it's > really better if we DO admit it, we are possbily the ones who will finalize > the genocide (e.g., by focusing everyone's attention away from what would > really make the difference, like dealing with the social problems that lead > to negative identity and hence language loss), or else we finalize the > acculturation of indigenous people into the dominant culture (e.g., by > convincing people of the necessity of being liguists and converting the > language to a corpus of bastardized english-dependent texts; when IS > somebody going to write a real native language dicitonary? an english > dictionary doesn't explain everything in Hocank, so why do native language > dictionaries convert everything to english?). So when intiative (even my > own) comes from outside a native community and works its way into the > community, I fear for what we are all not seeing. > > At least the Hocank nation gets to archive the material at home, and they > already do have strong language efforts underway. Now why didn't Johannes > mention that? Sorry if I've attacked individuals too strongly (or whole > nations). But criticism is a good thing, I think. It's all the talk about > etymolgies and semantics and dictionaries (which I do enjoy) while I know > there's little kids who could be learning the language who are being > forgotten. > > If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally > acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... But why do academics > RALLY do their work? (see Hull 1988, Science as a process, for the best > psychosocial analysis of academia I've ever seen...then you'll see where my > stereotypes come from, personified by real people I know/am.) > > > I'll stop talking now, > Pat Warren > From dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com Sun Oct 26 04:17:32 2003 From: dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com (David Kaufman) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 21:17:32 -0700 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language In-Reply-To: <200310252252.h9PMqoqY004279@fantasy.software.umn.edu> Message-ID: Pat, --I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different when you do get to meet people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is minimized.-- I hope that, in my email, I did just that. Thank you for forwarding it on to other lists by the way. I agree, the more we talk about our motivations and reasons for doing things, the better. Sometimes we ourselves may not know exactly why we're doing something until we try to verbalize it to others! --If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... -- Again, I hope I gave some indication of that on a personal level, since I am currently a language teacher (Spanish) as well as learner (several). I am interested not only in the STUDY of language, but also in the DISSEMINATION of language. I am no where near being able to teach a Native American language, of course, but if I could help those within the tribe to disseminate their language to other members of the tribe, I would be glad to assist in any way I could based on current skills and experience. Thanks for your thoughts and input! Dave warr0120 wrote: Well, Henning, I wish YOU had been the one to inform people in the first place about the project and a Hocank person and scholar's perspective on it. Thank you for addressing some of the issues that were not addressed in Johannes' email. Seeing the project from a Hocank perspective is exactly what I find most important, and almost always missing from linguists' and anthros' work who claim authorship or directorship and leave no space for the voices of the community being studied to come through enedited, as far as how they view the project. (except see Young Bear and Theisz 1994, Standing in the light a Lakota way of seeing, with an introduction written by the primary informant.) My immediate concern is the extreme emphasis on documentation, which to be done well and usefully does require expertise and much attention to detail. But documentation can be a distraction, one of those activities that can let you feel busy and productive while the real problems continue unhindered, and can even exacerbate the problems of identity as reliance on experts from outside the community becomes more acute. I know the powerful roles that documentation can play for self-empowerment and language revitalization in particular. But I wish people's first initiative when big sums of money came around was NOT to manufacture objects: dictionaries, grammars, "children's" books, videotapes, or interactive cdroms, that make you feel proud, but are static. It would seem much more important to spend every penny possible getting all the fluent speakers together with children in the community so the language can be passed on in the most efficient and natural way possible. And probably the only really lasting way of language transmission for a whole culture. I hope the Hocank nation is successful in its current use of natural language learning methods, but I will NOT rest assured. Every step toward strengthening natural language and culture transmission is an amazing and important experience. But it will never be enough. The tide against the language and culture is so very strong. (By the way I'm offering these thought in general, not just as response to you, Henning - you clearly emphasized much of this in your own email.) I see the training of new generations of teachers as essential, people with voracious scholarly appetites (I hope you're hungry Henning, and from the emails you send to the Siouan languages list, I think you fit my stereotype of a healthy native scholar) and acccess to great materials, who can create new materials: but all so that ADULTS who need to learn the language can learn. Kids don't need dictionaries or picture books. They need fluent adult speakers who care for them and spend extended time with them, giving them encouragement, love, and a positive identity in the language. You can't get that from materials, not matter how interactive they are. I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different when you do get to meet people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is minimized. When motives and hopes aren't discused, I fear the continuation of the colonization and genocide project. No one is doing it intentionally, but if the sum of many well-funded projects continues to shift focus away from the real activities of language empowerment (fluent speakers spending lots of caring time with younger people, most especially), I fear that people with amazing skills and inspiration like you, Henning, will spend mountains of effort on endeavors with very low leverage, as far as getting the language to the next generation, and insuring the language as a source of life-giving identity for everyone (not just the few kids who excel in language classes). At the very least when someone promotes a project, I wish they would say WHY they're doing it, what their feelings about the situation and propsed project are. Motivation, to me, is always more important than credentials, because motivation seems a greater determinant of good work than initials after your name. Though it seems the longer your CV, the less people feel they should explain themselves. But that is definitely my stereotype of academics (though not totally unfounded). I envision using all resources to get people who are fluent in the language and culture together with young people in a positive environment where healthy identities can be nurtured in the language. It is those people who learn the natural way that will grow up and produce the great literature appropriate to a healthy literate language. It's great when a few individuals create strong indentities in their traditional cultures, but a few people commited to acquiring and documenting the language, even supported by a whole army of (non-speaking) linguists isn't going to tip the balances against the forces of hundreds of years of ever more refined and invisible genocide. (see http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/ for the original United Nations definition of genocide, before the big nations who regularly practice it trimmed the convention down a lot, and see Churchill 1997, A little matter of genocide, Chapter 7 "The United States and the Genocide Convention" p.363-398, for an enlightnening discussion of the matter...actually no, you should just read the whole book.) When it comes down to it, I see myself and all other academics, as agents of the dominant culture. (see Churchill 1997 p.93-94, "The specter of Hannibal Lecter", for discussion of some unintended (at least consciously) consequences of academic work) Whether or not we want to admit it, and it's really better if we DO admit it, we are possbily the ones who will finalize the genocide (e.g., by focusing everyone's attention away from what would really make the difference, like dealing with the social problems that lead to negative identity and hence language loss), or else we finalize the acculturation of indigenous people into the dominant culture (e.g., by convincing people of the necessity of being liguists and converting the language to a corpus of bastardized english-dependent texts; when IS somebody going to write a real native language dicitonary? an english dictionary doesn't explain everything in Hocank, so why do native language dictionaries convert everything to english?). So when intiative (even my own) comes from outside a native community and works its way into the community, I fear for what we are all not seeing. At least the Hocank nation gets to archive the material at home, and they already do have strong language efforts underway. Now why didn't Johannes mention that? Sorry if I've attacked individuals too strongly (or whole nations). But criticism is a good thing, I think. It's all the talk about etymolgies and semantics and dictionaries (which I do enjoy) while I know there's little kids who could be learning the language who are being forgotten. If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... But why do academics RALLY do their work? (see Hull 1988, Science as a process, for the best psychosocial analysis of academia I've ever seen...then you'll see where my stereotypes come from, personified by real people I know/am.) I'll stop talking now, Pat Warren --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com Sun Oct 26 04:39:52 2003 From: dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com (David Kaufman) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 21:39:52 -0700 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language In-Reply-To: <000701c39b6a$1bd9c0c0$aa09ed81@9afl3> Message-ID: Kathleen, I want to respond to your email because both you and Pat raised an interesting point: --linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying.-- As I said before, I'm new to all this (the world of linguistics and academia), and at the risk of sounding naive, I intend to learn from this experience. Does the "typical linguist" normally study a language (on paper presumably) but never attempt to speak it? I find this odd, especially for a spoken language. (I could understand it more in the case of Latin or Ancient Greek, for example, where there are no more "native" speakers and just a basic understanding of written genders and cases is all one really needs to "know" the language.) But if a linguist is doing field work and having interaction with native speakers, how could they not "speak" the language to some degree? Especially since an understanding of accent, pitch, or tone may be crucial, one would have to hear the spoken language at some point, and one should be able to communicate in the language (albeit possibly not altogether correctly!) at some level. I guess I would equate "studying" a language with learning to "speak" it. If I'm helping to document a language and taking part in its revitalization efforts, I would naturally want to learn to "speak" it with the native speakers I come into contact with, if for no other reason than to make sure I've got it right before writing about it or committing anything to paper. Plus, again, by learning to speak the language and communicating in it to some degree, I would be gaining better understanding and insight on the culture and people who speak it natively. But, it's sounding like this may not be standard practice among most linguists? Dave Kathleen Shea wrote: I think that we all have our built-in biases and that learning to function within another culture can often be an uncomfortable process, even though it's ultimately worthwhile and rewarding. Often we don't learn without making mistakes and stepping on someone's toes, and it seems that growth doesn't occur without some struggle and overcoming obstacles. I don't know if Pat is Hocank or has ever tried to work within a community on language maintenance, but it can be a humbling experience. Often there are many seemingly more immediate problems to be overcome, hindered in their solution by many political and economic limitations. Every community is different, and a "one-size-fits-all" approach doesn't work. Sure, it would be great if languages could be passed down as they traditionally have been, orally, from parent to child, but what do you do if the speakers are all great-grandparents of not-very-good health, even if a preschool exists? What do you do if a federally funded program that helps parents with young children get their GED's (i.e., Even Start) won't let the parents or children learn their ancestral language as part of the program? And so on.... A grassroots effort is definitely needed, with people in the community aware enough of the need to be behind it, and it takes more than just one person--if that's what the community wants. The logistics can be daunting. I don't think any of us academic "experts" know what works best when it comes to passing on a language, other than the tried-and-true traditional way, but I would think that the more approaches used the better. I do agree with Pat, though, that linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying. (I believe it was Durbin Feeling at a sovereignty conference in Tulsa several years ago who first encouraged me to do this.) Kathy Shea ----- Original Message ----- From: "warr0120" To: ; ; Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 5:52 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language > Well, Henning, I wish YOU had been the one to inform people in the first > place about the project and a Hocank person and scholar's perspective on > it. Thank you for addressing some of the issues that were not addressed in > Johannes' email. Seeing the project from a Hocank perspective is exactly > what I find most important, and almost always missing from linguists' and > anthros' work who claim authorship or directorship and leave no space for > the voices of the community being studied to come through enedited, as far > as how they view the project. (except see Young Bear and Theisz 1994, > Standing in the light a Lakota way of seeing, with an introduction written > by the primary informant.) > > My immediate concern is the extreme emphasis on documentation, which to be > done well and usefully does require expertise and much attention to detail. > But documentation can be a distraction, one of those activities that can > let you feel busy and productive while the real problems continue > unhindered, and can even exacerbate the problems of identity as reliance on > experts from outside the community becomes more acute. > > I know the powerful roles that documentation can play for self-empowerment > and language revitalization in particular. But I wish people's first > initiative when big sums of money came around was NOT to manufacture > objects: dictionaries, grammars, "children's" books, videotapes, or > interactive cdroms, that make you feel proud, but are static. It would seem > much more important to spend every penny possible getting all the fluent > speakers together with children in the community so the language can be > passed on in the most efficient and natural way possible. And probably the > only really lasting way of language transmission for a whole culture. I > hope the Hocank nation is successful in its current use of natural language > learning methods, but I will NOT rest assured. Every step toward > strengthening natural language and culture transmission is an amazing and > important experience. But it will never be enough. The tide against the > language and culture is so very strong. (By the way I'm offering these > thought in general, not just as response to you, Henning - you clearly > emphasized much of this in your own email.) > > I see the training of new generations of teachers as essential, people with > voracious scholarly appetites (I hope you're hungry Henning, and from the > emails you send to the Siouan languages list, I think you fit my stereotype > of a healthy native scholar) and acccess to great materials, who can create > new materials: but all so that ADULTS who need to learn the language can > learn. Kids don't need dictionaries or picture books. They need fluent > adult speakers who care for them and spend extended time with them, giving > them encouragement, love, and a positive identity in the language. You > can't get that from materials, not matter how interactive they are. > > I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work > with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and > hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at > least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different when you do get to meet > people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That > may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship > as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is > minimized. > > When motives and hopes aren't discused, I fear the continuation of the > colonization and genocide project. No one is doing it intentionally, but if > the sum of many well-funded projects continues to shift focus away from the > real activities of language empowerment (fluent speakers spending lots of > caring time with younger people, most especially), I fear that people with > amazing skills and inspiration like you, Henning, will spend mountains of > effort on endeavors with very low leverage, as far as getting the language > to the next generation, and insuring the language as a source of > life-giving identity for everyone (not just the few kids who excel in > language classes). At the very least when someone promotes a project, I > wish they would say WHY they're doing it, what their feelings about the > situation and propsed project are. Motivation, to me, is always more > important than credentials, because motivation seems a greater determinant > of good work than initials after your name. Though it seems the longer your > CV, the less people feel they should explain themselves. But that is > definitely my stereotype of academics (though not totally unfounded). > > I envision using all resources to get people who are fluent in the language > and culture together with young people in a positive environment where > healthy identities can be nurtured in the language. It is those people who > learn the natural way that will grow up and produce the great literature > appropriate to a healthy literate language. It's great when a few > individuals create strong indentities in their traditional cultures, but a > few people commited to acquiring and documenting the language, even > supported by a whole army of (non-speaking) linguists isn't going to tip > the balances against the forces of hundreds of years of ever more refined > and invisible genocide. (see > http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/ for the original > United Nations definition of genocide, before the big nations who regularly > practice it trimmed the convention down a lot, and see Churchill 1997, A > little matter of genocide, Chapter 7 "The United States and the Genocide > Convention" p.363-398, for an enlightnening discussion of the > matter...actually no, you should just read the whole book.) > > When it comes down to it, I see myself and all other academics, as agents > of the dominant culture. (see Churchill 1997 p.93-94, "The specter of > Hannibal Lecter", for discussion of some unintended (at least consciously) > consequences of academic work) Whether or not we want to admit it, and it's > really better if we DO admit it, we are possbily the ones who will finalize > the genocide (e.g., by focusing everyone's attention away from what would > really make the difference, like dealing with the social problems that lead > to negative identity and hence language loss), or else we finalize the > acculturation of indigenous people into the dominant culture (e.g., by > convincing people of the necessity of being liguists and converting the > language to a corpus of bastardized english-dependent texts; when IS > somebody going to write a real native language dicitonary? an english > dictionary doesn't explain everything in Hocank, so why do native language > dictionaries convert everything to english?). So when intiative (even my > own) comes from outside a native community and works its way into the > community, I fear for what we are all not seeing. > > At least the Hocank nation gets to archive the material at home, and they > already do have strong language efforts underway. Now why didn't Johannes > mention that? Sorry if I've attacked individuals too strongly (or whole > nations). But criticism is a good thing, I think. It's all the talk about > etymolgies and semantics and dictionaries (which I do enjoy) while I know > there's little kids who could be learning the language who are being > forgotten. > > If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally > acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... But why do academics > RALLY do their work? (see Hull 1988, Science as a process, for the best > psychosocial analysis of academia I've ever seen...then you'll see where my > stereotypes come from, personified by real people I know/am.) > > > I'll stop talking now, > Pat Warren > --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rankin at ku.edu Sun Oct 26 15:20:47 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 09:20:47 -0600 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: > Another > remnant of ppi might be seen in ppiduba 'some more' (duba 'more'), as in, > MakkaN sabe ppiduba akkigdhize ttiNkhe, 'I'm going to get myself some more > coffee.' I'm sure there must be some more instances of ppi.... Interesting. This seems to sort of parallel the English use of 'good' in "I walked a good bit before I got tired." or "I drank a good lot of coffee in order to stay awake." Bob From napshawin at hotmail.com Sun Oct 26 16:20:24 2003 From: napshawin at hotmail.com (Violet Catches) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 10:20:24 -0600 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From napshawin at hotmail.com Sun Oct 26 16:27:20 2003 From: napshawin at hotmail.com (Violet Catches) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 10:27:20 -0600 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jkyle at ku.edu Sun Oct 26 17:04:37 2003 From: jkyle at ku.edu (John Kyle) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 11:04:37 -0600 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: David Kaufman asked: Does the "typical linguist" normally study a language (on paper presumably) but never attempt to speak it? If 'typical' means the majority of linguists then I would have to say yes, most linguists don't need to learn a language in order to study it. What I've found over my many years in linguistics is that there are many types of linguists studying a wide range of topics and languages. Even in the realm of the field linguist, it is not necessary to learn the language (the hours of pouring over tapes and writing and rewriting though can give one a good working knowledge of the language...but does this mean we 'know' the language). For many linguists, our work is to 'distill' the order out of language. When my introductory linguistic students asked me if I had to learn all the languages I used for examples, I told them that as linguists we can 'cheat'. To learn and know a language as a speaker requires the memorization of thousands of lexical items and idioms and then putting them together in the accepted manner. As linguists we often don't have to do the memorization. Our joy seems to come from finding those regular patterns that the lexical items fit into. But it all depends on what type of linguistics you are doing. It would be a real hindrance to linguistics if we had to learn all the languages we deal with. John Kyle jkyle at ku.edu ************************************** "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." - Pres. Bush, Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002 ----- Original Message ----- From: David Kaufman To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 10:39 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Kathleen, I want to respond to your email because both you and Pat raised an interesting point: --linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying.-- As I said before, I'm new to all this (the world of linguistics and academia), and at the risk of sounding naive, I intend to learn from this experience. I find this odd, especially for a spoken language. (I could understand it more in the case of Latin or Ancient Greek, for example, where there are no more "native" speakers and just a basic understanding of written genders and cases is all one really needs to "know" the language.) But if a linguist is doing field work and having interaction with native speakers, how could they not "speak" the language to some degree? Especially since an understanding of accent, pitch, or tone may be crucial, one would have to hear the spoken language at some point, and one should be able to communicate in the language (albeit possibly not altogether correctly!) at some level. I guess I would equate "studying" a language with learning to "speak" it. If I'm helping to document a language and taking part in its revitalization efforts, I would naturally want to learn to "speak" it with the native speakers I come into contact with, if for no other reason than to make sure I've got it right before writing about it or committing anything to paper. Plus, again, by learning to speak the language and communicating in it to some degree, I would be gaining better understanding and insight on the culture and people who speak it natively. But, it's sounding like this may not be standard practice among most linguists? Dave Kathleen Shea wrote: I think that we all have our built-in biases and that learning to function within another culture can often be an uncomfortable process, even though it's ultimately worthwhile and rewarding. Often we don't learn without making mistakes and stepping on someone's toes, and it seems that growth doesn't occur without some struggle and overcoming obstacles. I don't know if Pat is Hocank or has ever tried to work within a community on language maintenance, but it can be a humbling experience. Often there are many seemingly more immediate problems to be overcome, hindered in their solution by many political and economic limitations. Every community is different, and a "one-size-fits-all" approach doesn't work. Sure, it would be great if languages could be passed down as they traditionally have been, orally, from parent to child, but what do you do if! the speakers are all great-grandparents of not-very-good health, even if a preschool exists? What do you do if a federally funded program that helps parents with young children get their GED's (i.e., Even Start) won't let the parents or children learn their ancestral language as part of the program? And so on.... A grassroots effort is definitely needed, with people in the community aware enough of the need to be behind it, and it takes more than just one person--if that's what the community wants. The logistics can be daunting. I don't think any of us academic "experts" know what works best when it comes to passing on a language, other than the tried-and-true traditional way, but I would think that the more approaches used the better. I do agree with Pat, though, that linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying. (I believe it was Durbin Feeling at a sovereignty conference in Tu! lsa several years ago who first encouraged me to do this.) Kathy Shea ----- Original Message ----- From: "warr0120" To: ; ; Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 5:52 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language > Well, Henning, I wish YOU had been the one to inform people in the first > place about the project and a Hocank person and scholar's perspective on > it. Thank you for addressing some of the issues that were not addressed in > Johannes' email. Seeing the project from a Hocank perspective is exactly > what I find most important, and almost always missing from linguists' and > anthros' work who claim authorship or directorship and leave no space for > the voices of the community being studied to come through enedited, as far > as how they view the project. (except see! Young Bear and Theisz 1994, > Standing in the light a Lakota way of seeing, with an introduction written > by the primary informant.) > > My immediate concern is the extreme emphasis on documentation, which to be > done well and usefully does require expertise and much attention to detail. > But documentation can be a distraction, one of those activities that can > let you feel busy and productive while the real problems continue > unhindered, and can even exacerbate the problems of identity as reliance on > experts from outside the community becomes more acute. > > I know the powerful roles that documentation can play for self-empowerment > and language revitalization in particular. But I wish people's first > initiative when big sums of money came around was NOT to manufacture > objects: dictionaries, grammars, "children's" books, videotapes, or > interactive cdroms, that make you fe! el proud, but are static. It would seem > much more important to spend every penny possible getting all the fluent > speakers together with children in the community so the language can be > passed on in the most efficient and natural way possible. And probably the > only really lasting way of language transmission for a whole culture. I > hope the Hocank nation is successful in its current use of natural language > learning methods, but I will NOT rest assured. Every step toward > strengthening natural language and culture transmission is an amazing and > important experience. But it will never be enough. The tide against the > language and culture is so very strong. (By the way I'm offering these > thought in general, not just as response to you, Henning - you clearly > emphasized much of this in your own email.) > > I see the training of new generations of teachers as essential, people with &! gt; voracious scholarly appetites (I hope you're hungry Henning, and from the > emails you send to the Siouan languages list, I think you fit my stereotype > of a healthy native scholar) and acccess to great materials, who can create > new materials: but all so that ADULTS who need to learn the language can > learn. Kids don't need dictionaries or picture books. They need fluent > adult speakers who care for them and spend extended time with them, giving > them encouragement, love, and a positive identity in the language. You > can't get that from materials, not matter how interactive they are. > > I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work > with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and > hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at > least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different when you do get to meet &! gt; people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That > may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship > as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is > minimized. > > When motives and hopes aren't discused, I fear the continuation of the > colonization and genocide project. No one is doing it intentionally, but if > the sum of many well-funded projects continues to shift focus away from the > real activities of language empowerment (fluent speakers spending lots of > caring time with younger people, most especially), I fear that people with > amazing skills and inspiration like you, Henning, will spend mountains of > effort on endeavors with very low leverage, as far as getting the language > to the next generation, and insuring the language as a source of > life-giving identity for everyone (not just the fe! w kids who excel in > language classes). At the very least when someone promotes a project, I > wish they would say WHY they're doing it, what their feelings about the > situation and propsed project are. Motivation, to me, is always more > important than credentials, because motivation seems a greater determinant > of good work than initials after your name. Though it seems the longer your > CV, the less people feel they should explain themselves. But that is > definitely my stereotype of academics (though not totally unfounded). > > I envision using all resources to get people who are fluent in the language > and culture together with young people in a positive environment where > healthy identities can be nurtured in the language. It is those people who > learn the natural way that will grow up and produce the great literature > appropriate to a healthy literate language. It's great when a few> individuals create strong indentities in their traditional cultures, but a > few people commited to acquiring and documenting the language, even > supported by a whole army of (non-speaking) linguists isn't going to tip > the balances against the forces of hundreds of years of ever more refined > and invisible genocide. (see > http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/ for the original > United Nations definition of genocide, before the big nations who regularly > practice it trimmed the convention down a lot, and see Churchill 1997, A > little matter of genocide, Chapter 7 "The United States and the Genocide > Convention" p.363-398, for an enlightnening discussion of the > matter...actually no, you should just read the whole book.) > > When it comes down to it, I see myself and all other academics, as agents > of the dominant culture. (see Churchill 1997 p.93-94, "The specter of ! > Hannibal Lecter", for discussion of some unintended (at least consciously) > consequences of academic work) Whether or not we want to admit it, and it's > really better if we DO admit it, we are possbily the ones who will finalize > the genocide (e.g., by focusing everyone's attention away from what would > really make the difference, like dealing with the social problems that lead > to negative identity and hence language loss), or else we finalize the > acculturation of indigenous people into the dominant culture (e.g., by > convincing people of the necessity of being liguists and converting the > language to a corpus of bastardized english-dependent texts; when IS > somebody going to write a real native language dicitonary? an english > dictionary doesn't explain everything in Hocank, so why do native language > dictionaries convert everything to english?). So when intiative (even my > own) ! comes from outside a native community and works its way into the > community, I fear for what we are all not seeing. > > At least the Hocank nation gets to archive the material at home, and they > already do have strong language efforts underway. Now why didn't Johannes > mention that? Sorry if I've attacked individuals too strongly (or whole > nations). But criticism is a good thing, I think. It's all the talk about > etymolgies and semantics and dictionaries (which I do enjoy) while I know > there's little kids who could be learning the language who are being > forgotten. > > If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally > acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... But why do academics > RALLY do their work? (see Hull 1988, Science as a process, for the best > psychosocial analysis of academia I've ever seen...then you'll see where my > stereotypes come fro! m, personified by real people I know/am.) > > > I'll stop talking now, > Pat Warren > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com Sun Oct 26 17:27:49 2003 From: dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com (David Kaufman) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 09:27:49 -0800 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language In-Reply-To: <004401c39be3$4faac920$3fcbed81@D8LZRG21> Message-ID: Thanks for your input, John. I guess as an avid language learner myself, I would really want to be able to speak the language(s) to some degree that I work on. Maybe that means I'll just work on fewer languages, but hopefully those will be more in depth! Dave John Kyle wrote: David Kaufman asked: Does the "typical linguist" normally study a language (on paper presumably) but never attempt to speak it? If 'typical' means the majority of linguists then I would have to say yes, most linguists don't need to learn a language in order to study it. What I've found over my many years in linguistics is that there are many types of linguists studying a wide range of topics and languages. Even in the realm of the field linguist, it is not necessary to learn the language (the hours of pouring over tapes and writing and rewriting though can give one a good working knowledge of the language...but does this mean we 'know' the language). For many linguists, our work is to 'distill' the order out of language. When my introductory linguistic students asked me if I had to learn all the languages I used for examples, I told them that as linguists we can 'cheat'. To learn and know a language as a speaker requires the memorization of thousands of lexical items and idioms and then putting them together in the accepted manner. As linguists we often don't have to do the memorization. Our ! joy seems to come from finding those regular patterns that the lexical items fit into. But it all depends on what type of linguistics you are doing. It would be a real hindrance to linguistics if we had to learn all the languages we deal with. John Kyle jkyle at ku.edu ************************************** "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." � Pres. Bush, Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002 ----- Original Message ----- From: David Kaufman To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 10:39 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Kathleen, I want to respond to your email because both you and Pat raised an interesting point: --linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying.-- As I said before, I'm new to all this (the world of linguistics and academia), and at the risk of sounding naive, I intend to learn from this experience. I find this odd, especially for a spoken language. (I could understand it more in the case of Latin or Ancient Greek, for example, where there are no more "native" speakers and just a basic understanding of written genders and cases is all one really needs to "know" the language.) But if a linguist is doing field work and having interaction with native speakers, how could they not "speak" the language to some degree? Especially since an understanding of accent, pitch, or tone may be crucial, one would have to hear the spoken language at some point, and one should be able to communicate in the language (albeit possibly not altogether correctly!) at some level. I guess I would equate "studying" a language with learning to "speak" it. If I'm helping to document a language and taking part in its revitalization efforts, I would naturally want to learn to "speak" it with the native speakers I come into contact with, if for no other reason than to make sure I've got it right before writing about it or committing anything to paper. Plus, again, by learning to speak the language and communicating in it to some degree, I would be gaining better understanding and insight on the culture and people who speak it natively. But, it's sounding like this may not be standard practice among most linguists? Dave Kathleen Shea wrote: I think that we all have our built-in biases and that learning to function within another culture can often be an uncomfortable process, even though it's ultimately worthwhile and rewarding. Often we don't learn without making mistakes and stepping on someone's toes, and it seems that growth doesn't occur without some struggle and overcoming obstacles. I don't know if Pat is Hocank or has ever tried to work within a community on language maintenance, but it can be a humbling experience. Often there are many seemingly more immediate problems to be overcome, hindered in their solution by many political and economic limitations. Every community is different, and a "one-size-fits-all" approach doesn't work. Sure, it would be great if languages could be passed down as they traditionally have been, orally, from parent to child, but what do you do if! the speakers are all great-grandparents of not-very-good health, even if a preschool exists? What do you do if a federally funded program that helps parents with young children get their GED's (i.e., Even Start) won't let the parents or children learn their ancestral language as part of the program? And so on.... A grassroots effort is definitely needed, with people in the community aware enough of the need to be behind it, and it takes more than just one person--if that's what the community wants. The logistics can be daunting. I don't think any of us academic "experts" know what works best when it comes to passing on a language, other than the tried-and-true traditional way, but I would think that the more approaches used the better. I do agree with Pat, though, that linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying. (I believe it was Durbin Feeling at a sovereignty conference in Tu! lsa several years ago who first encouraged me to do this.) Kathy Shea ----- Original Message ----- From: "warr0120" To: ; ; Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 5:52 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language > Well, Henning, I wish YOU had been the one to inform people in the first > place about the project and a Hocank person and scholar's perspective on > it. Thank you for addressing some of the issues that were not addressed in > Johannes' email. Seeing the project from a Hocank perspective is exactly > what I find most important, and almost always missing from linguists' and > anthros' work who claim authorship or directorship and leave no space for > the voices of the community being studied to come through enedited, as far > as how they view the project. (except see! Young Bear and Theisz 1994, > Standing in the light a Lakota way of seeing, with an introduction written > by the primary informant.) > > My immediate concern is the extreme emphasis on documentation, which to be > done well and usefully does require expertise and much attention to detail. > But documentation can be a distraction, one of those activities that can > let you feel busy and productive while the real problems continue > unhindered, and can even exacerbate the problems of identity as reliance on > experts from outside the community becomes more acute. > > I know the powerful roles that documentation can play for self-empowerment > and language revitalization in particular. But I wish people's first > initiative when big sums of money came around was NOT to manufacture > objects: dictionaries, grammars, "children's" books, videotapes, or > interactive cdroms, that make you fe! el proud, but are static. It would seem > much more important to spend every penny possible getting all the fluent > speakers together with children in the community so the language can be > passed on in the most efficient and natural way possible. And probably the > only really lasting way of language transmission for a whole culture. I > hope the Hocank nation is successful in its current use of natural language > learning methods, but I will NOT rest assured. Every step toward > strengthening natural language and culture transmission is an amazing and > important experience. But it will never be enough. The tide against the > language and culture is so very strong. (By the way I'm offering these > thought in general, not just as response to you, Henning - you clearly > emphasized much of this in your own email.) > > I see the training of new generations of teachers as essential, people with &! gt; voracious scholarly appetites (I hope you're hungry Henning, and from the > emails you send to the Siouan languages list, I think you fit my stereotype > of a healthy native scholar) and acccess to great materials, who can create > new materials: but all so that ADULTS who need to learn the language can > learn. Kids don't need dictionaries or picture books. They need fluent > adult speakers who care for them and spend extended time with them, giving > them encouragement, love, and a positive identity in the language. You > can't get that from materials, not matter how interactive they are. > > I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work > with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and > hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at > least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different when you do get to meet &! gt; people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That > may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship > as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is > minimized. > > When motives and hopes aren't discused, I fear the continuation of the > colonization and genocide project. No one is doing it intentionally, but if > the sum of many well-funded projects continues to shift focus away from the > real activities of language empowerment (fluent speakers spending lots of > caring time with younger people, most especially), I fear that people with > amazing skills and inspiration like you, Henning, will spend mountains of > effort on endeavors with very low leverage, as far as getting the language > to the next generation, and insuring the language as a source of > life-giving identity for everyone (not just the fe! w kids who excel in > language classes). At the very least when someone promotes a project, I > wish they would say WHY they're doing it, what their feelings about the > situation and propsed project are. Motivation, to me, is always more > important than credentials, because motivation seems a greater determinant > of good work than initials after your name. Though it seems the longer your > CV, the less people feel they should explain themselves. But that is > definitely my stereotype of academics (though not totally unfounded). > > I envision using all resources to get people who are fluent in the language > and culture together with young people in a positive environment where > healthy identities can be nurtured in the language. It is those people who > learn the natural way that will grow up and produce the great literature > appropriate to a healthy literate language. It's great when a few> individuals create strong indentities in their traditional cultures, but a > few people commited to acquiring and documenting the language, even > supported by a whole army of (non-speaking) linguists isn't going to tip > the balances against the forces of hundreds of years of ever more refined > and invisible genocide. (see > http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/ for the original > United Nations definition of genocide, before the big nations who regularly > practice it trimmed the convention down a lot, and see Churchill 1997, A > little matter of genocide, Chapter 7 "The United States and the Genocide > Convention" p.363-398, for an enlightnening discussion of the > matter...actually no, you should just read the whole book.) > > When it comes down to it, I see myself and all other academics, as agents > of the dominant culture. (see Churchill 1997 p.93-94, "The specter of ! > Hannibal Lecter", for discussion of some unintended (at least consciously) > consequences of academic work) Whether or not we want to admit it, and it's > really better if we DO admit it, we are possbily the ones who will finalize > the genocide (e.g., by focusing everyone's attention away from what would > really make the difference, like dealing with the social problems that lead > to negative identity and hence language loss), or else we finalize the > acculturation of indigenous people into the dominant culture (e.g., by > convincing people of the necessity of being liguists and converting the > language to a corpus of bastardized english-dependent texts; when IS > somebody going to write a real native language dicitonary? an english > dictionary doesn't explain everything in Hocank, so why do native language > dictionaries convert everything to english?). So when intiative (even my > own) ! comes from outside a native community and works its way into the > community, I fear for what we are all not seeing. > > At least the Hocank nation gets to archive the material at home, and they > already do have strong language efforts underway. Now why didn't Johannes > mention that? Sorry if I've attacked individuals too strongly (or whole > nations). But criticism is a good thing, I think. It's all the talk about > etymolgies and semantics and dictionaries (which I do enjoy) while I know > there's little kids who could be learning the language who are being > forgotten. > > If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally > acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... But why do academics > RALLY do their work? (see Hull 1988, Science as a process, for the best > psychosocial analysis of academia I've ever seen...then you'll see where my > stereotypes come fro! m, personified by real people I know/am.) > > > I'll stop talking now, > Pat Warren > --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From warr0120 at umn.edu Sun Oct 26 20:15:27 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (Pat Warren) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 14:15:27 CST Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: Violet, I'm anxious to hear your ideas on some of the ideas raised in this discussion. Unfortunately, there was nothing in your message. Maybe hotmail's not friendly to other email servers, but I know I've read email from you before. Maybe try sending it again or just send it to one of us on the list and we can forward it to the list. Thanks, Pat From warr0120 at umn.edu Sun Oct 26 22:19:52 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (Pat Warren) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 16:19:52 CST Subject: All the empathy of a well-trained mortician. Message-ID: Academics, at least those who are commited to their work and somewhat successful in their own eyes, are in it for themselves. Academics publish for other academics to read, so they can get a mix of approval and drama from their colleagues. The real draw of participating in academia is the quest for credit. When you get citations, you are approved of in academia. Academic work hinges on the spread of an identity - people get to know you as a figure in the field, which feels good - and the citations that start to accumulate and hopefully you save up enough points to get the fancy faculty position and research grants, complete with underlings (students) who can do work for you and help you accomplish your personal academic goals. This process is less applicable to those who aren't as successful at the academic game, but this process is what holds the whole thing together. You don't become a decision maker like chair of a department, unless you've done decently well in the publication and citation-harvesting business (unles the department is amazingly underfunded and desperate, and then your position will probably be classified as "interim" until someone with more points is found). As John Kyle just wrote: >"For many linguists, our work is to 'distill' the order out of language. ...Our joy seems to come from finding those regular patterns that the lexical items fit into. ...It would be a real hindrance to linguistics if we had to learn all the languages we deal with." This is my stereotype of a linguist. Essentially the joy of the linguist is to take diversity, boil it down to very consistent patterns, translate it into english, and publish. This is very intellectually satisfying work. I know. I do it. It's fun, without a doubt. What a sad image of your language being squeezed through a complex series of test tubes and such. But what kind of work can be done, and what the consequences are of this approach to language, is what I'm trying to get at in this discussion. A linguist who does not learn the language he studies is never going to be able to do anything more than transpose that language into english. Your subject is the language, but to work with it at all you have to first convert it to english. All you are ever able to do is take things out of their context of meaning (though you'll develop ever more sophisticated methods of surgical removal). And this then limits the kinds of materials you can produce. All the materials produced by linguists who study native american languages are, according to studies in second language acquisition research and the experiences of the majority of students in any language class I've ever been in, nearly useless for most learners. You don't learn another language through translation, you learn it in spite of translation. No one can produce material (without just using the hard work of a native speaker) that contributes to language acquisition, without actually being part of the speech community. But this is the conflict of interest: a linguist's audience and primary concern is other linguists. Linguists, usually without admitting it, are in it for the intellectual enjoyment of translating a language to english and finding and arguing about patters they find, and in building an ever stronger academic reputation by astonishing their colleagues with their great skill in finding patterns in a language they couldn't carry on a conversation in, or would choose not to even if they could muster up the passive knowledge they unavoidably gain over several decades of study. Linguists aren't usually language learners in my experience. Some are, most aren't. This isn't true for the study of languages that are themselves dominant languages, like spanish, french, etc. As a non-native speaker, to even get your foot in the door in the linguistics of those languages you have to speak the language. They have large populations of native speakers with plenty of their own linguists and a long tradition of study of their languages. But this isn't the case with indigenous languages almost anywhere in the world. I think linguists now like the idea of helping with revitalization efforts. But I think it's also ethically obligatory now. It's hard to ignore anymore the sociocultural reality of language and culture loss when you want to go take someone's language, so I don't give much credit for being ethically in style. And it seems to that now linguists are building up their own self-images as emergency-room surgeons by pretending that their work is going to have anything to do with determining whether these ailing languages disappear. The day that a linguist can produce any materials without english (or french or spanish, etc.) doing all the work of carrying the meaning, then maybe this image of "preserving indigenous languages" will mean something more than just polishing another indian's skeleton to put on your bookshelf. Keep in mind that for linguists, these are the predominant patterns. But a lot of people play other roles than just linguist, and do accomplish great, empathetic work in empowering native people when they play these roles. But if you primarily think of yourself as a linguist (rather than also as a Dakota person, a teacher, etc.) this probably applies to a great extent. I just want to know how much this applies, if anyone is actually open to this much soul-searching. It's frightening to me to open up a book entitled "Making dictionaries: preserving indigenous languages of the americas" and the first line creates the image of linguists as being at war: "Lexicographic war stories are a special genre of tales of impossibility and thanklessness." I'm not a native person. I imagine that if I were, and someone came to me with that self-image, of being at war, of being heroic, and doing the impossible without being thanked, I'd think "bueno, los conquistadores han vuelto." It sound like the same old great european explorer attitude to me. I mean, couldn't you guys have thought of a better metaphor than "war stories?" And I can't wait to be told by a linguist that I'm reading too much into this. That would be funny. It's a sad state of affairs when the vast majority of linguists studying native languages are themselves monolingual. Why would someone who loves language so much avoid the wonderful experience of communicating in another language? It's not the languages they love. It's the knife. The languages are incidental. Thankfully there are now people who are actually realizing that when you do know the language you study, and you use it, there's a lot more linguistics you can do, and what you produce will be of exponentially better quality, and will have great applicability beyond the cubicle of the linguist next door. These are the people who can empathise with speakers and communities, who see these people as ends in themselves and not the means to another publication. And the languages too can then be given the respect they deserve, and the irresponsible and probably invalid methodology of analyzing the language as if it were really english in disguise can be left behind. I have great respect for my Dakota language teacher, Neil McKay. Neil is himself Dakota. He didn't grow up speaking the language, though he certainly did hear some words and lots of cultural knowledge. Neil first studied the language at the University of Minnesota. And now he is the Dakota language teacher there, and is getting better at what he does all the time. He has benfited greatly from his several identities: he is Dakota, he is a linguist, he is a teacher, he is a speaker, he is a father (of two boys who are learning Dakota as a first language) he is a husband, a star wars fan, and much more. Neil has worked hard to learn the language, to make himself fluent through classes, books, elders, teaching, and practice. And he's done it. Neil is a great speaker. He always works to increase his knowledge, to be a better speaker, to create better materials, and to pass on the language to his students at the university, at the language tables he hosts, at home to his children, and in more ways than I probably know. Nina tanyan onspeic'iye ka tanyan waonspewicakiye do. He's my idea of a language scholar who contributes very positively to the language he studies. I am very hopeful for people like Henning Garvin, or nonnative people like David K. who feel it very important to be able to empathise with speakers of the language they study by being speakers themselves. Heced ibdukcan do. Hecetu yedo. Hepi miye do. Pat Warren From rankin at ku.edu Sun Oct 26 23:58:38 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 17:58:38 -0600 Subject: Volkswagen and politicizing documentation, teaching & maintenance. Message-ID: It is hard to know exactly where to start with all of the assertions, counter-assertions and word-eating that has gone on around this topic, but please let me re-emphasize one or two points that I strongly agree with and add one or two that haven't been mentioned or have been covered only obliquely. Maybe a couple of caveats too. First, I strongly agree with Pat that, if the situation permits, monies first be funneled into putting older, fluent speakers in close and prolonged contact with children, preferably under the age of puberty, i.e., within the language- learning "window" that allows acquisition of easy fluency. This may be possible with at least three Siouan languages: Dakotan, Hochunk and Crow. Realistically, it will probably not be possible with the majority of Siouan languages. Second, it is also a great idea for the linguist to try to learn to speak the language s/he is studying, especially if there is a significant body of speakers. This has been the philosophy of the best field linguists among us, including Ken Hale and Bob Dixon. But there are plenty of exceptions. Some linguists are good polyglots, but others are not. This doesn't mean they are not good analysts or lexicographers. And there is the additional factor some of us have encountered. If we are documenting languages with only a handful of elderly speakers remaining, we may encounter resentment if we show off our speaking ability among younger people who didn't learn the language of their grandparents. I've seen this happen more than once. It is generally not their fault if the language wasn't propagated to them in childhood, and it's not our place to rub their nose in it. Pure documentation *is* very important. (a) you can't teach what you don't know, and, (b) in the case of most Siouan languages, we are providing for the future of the language, whether or not it remains fluently spoken. Even if the language becomes extinct (as at least 5 Siouan languages have just in the span of my academic lifetime), there will be future generations who will want to learn all they can of it or about it. Either goal is laudable. This brings me to a point many have missed. In places like Oklahoma, where I do most of my work, the vast majority of Indian People are not only *not* speakers, they are not very conservative or traditional either. And, like it or not, acculturation is only going to become more prevalent. Yet it is our job to provide for that audience too -- and I reiterate, *they are the majority*. And they are Indians. Linguists, (like Indian People), come in all shapes, sizes and personality types. Some are shy, inarticulate and analytical; others glory in being down-to-earth, "touchy-feely". Personally, I think each linguist should do what s/he does best. Some of each group are successes and some are failures. There are plenty of grammars and dictionaries out there that were assembled by incompetent Ivory Tower linguists. And Lord only knows, the number of "language maintenance" (not even to mention "revival") programs that have been crashing failures over the past 3 decades must approach 99% with all the empathy in the world behind them. The success record certainly doesn't justify much name-calling. But whining about opposite personality types only exacerbates the situation. There is clearly room for everyone who wants to make the effort and who has the talent to do the work. When I explain this in class, I liken it to building a skyscraper. You can't do it without architects and engineers in addition to a lot of bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers and electricians, iron workers and all the rest. You don't ask the architect to do the plumbing -- he'd screw it up. Nor do you ask the stone mason to draw the blueprints or select the material for the building's support structure for the same reason. And, yes, the architect will probably spend a lot of time in his Ivory Tower -- so what? That's his job. And, as if these real problems weren't enough, there is a lot of BS in the air on all sides of these questions. There's the notion, oft-repeated at language maintenance workshops, that we can accomplish ANYthing we want if we "just have the faith." Or the idea that "the language 'embodies' the culture". Or the idea that Native American languages don't have all that "grammar stuff" like English -- "You just form a picture in your head and 'talk' it." But I'll leave those conceptions and misconceptions for another time. Bob From jkyle at ku.edu Mon Oct 27 01:55:03 2003 From: jkyle at ku.edu (John Kyle) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 19:55:03 -0600 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: I hope my last post didn't imply that linguists shouldn't learn other languages in depth. I merely wanted to point out that it is not a necessity for a linguist to learn to speak every language that he/she works with. If the opportunity is there to learn the language, then I think most linguists will attempt to do so. I've sat down with many grammars of languages that are no longer spoken or that I don't have the opportunity to hear spoken and (being a linguist) gotten insight from them. As I mentioned and Bob reiterated, there are all sorts of linguists out there working in many different areas of linguistics. Do what you do best and do it well! John Kyle jkyle at ku.edu ************************************** "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." - Pres. Bush, Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002 ----- Original Message ----- From: David Kaufman To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2003 11:27 AM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Thanks for your input, John. I guess as an avid language learner myself, I would really want to be able to speak the language(s) to some degree that I work on. Maybe that means I'll just work on fewer languages, but hopefully those will be more in depth! Dave John Kyle wrote: David Kaufman asked: Does the "typical linguist" normally study a language (on paper presumably) but never attempt to speak it? If 'typical' means the majority of linguists then I would have to say yes, most linguists don't need to learn a language in order to study it. What I've found over my many years in linguistics is that there are many types of linguists studying a wide range of topics and languages. Even in the realm of the field linguist, it is not necessary to learn the language (the hours of pouring over tapes and writing and rewriting though can give one a good working knowledge of the language...but does this mean we 'know' the language). For many linguists, our work is to 'distill' the order out of language. When my introductory linguistic students asked me if I had to learn all the languages I used for examples, I told them that as linguists we can 'cheat'. To learn and know a language as a speaker requires the memorization of thousands of lexical items and idioms and then putting them together in the accepted manner. ! ; As linguists we often don't have to do the memorization. Our joy seems to come from finding those regular patterns that the lexical items fit into. But it all depends on what type of linguistics you are doing. It would be a real hindrance to linguistics if we had to learn all the languages we deal with. John Kyle jkyle at ku.edu ************************************** "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." - Pres. Bush, Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002 ----- Original Message ----- From: David Kaufman To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 10:39 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Kathleen, I want to respond to your email because both you and Pat raised an interesting point: --linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying.-- As I said before, I'm new to all this (the world of linguistics and academia), and at the risk of sounding naive, I intend to learn from this experience. I find this odd, especially for a spoken language. (I could understand it more in the case of Latin or Ancient Greek, for example, where there are no more "native" speakers and just a basic understanding of written genders and cases is all one really needs to "know" the language.) But if a linguist is doing field work and having interaction with native speakers, how could they not "speak" the language to some degree? Especially since an understanding of accent, pitch, or tone may be crucial, one would have to hear the spoken language at some point, and one should be able to communicate in the language (albeit possibly not altogether correctly!) at some level. I guess I would equate "studying" a language with learning to "speak" it. If I'm helping to document a language and taking part in its revitalization efforts, I would naturally want to learn to "speak" it with the native speakers I come into contact with, if for no other reason than to make sure I've got it right before writing about it or committing anything to paper. Plus, again, by learning to speak the language and communicating in it to some degree, I would be gaining better understanding and insight on the culture and people who speak it natively. But, it's sounding like this may not be standard practice among most linguists? Dave Kathleen Shea wrote: I think that we all have our built-in biases and that learning to function within another culture can often be an uncomfortable process, even though it's ultimately worthwhile and rewarding. Often we don't learn without making mistakes and stepping on someone's toes, and it seems that growth doesn't occur without some struggle and overcoming obstacles. I don't know if Pat is Hocank or has ever tried to work within a community on language maintenance, but it can be a humbling experience. Often there are many seemingly more immediate problems to be overcome, hindered in their solution by many political and economic limitations. Every community is different, and a "one-size-fits-all" approach doesn't work. Sure, it would be great if languages could be passed down as they traditionally have been, orally, from parent to child, but what do you do if! ! the speakers are all great-grandparents of not-very-good health, even if a preschool exists? What do you do if a federally funded program that helps parents with young children get their GED's (i.e., Even Start) won't let the parents or children learn their ancestral language as part of the program? And so on.... A grassroots effort is definitely needed, with people in the community aware enough of the need to be behind it, and it takes more than just one person--if that's what the community wants. The logistics can be daunting. I don't think any of us academic "experts" know what works best when it comes to passing on a language, other than the tried-and-true traditional way, but I would think that the more approaches used the better. I do agree with Pat, though, that linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying. (I believe it was Durbin Feeling at a sovereignty conference in Tu! ! lsa several years ago who first encouraged me to do this.) Kathy Shea ----- Original Message ----- From: "warr0120" To: ; ; Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 5:52 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language > Well, Henning, I wish YOU had been the one to inform people in the first > place about the project and a Hocank person and scholar's perspective on > it. Thank you for addressing some of the issues that were not addressed in > Johannes' email. Seeing the project from a Hocank perspective is exactly > what I find most important, and almost always missing from linguists' and > anthros' work who claim authorship or directorship and leave no space for > the voices of the community being studied to come through enedited, as far > as how they view the project. (except see! ! Young Bear and Theisz 1994, > Standing in the light a Lakota way of seeing, with an introduction written > by the primary informant.) > > My immediate concern is the extreme emphasis on documentation, which to be > done well and usefully does require expertise and much attention to detail. > But documentation can be a distraction, one of those activities that can > let you feel busy and productive while the real problems continue > unhindered, and can even exacerbate the problems of identity as reliance on > experts from outside the community becomes more acute. > > I know the powerful roles that documentation can play for self-empowerment > and language revitalization in particular. But I wish people's first > initiative when big sums of money came around was NOT to manufacture > objects: dictionaries, grammars, "children's" books, videotapes, or > interactive cdroms, that make you fe! ! el proud, but are static. It would seem > much more important to spend every penny possible getting all the fluent > speakers together with children in the community so the language can be > passed on in the most efficient and natural way possible. And probably the > only really lasting way of language transmission for a whole culture. I > hope the Hocank nation is successful in its current use of natural language > learning methods, but I will NOT rest assured. Every step toward > strengthening natural language and culture transmission is an amazing and > important experience. But it will never be enough. The tide against the > language and culture is so very strong. (By the way I'm offering these > thought in general, not just as response to you, Henning - you clearly > emphasized much of this in your own email.) > > I see the training of new generations of teachers as essential, people with &! gt; voracious scholarly appetites (I hope you're hungry Henning, and from the > emails you send to the Siouan languages list, I think you fit my stereotype > of a healthy native scholar) and acccess to great materials, who can create > new materials: but all so that ADULTS who need to learn the language can > learn. Kids don't need dictionaries or picture books. They need fluent > adult speakers who care for them and spend extended time with them, giving > them encouragement, love, and a positive identity in the language. You > can't get that from materials, not matter how interactive they are. > > I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work > with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and > hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at > least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different wh! en you do get to meet &! gt; people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That > may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship > as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is > minimized. > > When motives and hopes aren't discused, I fear the continuation of the > colonization and genocide project. No one is doing it intentionally, but if > the sum of many well-funded projects continues to shift focus away from the > real activities of language empowerment (fluent speakers spending lots of > caring time with younger people, most especially), I fear that people with > amazing skills and inspiration like you, Henning, will spend mountains of > effort on endeavors with very low leverage, as far as getting the language > to the next generation, and insuring the language as a source of > life-giving identity ! for everyone (not just the fe! w kids who excel in > language classes). At the very least when someone promotes a project, I > wish they would say WHY they're doing it, what their feelings about the > situation and propsed project are. Motivation, to me, is always more > important than credentials, because motivation seems a greater determinant > of good work than initials after your name. Though it seems the longer your > CV, the less people feel they should explain themselves. But that is > definitely my stereotype of academics (though not totally unfounded). > > I envision using all resources to get people who are fluent in the language > and culture together with young people in a positive environment where > healthy identities can be nurtured in the language. It is those people who > learn the natural way that will grow up and produce the great literature > appropriate to a healthy literate language. It's great when a few> individuals create strong indentities in their traditional cultures, but a > few people commited to acquiring and documenting the language, even > supported by a whole army of (non-speaking) linguists isn't going to tip > the balances against the forces of hundreds of years of ever more refined > and invisible genocide. (see > http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/ for the original > United Nations definition of genocide, before the big nations who regularly > practice it trimmed the convention down a lot, and see Churchill 1997, A > little matter of genocide, Chapter 7 "The United States and the Genocide > Convention" p.363-398, for an enlightnening discussion of the > matter...actually no, you should just read the whole book.) > > When it comes down to it, I see myself and all other academics, as agents > of the dominant culture. (see C! hurchill 1997 p.93-94, "The specter of ! > Hannibal Lecter", for discussion of some unintended (at least consciously) > consequences of academic work) Whether or not we want to admit it, and it's > really better if we DO admit it, we are possbily the ones who will finalize > the genocide (e.g., by focusing everyone's attention away from what would > really make the difference, like dealing with the social problems that lead > to negative identity and hence language loss), or else we finalize the > acculturation of indigenous people into the dominant culture (e.g., by > convincing people of the necessity of being liguists and converting the > language to a corpus of bastardized english-dependent texts; when IS > somebody going to write a real native language dicitonary? an english > dictionary doesn't explain everything in Hocank, so why do native language > dictionaries convert everything to english?). ! So when intiative (even my > own) ! comes from outside a native community and works its way into the > community, I fear for what we are all not seeing. > > At least the Hocank nation gets to archive the material at home, and they > already do have strong language efforts underway. Now why didn't Johannes > mention that? Sorry if I've attacked individuals too strongly (or whole > nations). But criticism is a good thing, I think. It's all the talk about > etymolgies and semantics and dictionaries (which I do enjoy) while I know > there's little kids who could be learning the language who are being > forgotten. > > If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally > acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... But why do academics > RALLY do their work? (see Hull 1988, Science as a process, for the best > psychosocial analysis of academia I've ever seen...then you'll see where my > stereotypes come fro! m, personified by real people I know/am.) > > > I'll stop talking now, > Pat Warren > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rwd0002 at unt.edu Mon Oct 27 05:07:10 2003 From: rwd0002 at unt.edu (rwd0002 at unt.edu) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 23:07:10 -0600 Subject: All the empathy of a well-trained mortician. In-Reply-To: <200310262219.h9QMJqC7003146@trojan.software.umn.edu> Message-ID: > It's a sad state of affairs when the vast majority of linguists studying > native languages are themselves monolingual. Why would someone who loves > language so much avoid the wonderful experience of communicating in another > language? It's not the languages they love. It's the knife. The languages > are incidental. > I read with interest the initial Volkswagen comment by Pat Warren, and the very good responses, particularly those by Henning Garvin and Bob Rankin. However, I am not sure that the vast majority of linguists studying native languages are monolingual. It is true that the U.S. is unusual in having large quantities of highly educated people, doctors, lawyers, psychologists, etc., who are monolingual in English and seem to be happy with that. But that is unusual in the world context. Even bilingualism is unusual in a larger context. For example, European linguists will usually speak not one, but at least two or three languages in addition to their native one. U.S. schools seem to believe that bilingualism is hard, and multilingualism an impossible task. And on the reservation schools where I work it is the same thing, kids have the choice between taking the Native Language and Spanish, as though their brains cannot handle more than one other language. And many take Spanish... The funny thing is of course that in pre-contact and pre-Anglo times many Native people were multilingual, and it wasn't a problem. My feeling is that in the U.S. context we would all relate to each other better if we went beyond the monolingual/bilingual dichotomy, and if both linguists and Native people were MULTIlingual to a greater extent. (Just a thought, I hope it is not too far off-topic.) Willem de Reuse From FurbeeL at missouri.edu Mon Oct 27 15:13:33 2003 From: FurbeeL at missouri.edu (Louanna Furbee) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 09:13:33 -0600 Subject: Publish/Perish Message-ID: Colleagues, I'm moved to respond to the cynical view Pat Warren expresses regarding the limits on the altruism of academic linguists. I have found academics almost to a person full of generosity toward the languages they study and peoples for whom those languages are heritage. I suppose there are successful linguists who only care to publish, only care to obtain the citations, but I have yet to meet one. Instead, I have found enormous concern and generosity among linguists - department chairs, named chair holders, distinguished colleagues and beginning students. They very often have taken extra time from their own academic obligations to help speakers in ways that range from getting someone to a doctor (too many examples to list), to editing grant proposals, to nurturing the education of speakers so they themselves can take up the linguistic effort (e.g., since the 1970s with speakers of Guatemalan indigenous languages, in recent decades the various development institutes in the U.S.), obtaining grants collaboratively with the speakers for projects they wish to do, establishing archives, establishing funds to award grants (ELF, FEL), starting special programs to prepare scholars, indeed just training the cadre of new scholars itself. These are not "non-publishing" academics who have been leaders: They are people like Ken Hale, Bob Dixon, Nora England, Bob Rankin, Akira Yamamoto, Colette Grinevald, Doug Whalen, Stephen Anderson, Leanne Hinton - in fact, as I say, just about everyone I can think of. Maybe I should mention here Noam Chomsky who divides his time, and speaking engagements, pretty much equally between linguistics and political opinion, the latter his version of "service". It IS true, that in the very early stages of an academic career, it is necessary for the assistant professor, who is only just learning how to be an independent scholar who can put together also collaborative research efforts, to run very hard to publish enough in the 5-6 yrs before the tenure decision and to demonstrate that s/he can get research up and going. In such a period and situation, just the hours in the day limit a person's capacity to help, but even at that, I have found many young scholars expending lots more of their time and energies than one might think they could or should. Most of us in research universities (presumably those of us most likely to fit the stereotype sketched) work under appointments that are something like 40% Teaching - 40% Research - 20% Service. Most of the folks I know more than fulfill that 20% service requirement, often by working hours that are more like 60/week rather than 40/week. Finally, a career is a long time - 30 years or more. Maybe some of the young cannot afford to expend as much time as they'd like to serve the communities that give them their research careers, but later when they are secure, they give back. It is a kind of pattern of life. Louanna Furbee -- Prof. N. Louanna Furbee Department of Anthropology 107 Swallow Hall University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211 USA Telephones: 573/882-9408 (office) 573/882-4731 (department) 573/446-0932 (home) 573/884-5450 (fax) E-mail: FurbeeL at missouri.edu From jkyle at ku.edu Mon Oct 27 15:18:08 2003 From: jkyle at ku.edu (John Kyle) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 09:18:08 -0600 Subject: polyglottism Message-ID: Some of you may have seen this on the Linguist List. It seems appropriate to the weekends discussions on polyglottism: http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-2923.html John Kyle jkyle at ku.edu From warr0120 at umn.edu Mon Oct 27 19:14:00 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (Pat Warren) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 13:14:00 CST Subject: honor the language, honor the people Message-ID: It's been wonderful to hear personal perspectives on so many different ideas. I really wish people would share more often like this. It would certainly help to change how linguistics is done if people kept these kinds of public discussions going regularly. There's such a massive amount of insight, intelligence, and experience floating around I wish someone would publish a series on the people and motivations and visions behind the work being done with native languages. I'm not sure if I'm having trouble expressing myself because I'm upset, or if the point I'm making is subtle, or just one that people either flat-out agree or disagree with. I feel bad because some people haven't noticed my distinction between "linguist" as a role and you as a person, and have gotten personally defensive it seems. It's wonderful to hear more about a lot of the caring things that people have done for/with the people that serve as their informants/subjects when doing linguistics. I'm not criticizng linguists as people. I'm criticizing (or trying to anyway) the inhumanity of linguistics and the roles of linguists. My emphasized criticism of the study of languages as an end in itself it essential. I know very well from my own experiences that it's very intellectually satisfying to learn about languages, to do linguistics. But I think that the study of languages that is not accompanied, or preceded by the ACQUISITION of these languages and active participation in the speech community leads to unintentional, hard-to-see, and often irreversible damage to the speech communities studied and to the individuals in those communities. And probably the effects trickle out to other communtities as well through the work of other linguists. The work of linguistics, and I'm focusing primarily in the linguistics of north american native languages, is inherently dehumanizing, objectifying, and of little use to the health of the language and community. As people, we all have much to offer, and many people do a lot, to help people in the communities whose languages are studied. But as linguists, I think little can be offered because of the theoretical structure and traditions of linguistics, and the roles that linguists play in the relationships they create while doing their work. I bet this is a tough distinction to see, cause even I'm struggling to get it into words. I think the near-total demise of native languages can't be helped with linguistics as it is done, and how people construct their self-images as linguists. I agree wholeheartedly that working with documentation, especially when my ideal of getting fluent speakers together with children is impossible, is THE primary activity. But I think the documentation that is done by people who do not speak the language not only doesn't help, it generally makes the situation worse as it acts as a placebo. While there are a some incredibly dedicated individuals who can utilize linguistic and missionary language materials in enhancing their acquistion of the language, I think this is not due to the quality of the materials, but happens in spite of them, due to the unshakable motivation of the learner, which is unfortunately a rarity, or at least not universal enough to keep these languages healthfully alive. Unless you learn the language and use it, I don't think you can produce materials that facilitate acqusition, as opposed to leanring ABOUT the language. The linguistics done with native languages that converts it to english makes people feel like important work is being done to save the language. Sometimes learners manage to overcome the obstacles and incorporate some of the language documented by linguists into their acquisition. But this is due to extraordinary learners with powerful motivation, not to good materials. I think linguists are fooling themselves to think that they're helping, but I think they're serving a passifying function, making people think "things are being done" to keep the languages alive. No community is going to see a reversal of the process of language death due to the production of language materials, unless those materials are produced by speakers of the language. You can churn out all the linguistic work you want, and enjoy it, but it will not contribute to the reversal of language death, unless it is informed by your subjective knowledge of the language and not dependent on another language for comprehension. No you don't need to acquire a language to study it. But you are limited in what you can study and the quality of your work. If you do not choose to learn the language you study, to honor it and the people whose language it is, I believe you are contributing, if unintentionally, to the death of the language. Thanks again for sharing, Pat From hhgarvin at hotmail.com Mon Oct 27 19:36:28 2003 From: hhgarvin at hotmail.com (Henning Garvin) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 13:36:28 -0600 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: Well, well, well. Seems a hornet's nest has been stirred up. I feel a need to add to this discussion but I have to say one thing first. My initial email in this discussion was written in the morning. I am a person who gets 4-5 hours of sleep on a normal night, but my daughter and I have been nursing wicked colds and the night before I emailed was particularly horrendous. Add to that the fact that I am very...surly, before I have a big cup of black coffee and it could explain why my message may have seemed a bit combative or defensive (which it was). If I offended anybody I would like to apologize. I will never do email again until after coffee time:) Alot of issues have been raised and I wanted to share my perspective. On the issue of speaking a language that is being studied. I agree with the fact that Linguists can do work without learning the target language. However, I also agree that work of any import will be done by those that have learned the language. I don't think anyone is arguing to the contrary. Our field methods course, and the professor who remains my mentor in all things Linguistic, stressed this fact. Languages deserve to be described on their own terms, from the inside out rather than from the outside in. A study or description of true value will try to capture the language as it is, not its relation to linguistic theory. The last thing you need to know about a language on the verge of extinction is how it is the same as a host of other languages. We need to know what makes Hocank unique, how is it different. I agree that it would take several lifetimes to really get a good handle on a language (linguistically speaking). I whole heartedly agree with Michael Krauss's statement that 100 linguists could work on a single language for 100 years and never get to the bottom of it. There is simply too much there to only devote part time, or a half hearted effort. SO of course there needs to be a significant effort and desire on the part of the researcher to provide anything of real value. Part of that effort needs to be learning the language so the material produced will be as good as it can possibly be. It has to become a lifelong endeavor, which will never truly end. Given this enormous effort I feel needs to be put forth, I do want to say the following. I don't believe Linguistics will ever save a language from extinction. I don't believe a Linguist will ever be able to accomplish such a feat. I doubt there is anyone who does believe such an absurd thing. If a tribe asked my advice about starting a language program, the last thing I would recommend would be to hire a linguist(in certain situations). The speakers and the children of a community will ensure the continuity of a language. Not linguists. I agree there need to be more initiatives working at bringing speakers and children together so the learning will take place in a smooth natural manner. (If anyone knows of such grants, by all means please let us know because we are searching for a funding opportunity for just such a program. If not, will anyone march to Washington with me and lobby the BIA and the ANA to create such a funding program?) I agree at the very least tribal headstart programs and preschool programs should be conducted in the language of the community. Anything that can be done to get the language to the youngest generation should be a top priority. And this obviously does not need the work of a linguist. So I think I established that I don't believe a Linguist is necessary to save a language. But can a Linguist and the work he/she does help? Absolutely. Will it hurt? Most likely not. So why would we turn down an opportunity, or lift our noses, at the possiblity of strengthening ONE area of our revitalization efforts. If we can more effectively teach our adults who can then more effectively transmit the language to our youth, then I am all for it. As to the motivations of academics? I have met academics that would use Hocank as a trophy to place next to their PhD. But the vast majority that I have encountered are men and women who come to their office in the morning with bags under their eyes, holding a cup of strong coffee because they stay up late working on their projects. I have seen them sacrifice time with their families, friends, and it seems sometimes their sanity for what they are doing because they truly believe they will make a difference. These people I am referencing are fully tenured, so they are not subject to the vicious rigors of that track. One was actually the chair of our department. I respect them, because they respect the people they work with. As a matter of fact, they consider themselves working for people rather than with. Yet they are Linguists, they are passionate about language, and of course they will couch what they discover in linguistic terms and theory. If you work with a linguist what else would you expect? The difference is whether or not what they produce is of value to the community. And that is up to the community itself to decide, no one else. Our tribe has less than 250 native speakers of our language. Recently, in the course three days, we lost three of them. All of them were devoted to their people, and were working in some way to pass on their language and the culture they knew. It was a devastating loss, first because they were our relatives, but also because of all that they took with them. This is MY reality. Everyday I live and work under a shadow that we as a people are going to completely lose ourselves. That the only thing left identifying us as HoChunk will be our looks and our CDIB identification cards. We don't have alot of time to mess around. THe Volkswagen Grant is not providing money to bring our children and speakers together. That is a shame. But it is providing an opportunity in another area, and we are going to exploit this opportunity for all that it is worth. Our community has already decided that. If other opportunities come along, then we will do the same. If they don't, we are resourceful enough to create our own opportunities. We survived this long by being able to fend off the genocidal tendencies of the dominant culture around us, albeit with many losses. Hopefully we will be able to continue. Henning Garvin Linguistic research Ho-Chunk Nation Language Division _________________________________________________________________ Never get a busy signal because you are always connected with high-speed Internet access. Click here to comparison-shop providers. https://broadband.msn.com From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Oct 27 20:30:10 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 13:30:10 -0700 Subject: SPAM Posted on List Message-ID: In case no one noticed, it appears that some SPAM generation activity has managed to get in through one of the subscriber accounts. I've removed the offending account and will probably institute more stringent validation procedures for subscriptions, though, in this case, the person involved was a real Siouanist. John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Oct 27 20:37:43 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 13:37:43 -0700 Subject: Procedural Matter In-Reply-To: <20031026172749.43074.qmail@web41709.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: It would be a nice idea if folks would do some editing of the text they are responding to. In particular, it's an inefficient use of email to keep prepending your response to the an unedited copy of what you are responding to. This produces a tendency for letters to grow without end, since the material at the very end never gets removed. If you go over the material you are replying to and consider whether any of it could be deleted, then you get an opportunity to delete the material it was replying to, and the material that was replying to, and so on. From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de Mon Oct 27 21:10:13 2003 From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 22:10:13 +0100 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 13:36 27.10.03 -0600, Henning Garvin wrote: >Languages deserve to be described on their own terms, from the inside out >rather than from the outside in. Sounds good, but is hard to achieve, and it's a bit like reinventing the wheel, too. Nevertheless, a paper like Sasse's "Der irokesische Sprachtyp." (ZS 7/2, 1988, 173-213) fascinated, because he speculated about what a description of Cayuga might have looked like, had it been written by a Cayugan Dionysos Thrax. Still, when I started being more concerned about people than language(s), I more often ended up with thinking the more interesting question would have been: "Why was there no Cayugan Dionysos Thrax?"... One should bear in mind that there are indigenous grammar writing traditions which aren't as good as Arabic, Tamil or Sanskrit grammars, but even are sad caricatures of these, like Tibetan mimicks Sanskrit grammatical tradition, and, still worse, Mongolian both. This is just as bad as to even worse than anglocentric writing. >A study or description of true value will try to capture the language as >it is, not its relation to linguistic theory. Even though I frankly admit to having gone through phases of theory-tiredness, there is no theory-free description. But surely e.g. a treatment like (a hypothetical) "On the typological position of Hocank" would clearly be targeted at a typologist audience, and hopefully be of "true value" to typology, just not for didactic purposes. >The last thing you need to know about a language on the verge of >extinction is how it is the same as a host of other languages. Nevertheless, this might be one of the interests a typologist could have in preserving an endagered language. I also wouldn't underestimate the insights typology or also historical-comparative linguistics can offer to descriptive work (which should underlie teaching). All the best, Heike "Um . . . whether the banana leaf touches the thorn or the thorn hits the banana leaf, it's always the banana leaf that gets hurt!" (Jayakanthan, Trial by Fire) From rankin at ku.edu Mon Oct 27 21:45:06 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 15:45:06 -0600 Subject: honor the language, honor the people, honor the scholar too Message-ID: > I wish someone would publish a series on the people and motivations and visions behind the work being done with native languages. That might be revealing (I can certainly recite horror stories of how little some administrators value "field work" that doesn't produce immediate results. Telling them your grammar may take a lifetime to produce doesn't cut the mustard), but, even in the case of the most jaded and selfish field investigators, there's always "The Law of Unintended Consequences." Take John P. Harrington for example. We would look upon some of his expressed, early 20th century attitudes as ante-diluvian today -- he was the product of another time. BUT, where would the Mission Indian groups of California be without the work he did? For all his obsessiveness about "wringing the last few words" from dying speakers, he churned out a MILLION pages of data in his (very non-lucrative) career. Remember . . . our clientele includes Indian People who are already monolingual English or Spanish speakers. > I feel bad because some people haven't noticed my distinction between "linguist" as a role and you as a person, and have gotten personally defensive it seems. I don't see the responses we've gotten as defensive at all. I think there are those among us who may feel that you've stereotyped an entire profession and wonder what got you to this point. But, to extend my skyscraper analogy from earlier, I don't feel the least bit guilty, in my role as an "architect", that I am not also a plumber or a skilled carpenter. It's expecting too much to ask me to produce materials for 4th graders -- I can't do that; I lack the talent, or at least the training. It would also be unfair to ask Native teachers to figure out the best way to present the active/stative split in Dakota or possessor raising or K-palatalization. Everybody has his or her job, and all are essential if language has to be presented in school instead of in the home. And, like it or not, that's the most common situation. I guess I also feel that it seems at least a little elitist to assume that White, unfeeling, uncaring, Ivory Tower scientists are just bamboozling those poor, ignorant Native Americans in order to make a buck off their language, and they aren't smart enough to see through it. Actually, I've found that, after 200+ years of bad experiences with Whites, Indians have become pretty good judges of character. The fellow who descends on the Rez to find out whether the 25 outlandish sentences of Dakota he has constructed from his Theory are "grammatical" or not isn't going to make a lot of friends. Even if such people exist, it won't do to damn the profession of linguist up and down and then say "But . . . I didn't mean YOU guys." Who ARE we talking about, then? It's Hallowe'en and I'd like to meet some of these monsters. Yeah, I confess, I didn't learn to speak fluent Kaw or Quapaw. But there wasn't anybody left to talk with at that point. Plus, I'd already learned French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Provencal, Catalan, Russian and a few others AND MY BRAIN WAS FULL!! But I wholeheartedly recommend learning to speak the language plus absorbing as much of the rich North American cultures as possible (without turning into an obsessed Wannabee). > I'm criticizing (or trying to anyway) the inhumanity of linguistics and the roles of linguists. My emphasized criticism of the study of languages as an end in itself it essential. Why? Isn't language a reasonable object of scientific curiosity? Even if languages are dying all around us? Where would medicine ever have gotten if it were restricted to treating sick people and cultivating a pleasant bedside manner? Pasteur, Jenner and Salk would probably have died of whooping cough. And besides, as Henning points out, no linguist is ever going to "save" a language, single-handedly or otherwise -- that's up to the speech community. But we can produce some very helpful reference materials and help with literacy and codification if that is desired. And in many of our cases, that's all that's left. > But I think that the study of languages that is not accompanied, or preceded by the ACQUISITION of these languages and active participation in the speech community leads to unintentional, hard-to-see, and often irreversible damage to the speech communities studied and to the individuals in those communities. I can't imagine how. I can see that inexperience may lead to mistakes in analysis but "irreversible damage"? Isn't that just a bit extreme? At worst the linguist is just a harmless drudge. > And probably the effects trickle out to other communtities as well through the work of other linguists. It's true that an incompetent analysis is often projected through several generations of other linguists, but let's not take the incompetent as the norm. And let's not assume that such errors really affect speech communities. > The work of linguistics, . . . is inherently dehumanizing, objectifying, and of little use to the health of the language and community. This is the sort of sterotyping that I find so strange in someone who says he enjoys the study of language(s). What are you thinking of that would justify those feelings? What is it about, say, Boas and Deloria's Dakota Grammar that is "dehumanizing (and) objectifying"? I just don't get it. And since when is the health of the language and community the responsibility of the linguist? That's not to say we can't volunteer our services, such as they are, but is that the sole goal of the profession? > I think the near-total demise of native languages can't be helped with linguistics as it is done, and how people construct their self-images as linguists. I'd go even farther and say that linguists as such cannot "save" languages, but I think it follows that's it's silly then to hold them somehow accountable for much of anything having to do with language obsolescence. No amount of touchy-feely maundering is going to accomplish the kind of salvation you have in mind. Only 3 and 4 year olds making the (largely unconscious) decision to adopt their parents or grandparents language and use it will do that. What we CAN be responsible for is providing useful references for a future when the language may no longer be spoken. I should add that we can also sometimes affect the political process with expert testimony aimed at those who control the purse strings of government. > I think the documentation that is done by people who do not speak the language not only doesn't help, it generally makes the situation worse as it acts as a placebo. But again you seem to be assuming an incompetent product. What works are you thinking of? > While there are a some incredibly dedicated individuals who can utilize linguistic and missionary language materials in enhancing their acquistion of the language, I think this is not due to the quality of the materials, but happens in spite of them, I'd have to say that the Defense Language Institute and Foreign Service Institute belie this generalization. They use careful structural analyses (done by linguists)to prepare graded instructional materials to teach points of grammar that are important in the target language. And they manage to turn out a fairly good product, especially given the education level of the enlistees they often have to work with. I learned my Romanian with one of these courses and it works quite well. I'd love to see this tried more thoroughly in Native communities. Adults CAN learn other languages -- it just takes a lot of time and effort. Unhappily, soldiers and diplomats have the time to spend on the task, whereas most of us ordinary folks have to use that time to feed our families. > Unless you learn the language and use it, I don't think you can produce materials that facilitate acqusition, as opposed to leanring ABOUT the language. As I've said, I don't think this is remotely the case. But I'd add that learning ABOUT the language is a worthy goal for Indian People too -- and perhaps the only option for those who don't have the time to put in learning it. > The linguistics done with native languages that converts it to english makes people feel like important work is being done to save the language. Ah, yes. That can be a problem. Mary Haas warned linguists about "translating languages into English and they analyzing the English." That's simply bad linguistics. But we all know that already, and I think that the false promises of language maintenance and retention are being made, not by descriptivists, but by those who go around the country holding "workshops" for Native People that promise a linguistic salvation that they cannot deliver, and that, in most cases, will not be forthcoming. I must say I have a real problem with such workshops, "institutes" and revival meetings. > If you do not choose to learn the language you study, to honor it and the people whose language it is, I believe you are contributing, if unintentionally, to the death of the language. I think most linguists do their very best in this direction, so why do assume they don't/won't? However, fluency is just as hard for us as for any other adult learner and we have to operate with this in mind. Linguists simply do not "contribute ... to the death of the language." They are at best helpful and at worst harmless. And, of course, their goals may legitimately include things far-removed from language maintenance. Perhaps John should invoke cloture to this not-terribly-informative exchange after another round or two. Bob From FurbeeL at missouri.edu Mon Oct 27 21:56:11 2003 From: FurbeeL at missouri.edu (Louanna Furbee) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 15:56:11 -0600 Subject: honor the language, honor the people In-Reply-To: <200310271914.h9RJE0vC012243@fantasy.software.umn.edu> Message-ID: >Pat, Sorry to have upset you. I just didn't recognize the linguists >or linguistics that I know in your characterization, so probably >reacted defensively. I apologize if I misrepresented your >point-of-view. Louanna >It's been wonderful to hear personal perspectives on so many different >ideas. I really wish people would share more often like this. It would >certainly help to change how linguistics is done if people kept these kinds >of public discussions going regularly. There's such a massive amount of >insight, intelligence, and experience floating around I wish someone would >publish a series on the people and motivations and visions behind the work >being done with native languages. > >I'm not sure if I'm having trouble expressing myself because I'm upset, or >if the point I'm making is subtle, or just one that people either flat-out >agree or disagree with. > >I feel bad because some people haven't noticed my distinction between >"linguist" as a role and you as a person, and have gotten personally >defensive it seems. It's wonderful to hear more about a lot of the caring >things that people have done for/with the people that serve as their >informants/subjects when doing linguistics. I'm not criticizng linguists as >people. I'm criticizing (or trying to anyway) the inhumanity of linguistics >and the roles of linguists. My emphasized criticism of the study of >languages as an end in itself it essential. I know very well from my own >experiences that it's very intellectually satisfying to learn about >languages, to do linguistics. But I think that the study of languages that >is not accompanied, or preceded by the ACQUISITION of these languages and >active participation in the speech community leads to unintentional, >hard-to-see, and often irreversible damage to the speech communities >studied and to the individuals in those communities. And probably the >effects trickle out to other communtities as well through the work of other >linguists. > >The work of linguistics, and I'm focusing primarily in the linguistics of >north american native languages, is inherently dehumanizing, objectifying, >and of little use to the health of the language and community. As people, >we all have much to offer, and many people do a lot, to help people in the >communities whose languages are studied. But as linguists, I think little >can be offered because of the theoretical structure and traditions of >linguistics, and the roles that linguists play in the relationships they >create while doing their work. I bet this is a tough distinction to see, >cause even I'm struggling to get it into words. > >I think the near-total demise of native languages can't be helped with >linguistics as it is done, and how people construct their self-images as >linguists. I agree wholeheartedly that working with documentation, >especially when my ideal of getting fluent speakers together with children >is impossible, is THE primary activity. But I think the documentation that >is done by people who do not speak the language not only doesn't help, it >generally makes the situation worse as it acts as a placebo. While there >are a some incredibly dedicated individuals who can utilize linguistic and >missionary language materials in enhancing their acquistion of the >language, I think this is not due to the quality of the materials, but >happens in spite of them, due to the unshakable motivation of the learner, >which is unfortunately a rarity, or at least not universal enough to keep >these languages healthfully alive. Unless you learn the language and use >it, I don't think you can produce materials that facilitate acqusition, as >opposed to leanring ABOUT the language. > >The linguistics done with native languages that converts it to english >makes people feel like important work is being done to save the language. >Sometimes learners manage to overcome the obstacles and incorporate some of >the language documented by linguists into their acquisition. But this is >due to extraordinary learners with powerful motivation, not to good >materials. I think linguists are fooling themselves to think that they're >helping, but I think they're serving a passifying function, making people >think "things are being done" to keep the languages alive. No community is >going to see a reversal of the process of language death due to the >production of language materials, unless those materials are produced by >speakers of the language. You can churn out all the linguistic work you >want, and enjoy it, but it will not contribute to the reversal of language >death, unless it is informed by your subjective knowledge of the language >and not dependent on another language for comprehension. No you don't need >to acquire a language to study it. But you are limited in what you can >study and the quality of your work. If you do not choose to learn the >language you study, to honor it and the people whose language it is, I >believe you are contributing, if unintentionally, to the death of the >language. > >Thanks again for sharing, >Pat -- Prof. N. Louanna Furbee Department of Anthropology 107 Swallow Hall University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211 USA Telephones: 573/882-9408 (office) 573/882-4731 (department) 573/446-0932 (home) 573/884-5450 (fax) E-mail: FurbeeL at missouri.edu From jkyle at ku.edu Mon Oct 27 23:14:53 2003 From: jkyle at ku.edu (John Kyle) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 17:14:53 -0600 Subject: honor the language, honor the people, honor the scholar too Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 3:45 PM Subject: RE: honor the language, honor the people, honor the scholar too > > Perhaps John should invoke cloture to this not-terribly-informative > exchange after another round or two. > > Bob > > Thank you Dr. Rankin, and I second the motion. John Kyle jkyle at ku.edu ************************************** "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." - Pres. Bush, Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002 From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 28 03:31:01 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 20:31:01 -0700 Subject: Not Spam After All Message-ID: My sincere apologies for deleting one of the members recently on the pannicked assumption that their system was sending spam to the list. It turns out (thanks to Pat Warren for recognizing this) that somehow the body of the messages was being deleted, leaving only a commercial postscript from the mail service being used. John E. Koontz From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 28 05:27:42 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 22:27:42 -0700 Subject: honor the language, honor the people, honor the scholar too In-Reply-To: <004401c39ce0$3361a330$3fcbed81@D8LZRG21> Message-ID: On Mon, 27 Oct 2003, John Kyle wrote: > > Perhaps John should invoke cloture to this not-terribly-informative > > exchange after another round or two. > > Thank you Dr. Rankin, and I second the motion. I have to admit that I have been thinking about that, though not sure how to do it reasonably. I have been astounded at the furor produced by what I consider to be a completely welcome and innocently phrased announcement that a respected Siouanist and several colleagues have undertaken an intensive investigation of Hochank in modern terms. This seems to me sadly overdue, and more a cause of rejoicing than anguish. Naturally, this is not likely in any direct way to save Hochank. What saves languages is use. It also won't harm Hochank, either, as far as I can see, but it will be of immense use to anyone preparing lesson materials or any other scheme of active preservation, and it will help to ensure that Hochank is never reduced to the sad state of being just a name, a fate that has befallen far too many languages. To return to the point, I receive a certain amount of side correspondence from members about what they like and don't like in this list or other lists, sometimes citing specific examples. I also have a certain amount of experience over the years in what kills lists - linguistic lists, anyway. Three things seem to annoy people rapidly. The first is an excessive number of what we might call naive contributions. On the Siouanist list this might be someone who went on and on about the obvious merits of the Welsh-Mandan hypothesis and always had several wide-ranging and not entirely on target responses to any criticism offered. The second is a large number of contributions on irrelevant or even merely peripheral issues, e.g., for irrelevance, discussions of the antics of pet dogs. As for peripherality, some members might feel that the discussion of pet etymologies is in that vein. Me, I'm a bit of an etymology-lover myself. The third killer is what I might call the introduction of external, judgemental issues - a turning from the discussion of linguistic matters (or their periphery) to the question of whether linguistics or even something else is an appropriate exercise, or to moral assessments of how that exercise might best be conducted. A certain amount of such meta-topical consideration is certainly appropriate, even if peripheral, especially if it can somehow be put in such terms that those of opposed views are simply in error and not also morally bankrupt. But too much of it, especially in moralistic terms, is not really conducive to the discussion of Siouan linguistics and belongs on some other list. JEK From warr0120 at umn.edu Tue Oct 28 06:11:14 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (Pat Warren) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 00:11:14 CST Subject: the brief context of my ideas, and then Ill be quiet Message-ID: Since I am now being attacked personally I'll share a few fundamental views I have that will put the rest of what I've tried to say into context. I brought this on myself. Normally I keep quiet. If the info about the Hocank project had come from the community saying "look what we're doing" (which they probably woudln't, since it's for themselves, not for linguists' aproval), and if it had been said that the material will be archived at the community too and not just in the netherlands, I would have been very happy for them. For the rest, I brought in more ideas than I wish I would have. I have different basic assumptions than many people on this list, which makes constructive critical discussion very difficult. Most people in the dominant culture don't see themselves as agents of domination, but that's what I see, myself included. It's no longer explicit as it was even recently (you don't call "them" heathen anymore). And I don't see personal choice such as practicing linguistics as being a personal choice alone. I see it within the larger framework of a culture still committed to the destruction or acculturation of pretty much every culture in the world. When the errors of the past are made too obvious too ignore, I see dominant cultural institutions adapting, but not making systemic change to a non-dominating existence. I see the linguistics that is done of languages other than your own as an act of domination. It's not just an objective, worthy scientific pursuit, it's part of the larger process of our culture to contain and eventually eliminate diversity from the world. And that's my problem. How can you make a statement like that and expect constructive talk with people who think very differently? I forgot that difficulty. To me it's basic. But to others...well there's certainly diversity of opinion there. I see myself as an agent and subject of the dominant culture in which I was raised and live. And so I know that I'm a dangerous person to much of the world. I don't have the respect for the rest of creation that I would like to. I work on myself and try to change that, but I know it's there, and I see it in the people around me. But we are not encouraged by our ideology, roles, or experiences to be aware of how fundamentally different we are from most people who have lived throughout history, though I don't pretend there are perfect societies, just that most people haven't been at war with life. I am not fully responsible for the precarious state of the world around me, nor the violence of my culture towards the world and itself, but I try to stay aware of it, and creatively subvert it. Oddly, I don't see this as at all cynical. I'm critical, but I have much hope. But it requires rethinking structures I see as dominant, and trying to find ways to reverse the trend. And that's what I work on. My first step is in doing linguistics is acquiring the languages I'm interested in. Next is finding theories that empower the meanings and structures native to the language. There's plenty out there, like Bill Croft's radical construction grammar and Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard's natural semantic metalanguage lexicographical approach. Tools that respect the language on its own terms of meaning like these two approaches can make a huge difference. This versus the lexicographical tradition of leaning on english glossing, or assuming essentialist universal grammatical categories. Another essential concept is making sure that work done is available to the community, economically, physically, etc. I don't think the rights to works should be sold by linguists to publishers. This HAS changed somewhat recently, and that's very good. The language must remain free of outisde control. I hope some of my differing views are a bit clearer. But it's so very hard, I think, when people in a discussion have such opposing viewpoints. It's hard to remember this sometimes. Last week I made someone extremely upset when I suggested that nonhuman animals have essentially the same emotional potenital as humans. But that's basic to me that all the nonhuman animals I've known are feeling, intentional, autonomous beings - which means they're people. But different assumptions, and it's hard to understand each other. Thanks for you time, Pat From dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com Tue Oct 28 07:04:36 2003 From: dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com (David Kaufman) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 23:04:36 -0800 Subject: the brief context of my ideas, and then Ill be quiet In-Reply-To: <200310280611.h9S6BED6014065@fantasy.software.umn.edu> Message-ID: Hello again: I just thought I�d add a couple more thoughts before the closing of this discussion. Perhaps we are discussing two different things: linguistics and revitalization. It seems to me the purpose of the linguist is to research and publish mainly for other linguists, for the further development and growth of the science of linguistics and a deeper understanding of languages in general�their differences and similarities, their genealogies, origins, etc. But, while looking at the �overall picture� of language appeals to us as linguists, this really does little to serve individual language communities and cultures involved in revitalization efforts. As I think Henning pointed out, the Hocaks will probably care little about what �family� their language belongs to and what similarities and differences their language shares with Dakota or Hidatsa. Their only goal will be to revitalize their own language and culture, and how to go about that the best way, and how to receive funding! for that purpose. While linguists may certainly be able to help out in some way or other on these endeavors, I would imagine revitalization efforts would require more assistance from educators/teachers who are more acquainted with second language acquisition and language teaching and who may be able to assist more in curriculum development, lesson planning, etc. That being said, what may be more helpful to a tribe�s revitalization efforts (and what might make this discussion more substantive) would be a tribe�s interaction and communication with people involved in other revitalization projects which have shown a good deal of success. I may have mentioned that I�m currently taking a Hawaiian language class taught by a teacher who graduated from U of Hawai�i in Hilo (the center of Hawaiian�s revitalization project) and who now teaches part-time at Stanford University, which apparently just graduated its first two grad students in Hawaiian language and studies. (I don�t go to Stanford. She comes to Sacramento once a week to teach a private class here!) Thus, not only are Hawaiians learning their language in Hawai�i, but now degrees are also offered at universities in other states. It seems a big boost to any revitalization program is to be recognized by some major schools and universities which will hopefully develop a curriculum ! and even degree programs for those who would like to actually get a degree in the language and culture. I can give anyone who is interested the email address of our Hawaiian kumu (teacher), but rather than post it here for anyone and everyone, I�d rather give it only to those who are interested (especially those who are members of tribes involved in or wanting to start revitalization work) and who would like to contact me individually. I�m sure she�d be willing to give whatever info she can on the Hawaiian program, or at least can give you more leads of whom to contact involved in Hawaiian�s quite successful project. I�m sure if anyone knows about funding for things like this, they would! Lastly, I think linguists do serve a positive role at least as far as exploring the nature of language and its origins. And I agree to have linguists involved in revitalization programs probably can't hurt and can only ultimately be helpful. Also, we hear a lot in the media about environmental crises and the mass extinction of flora and fauna, but I think few people out there (nonlinguists) really know the extent of the language and cultural extinctions that are occurring. I don't know if this would ultimately make a difference, but more publicity and awareness of the general public of the situation probably couldn't hurt either! I myself often encounter reactions of surprise when I tell people that a majority of the world's current languages, including ones like Hawaiian, Hidatsa, and (I'm sad to learn) Hocak have 200 native speakers or less left on the earth. Dave Kaufman dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com Pat Warren wrote:Since I am now being attacked personally I'll share a few fundamental views I have that will put the rest of what I've tried to say into context. I brought this on myself. Normally I keep quiet. If the info about the Hocank project had come from the community saying "look what we're doing" (which they probably woudln't, since it's for themselves, not for linguists' aproval), and if it had been said that the material will be archived at the community too and not just in the netherlands, I would have been very happy for them. For the rest, I brought in more ideas than I wish I would have. I have different basic assumptions than many people on this list, which makes constructive critical discussion very difficult. Most people in the dominant culture don't see themselves as agents of domination, but that's what I see, myself included. It's no longer explicit as it was even recently (you don't call "them" heathen anymore). And I don't see personal choice such as practicing linguistics as being a personal choice alone. I see it within the larger framework of a culture still committed to the destruction or acculturation of pretty much every culture in the world. When the errors of the past are made too obvious too ignore, I see dominant cultural institutions adapting, but not making systemic change to a non-dominating existence. I see the linguistics that is done of languages other than your own as an act of domination. It's not just an objective, worthy scientific pursuit, it's part of the larger process of our culture to contain and eventually eliminate diversity from the world. And that's my problem. How can you make a statement like that and expect constructive talk with people who think very differently? I forgot that difficulty. To me it's basic. But to others...well there's certainly diversity of opinion there. I see myself as an agent and subject of the dominant culture in which I was raised and live. And so I know that I'm a dangerous person to much of the world. I don't have the respect for the rest of creation that I would like to. I work on myself and try to change that, but I know it's there, and I see it in the people around me. But we are not encouraged by our ideology, roles, or experiences to be aware of how fundamentally different we are from most people who have lived throughout history, though I don't pretend there are perfect societies, just that most people haven't been at war with life. I am not fully responsible for the precarious state of the world around me, nor the violence of my culture towards the world and itself, but I try to stay aware of it, and creatively subvert it. Oddly, I don't see this as at all cynical. I'm critical, but I have much hope. But it requires rethinking structures I see as dominant, and trying to find ways to reverse the trend. And that's what I work on. My first step is in doing linguistics is acquiring the languages I'm interested in. Next is finding theories that empower the meanings and structures native to the language. There's plenty out there, like Bill Croft's radical construction grammar and Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard's natural semantic metalanguage lexicographical approach. Tools that respect the language on its own terms of meaning like these two approaches can make a huge difference. This versus the lexicographical tradition of leaning on english glossing, or assuming essentialist universal grammatical categories. Another essential concept is making sure that work done is available to the community, economically, physically, etc. I don't think the rights to works should be sold by linguists to publishers. This HAS changed somewhat recently, and that's very good. The language must remain free of outisde control. I hope some of my differing views are a bit clearer. But it's so very hard, I think, when people in a discussion have such opposing viewpoints. It's hard to remember this sometimes. Last week I made someone extremely upset when I suggested that nonhuman animals have essentially the same emotional potenital as humans. But that's basic to me that all the nonhuman animals I've known are feeling, intentional, autonomous beings - which means they're people. But different assumptions, and it's hard to understand each other. Thanks for you time, Pat --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From CaRudin1 at wsc.edu Tue Oct 28 15:06:04 2003 From: CaRudin1 at wsc.edu (Catherine Rudin/HU/AC/WSC) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 09:06:04 -0600 Subject: honor the language, honor the people, honor the scholar too Message-ID: I hereby "third" the cloture motion. From rankin at ku.edu Tue Oct 28 15:07:19 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 09:07:19 -0600 Subject: Not Spam After All Message-ID: Ah, yes, Violet. I wrote her back off-list to tell her it hadn't come through and that she ought to resubmit her remarks. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Koontz John E" To: "Siouan List" Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 9:31 PM Subject: Not Spam After All > My sincere apologies for deleting one of the members recently on the > pannicked assumption that their system was sending spam to the list. > > It turns out (thanks to Pat Warren for recognizing this) that somehow the > body of the messages was being deleted, leaving only a commercial > postscript from the mail service being used. > > John E. Koontz > From alber033 at tc.umn.edu Tue Oct 28 16:41:48 2003 From: alber033 at tc.umn.edu (Patricia Albers) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 10:41:48 -0600 Subject: honor the language, honor the people, honor the scholar too In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >As chair of the department in which Pat Warren has taken some >classes in our Ojibwe and Dakota language programs, I feel it is >necessary to indicate that while I respect his opinion, it should >not be construed as reflecting the position of the teaching staff in >our department. As a department, we are actively engaged in >supporting native language preservation on many different fronts >from more "ivory-tower" documentation work to active community >outreach, including the co-sponsorship of the recent Minnesota >Indigenous Language Conference. We believe that a number different >strategies need to be deployed to preserve native languages, and we >recognize these will differ from one language and community >situation to another. We oppose using the scholarship and pedagogy >on native languages as a sword to settle conflicts whose origins >typically reside elsewhere. > >Patricia C. Albers, Chair and Professor >Department of American Indian Studies >University of Minnesota > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From chafe at linguistics.ucsb.edu Tue Oct 28 18:16:56 2003 From: chafe at linguistics.ucsb.edu (Wallace Chafe) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 10:16:56 -0800 Subject: Cloture In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Please, John, shut this off. This has been such an excellent list up until now. We all have better things to do than to read endlessly about some individual's psychological problems. Enough already! Wally From rankin at ku.edu Tue Oct 28 19:38:00 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 13:38:00 -0600 Subject: ...then Ill be quiet Message-ID: > Since I am now being attacked personally . . . . I do apologize if you feel you've been attacked personally, but I stand by my considered, professional opinion that modern, descriptive Linguistics, judiciously practiced, is absolutely indispensible to any program of adult language instruction. It's the basis of all the successful language programs that have evolved worldwide in the past 50 years. To maintain otherwise is to damage the potential of such programs to help communities with their language instruction. Let's just leave it at that. Bob From hhgarvin at hotmail.com Tue Oct 28 21:45:40 2003 From: hhgarvin at hotmail.com (Henning Garvin) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 15:45:40 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: I believe my email messed up this post the first time I sent it. If not, sorry for the repeat. No, this has nothing to do with the Volkswagen Grant:) I was recently asked an interesting question. THe Hocank word for butterfly is : miNmiNke I was told the Menominee word for butterfly is exactly the same. I was asked if this is a good example of a borrowing. Given the close proximity and relations the Hocank had with the Menominee, I would hazard a guess that it is indeed a borrowing. But they also asked from which direction the borrowing would have occured. So what are the other Siouan, or Alguonquian if you know, words for butterfly. I know the Ojibwe word is: memengwaa The words are similar enough that I am leaning toward the Alguonquian side for origin, but I wanted more input before I could answer this question. THanks Henning Garvin Linguistic research Ho-Chunk Nation Language Division _________________________________________________________________ Surf and talk on the phone at the same time with broadband Internet access. Get high-speed for as low as $29.95/month (depending on the local service providers in your area). https://broadband.msn.com From boris at terracom.net Tue Oct 28 22:53:38 2003 From: boris at terracom.net (Al Knutson) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 16:53:38 -0600 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Bloomfield's lexicon has: mi:mi:kw3:w 'butterfly' 14.122 (ref to grammar -----Original Message----- From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Henning Garvin Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 3:46 PM To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Subject: butterfly I believe my email messed up this post the first time I sent it. If not, sorry for the repeat. No, this has nothing to do with the Volkswagen Grant:) I was recently asked an interesting question. THe Hocank word for butterfly is : miNmiNke I was told the Menominee word for butterfly is exactly the same. I was asked if this is a good example of a borrowing. Given the close proximity and relations the Hocank had with the Menominee, I would hazard a guess that it is indeed a borrowing. But they also asked from which direction the borrowing would have occured. So what are the other Siouan, or Alguonquian if you know, words for butterfly. I know the Ojibwe word is: memengwaa The words are similar enough that I am leaning toward the Alguonquian side for origin, but I wanted more input before I could answer this question. THanks Henning Garvin Linguistic research Ho-Chunk Nation Language Division _________________________________________________________________ Surf and talk on the phone at the same time with broadband Internet access. Get high-speed for as low as $29.95/month (depending on the local service providers in your area). https://broadband.msn.com From rankin at ku.edu Wed Oct 29 00:08:27 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 18:08:27 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: > I was recently asked an interesting question. THe Hocank word for butterfly > is : > > miNmiNke > I know the Ojibwe word is: > memengwaa > The words are similar enough that I am leaning toward the Alguonquian side > for origin, but I wanted more input before I could answer this question. Bet you're right, and for the reason you state. Quapaw is /tina/ and Osage (LaFlesche) /tsiaN/. Kaw has taken the Proto-Dhegiha *tiraN and remodeled it on the word for 'to fly', /giyaN/. Ofo is /naN:phitka/, Biloxi is /apadenska/. That's all I've got at present. I sure folks can give you Dakotan and some others, but, as you can see, there's no uniformity across Siouan at present and certainly no evidence for something like the HC form in earlier stages of Siouan. Bob From kdshea at ku.edu Wed Oct 29 01:14:23 2003 From: kdshea at ku.edu (Kathleen Shea) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 19:14:23 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: A couple of summers ago at the Linguistic Institute at UCSB in Santa Barbara, I sat in on the Friends of Uto-Aztecan meeting, which took place at the Natural History Museum in Santa Barbara. There was an interactive exhibit going on at the time of live butterflies from all over, and one of the presenters at the Friends of U-A conference was a curator at the museum. (I forget his name, without looking it up.) He had us all put the word for 'butterfly' in various languages (Uto-Aztecan and others) on the blackboard and took a picture of it. Most of the words had reduplication, as might be expected, and there might have been other similarities across the languages represented. Anyway, the Ponca word for 'butterfly' is wac^c^i'ninikka (' representing accent of the preceding syllable), and the word for 'hummingbird' is wac^c^i'ninikka wazhiN'ga (lit., 'butterfly bird'), by the way. This gives me a chance to correct myself since I remember that I got confused at the time and put the wrong spelling on the board at the museum, leaving out a geminate or two. Pardon such a wordy answer for such a small question! Kathy From kdshea at ku.edu Wed Oct 29 02:21:55 2003 From: kdshea at ku.edu (Kathleen Shea) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 20:21:55 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Oops! I'm still mixing Net Siouan with the practical Ponca orthography. 'Hummingbird' is /wac^c^i'ninikka waz^iN'ga/. I know that no one thinks there's an aspirated voiced dental fricative in Ponca! However, the word for 'butterfly,' /wac^c^i'ninikka/, compared to /wac^hi'gaag^e/ 'to dance,' does exemplify the phonemic contrast between /c^c^/ and /c^h/ in Ponca. Kathy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kathleen Shea" To: Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 7:14 PM Subject: Re: butterfly >Anyway, the Ponca word for 'butterfly' is wac^c^i'ninikka (' > representing accent of the preceding syllable), and the word for > 'hummingbird' is wac^c^i'ninikka wazhiN'ga (lit., 'butterfly bird'), by the > way. This gives me a chance to correct myself since I remember that I got > confused at the time and put the wrong spelling on the board at the museum, > leaving out a geminate or two. From munro at ucla.edu Wed Oct 29 02:42:34 2003 From: munro at ucla.edu (Pamela Munro) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 18:42:34 -0800 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: <008c01c39db9$fdca25a0$5409ed81@9afl3> Message-ID: The person Kathy refers to here is John Johnson, the director of Anthroplogy for the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. The exhibit was fabulous, as was the list. Pam Kathleen Shea wrote: >A couple of summers ago at the Linguistic Institute at UCSB in Santa >Barbara, I sat in on the Friends of Uto-Aztecan meeting, which took place at >the Natural History Museum in Santa Barbara. There was an interactive >exhibit going on at the time of live butterflies from all over, and one of >the presenters at the Friends of U-A conference was a curator at the museum. >(I forget his name, without looking it up.) He had us all put the word for >'butterfly' in various languages (Uto-Aztecan and others) on the blackboard >and took a picture of it. Most of the words had reduplication, as might be >expected, and there might have been other similarities across the languages >represented. Anyway, the Ponca word for 'butterfly' is wac^c^i'ninikka (' >representing accent of the preceding syllable), and the word for >'hummingbird' is wac^c^i'ninikka wazhiN'ga (lit., 'butterfly bird'), by the >way. This gives me a chance to correct myself since I remember that I got >confused at the time and put the wrong spelling on the board at the museum, >leaving out a geminate or two. Pardon such a wordy answer for such a small >question! > >Kathy > > > > > -- ---- Pamela Munro Professor, Department of Linguistics, UCLA UCLA Box 951543 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543 USA http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/linguistics/people/munro/munro.htm From dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com Wed Oct 29 04:20:18 2003 From: dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com (David Kaufman) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 20:20:18 -0800 Subject: polyglottism In-Reply-To: <002701c39c9d$99cc7de0$3fcbed81@D8LZRG21> Message-ID: Thanks John for this info. I just communicated with Dick to get the email address of a Mezzofante descendant who wrote to the Linguist List. (For those of you who don't know, Mezzofante was a cardinal who holds the current polyglot record of speaking about 70 languages (from the 1800s). Apparently, several of his heirs (including the writer) have also been polyglots leading to a hypothesis about a "polyglot gene". Interestingly, Cardinale Mezzofante had apparently learned to speak a few Native American languages just by meeting some young members of the tribes, and then held classes to teach them about the grammars of their own languages! Dave John Kyle wrote: Some of you may have seen this on the Linguist List. It seems appropriate to the weekends discussions on polyglottism: http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-2923.html John Kyle jkyle at ku.edu --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 07:10:23 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 00:10:23 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: <000601c39dc3$6d02f600$c709ed81@9afl3> Message-ID: I definitely agree with Bob Rankin and Henning Garvin's notion that Winnebago miNmiNke looks like an Algonquian loan. Miner gives it as miN'iNmiN'iNke. On Tue, 28 Oct 2003, Kathleen Shea wrote: > Oops! I'm still mixing Net Siouan with the practical Ponca orthography. > 'Hummingbird' is /wac^c^i'ninikka waz^iN'ga/. I know that no one thinks > there's an aspirated voiced dental fricative in Ponca! However, the word > for 'butterfly,' /wac^c^i'ninikka/, compared to /wac^hi'gaag^e/ 'to dance,' > does exemplify the phonemic contrast between /c^c^/ and /c^h/ in Ponca. Swetland lists wati'ninika (1991:30), i.e., wattininikka, without the diminutive affrication. I think the source here is Fletcher & LaFlesche (1972:106) wati'nini ka, a rendition that confirms kk. There's a tendency to hear geminates as word boundaries that appears in both the Dorsey texts and in Swetland's own dictionary work. I think explains why the future is always written a separate word, thoug this might also be the influence of Riggs's usage on Dorsey. Dorsey's ms grammar began as an adaptation of the Riggs grammar and often follows it word for word, with OP morphemes substituted for Santee ones. The LaFlesche Osage dictionary lists "dsi-oN' dsi-oN" 'butterfly' (1932:239b) and dsiN-tha t.oN-ga 'butterfly (large)' (idem), along with dsi-oN'-dsi-oN wa-p.o-ga 'owl butterfly' (idem). These forms are given again (but with a dash between the two repetitions inthe first) in the Osage side. I would summarize these in something more like Osage phonetics (revising LaFlesche's use of OP-based spelling) as tsiaNtsiaN (maybe spelled ciaNciaN) as Bob almost does. He omits the reduplication - fairly, I think - in comparing this with Quapaw ti'na, but I've mentioned the precise forms in case somebody notices and wonders what happened. I suspect that ciaN(ciaN) is already one step from ciNdha toward Kaw giaN. That's just the Kaw spelling of Dhegiha forms *kiaN 'to fly', but in the context of 'butterfly' it represents a degree of folk etymologically based revision of presumed earlier *tiNdha (or *tiNra, depending on the point at which we introduce PMV *r > Dh dh ~ ...). I suspect it's nasalized, because "dsiNtha" ciNdha in Osage is, and because Quapaw has ti'na, and not ti'da. The question is, of course, whether the Omaha-Ponca form is in any way connected. The -tti- part isn't, of course, because tt < *ht, not *t. However, *R merges with *t in Osage, Kaw, and Quapaw, and *R becomes n in OP. So the PDh form might be *RiNdha, potentially yielding *nidha in OP. In this context, the ...ninikka part might be relevant. -nikka is 'person, man' in compounds. I don't think it occurs alone in OP. The closest thing to watti... is a nonce form watti'dha 'rank of warriors' in Dorsey. I can't make anything of all this except that the ...ninikka part looks a lot like Winnebago miNiNmiNiNke form. The -kka matches -ke regularly, but the reduplicated part has ni(N)ni(N) instead of miNmiN. I still can't explain watti... If it were wati... it might be some sort of compound *tiNdha (not *RiNdha) and niNinNkka, with the latter perhaps reformulated from *miNiNkka. I looked at Ioway-Otoe to see if it might be helpful, but it's rupa'n~i ~ ropa'n~i, i.e., something like ropa'niN (n is enye before i). This seems to be a compound involving 'Pawnee', but if ro- (or ru-) is ro 'body', it seems to be in the wrong place for 'Pawnee body'. I looked for *miNmiNhka or *RiNdha like forms without any luck (might expect *j^iNna for the latter) and also checked 'moth' and 'owl', the two likely places for such forms to wander off to. 'Owl' is maNkoke, makoge, which looks like maN + 'box'. MaN looks helpful (see below), but it's probably 'earth', since the owl in question is the burrowing owl. If the Winnebago form is an Algonquian loan, we have to wonder about the Dakotan forms, too. Williamson gives Santee ki'mama, kimimana and Teton kimimala. Riggs has Santee ki'mama and ki'mamana, with Teton kimimela and gmimela. Among Teton sources Buechel has kimi'mila, and so in this case does not follow Riggs; Ingham agrees, giving kimi'mila. The -na and -la are, of course, diminutive, and we expect -na in Santee after a nasal vowel, and we expect -A > e before =la in Teton, so presumably the underlying form is something like original *kimima with considerable local revision, though original kimimi or kimama seem about as likely! In any event, the core part seems to be mVNmVN. JEK From mawakuni-swetland2 at unl.edu Wed Oct 29 13:56:22 2003 From: mawakuni-swetland2 at unl.edu (Mark-Awakuni Swetland) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 07:56:22 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: aloha all, currently my two speakers working with the UNL Omaha language class go back and forth between wati'ninika and wachi'ninika As Elder Brother John surmised, the first form is in the Swetland dictionary and derives from Fletcher and La Flesche. The second form is new to me since working with these particular speakers. Uthixide Mark Awakuni-Swetland University of Nebraska Anthropology/Native American Studies Bessey Hall 132 Lincoln, NE 68588-0368 402-472-3455 FAX 402-472-9642 mawakuni-swetland2 at unl.edu ----- Original Message ----- From: "Henning Garvin" To: Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 3:45 PM Subject: butterfly > > I believe my email messed up this post the first time I sent it. If not, > sorry for the repeat. > > No, this has nothing to do with the Volkswagen Grant:) > > I was recently asked an interesting question. THe Hocank word for butterfly > is : > > miNmiNke > > I was told the Menominee word for butterfly is exactly the same. I was > asked if this is a good example of a borrowing. Given the close proximity > and relations the Hocank had with the Menominee, I would hazard a guess that > it is indeed a borrowing. But they also asked from which direction the > borrowing would have occured. So what are the other Siouan, or Alguonquian > if you know, words for butterfly. I know the Ojibwe word is: > > memengwaa > > The words are similar enough that I am leaning toward the Alguonquian side > for origin, but I wanted more input before I could answer this question. > THanks > > > Henning Garvin > Linguistic research > Ho-Chunk Nation Language Division > > _________________________________________________________________ > Surf and talk on the phone at the same time with broadband Internet access. > Get high-speed for as low as $29.95/month (depending on the local service > providers in your area). https://broadband.msn.com From rankin at ku.edu Wed Oct 29 15:18:38 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 09:18:38 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: > The question is, of course, whether the Omaha-Ponca form is in any way > connected. The -tti- part isn't, of course, because tt < *ht, not *t. > However, *R merges with *t in Osage, Kaw, and Quapaw, and *R becomes n in > OP. So the PDh form might be *RiNdha, potentially yielding *nidha in OP. > In this context, the ...ninikka part might be relevant. -nikka is > 'person, man' in compounds. I don't think it occurs alone in OP. Seeing /nikka/ as 'man' can be misleading. One has to account for such oddities as Quapaw /ppiza nikka/ 'lizard' (possibly 'dry fellow', but that's a stretch), /ttitta nikka/ 'blue jay', and /z^aNnikka/ 'gnat'. Then there's Kansa /hazu nikka/ 'black [long stemmed] grape', /nikkaphe/ 'comb', /wakkuje nikka/ 'kind of lark'. Dakotan looks like it might be at least partly borrowed from Algonquian too, then. Bob From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Wed Oct 29 15:40:02 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 09:40:02 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: John wrote: > The question is, of course, whether the Omaha-Ponca > form is in any way connected. [...] > I can't make anything of all this except that the > ...ninikka part looks a lot like Winnebago > miNiNmiNiNke form. The -kka matches -ke regularly, but > the reduplicated part has ni(N)ni(N) instead of miNmiN. We do have a precedent of Proto-Dhegiha *miN > OP ni(N) in the case of 'moon', don't we? Isn't OP ni'oNba derived from PDh *miN'-aNpa, meaning something like 'moonlight'? Could this be regular under certain conditions, like when the *miNiN is long, or when there is a following syllable beginning with a nasal? (This second rule would cover the first syllable in reduplication-- *miNmiN => *niNmiN, and the second would follow in recognition that it was a replication of the first: hence *miNmiN => *niNniN.) Rory From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Wed Oct 29 15:53:24 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 09:53:24 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Bob wrote: > Kansa ... /nikkaphe/ 'comb' ... And OP /mikka'he/ 'comb' So here we have a case of PDh *ni => OP mi ! But OP preserves *ni in other words that use /nikka/, as in /nikkashiNga/ and /nikkagahi/. Is this all the same *nikka ? Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 17:47:42 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 10:47:42 -0700 Subject: Affrication Diminutive Marker (Re: butterfly) In-Reply-To: <000b01c39e24$7060f700$86335d81@unl.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Mark-Awakuni Swetland wrote: > currently my two speakers working with the UNL Omaha language class go > back and forth between wati'ninika and wachi'ninika ... The second form > is new to me since working with these particular speakers. It's really pretty intertesting the number of variants for various things available among the now fairly small set of Omaha and Ponca speakers. It shows the weakness of working with single speakers instead of communities in trying to draw a picture of something as big as a language. Anyway, as has been mentioned before, Omaha-Ponca seems to have a form of diminutive marking that involves changing dentals to affricates: d tt th t? to j^ c^c^ c^h c^?. In the new Popular Orthography, this would be d t tH t' to j ch chH ch', I think, with capitals here for raised letters. For some words both variants are available, at least within the community as a whole, whereas for others only one form is attested. What I've sometimes referred to as grandmother speech shows up in some Dorsey texts and seems to involve very heavy use of this process. Other examples of the process include du'ba ~ j^uba 'some', iNthaN ~ iNc^haN 'now ~ right now', wathis^ka ~ wac^his^ka 'creek', c^c^eska 'small', iNc^haNga 'mouse', maNc^hu 'grizzley', maNs^tiNge ~ maNs^c^iNge 'rabbit', wac^higaghe 'to dance', (historically unrelated to former) c^hi 'to have sex with', t?e ~ c^?e 'die' (only in grandmother speech example, if I recall) and so on. Speakers encountering a variant unfamiliar to them tend to reject it out of hand as wrong, so this is probably not a productive process today. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 18:03:41 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:03:41 -0700 Subject: Dh nikka 'man, person' (Re: butterfly) In-Reply-To: <002f01c39e30$002e29b0$d1b5ed81@Rankin> Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > > -nikka is 'person, man' in compounds. I don't think it > > occurs alone in OP. > > Seeing /nikka/ as 'man' can be misleading. One > has to account for such oddities as Quapaw /ppiza > nikka/ 'lizard' (possibly 'dry fellow', but that's > a stretch), /ttitta nikka/ 'blue jay', and > /z^aNnikka/ 'gnat'. Then there's Kansa /hazu > nikka/ 'black [long stemmed] grape', /nikkaphe/ > 'comb', /wakkuje nikka/ 'kind of lark'. I suppose these could all be *niNh 'to live' + ka. I don't recall if we think 'to live, be alive' has *-h. I was thinking of OP compounds like nikkashiNga 'person' or nikkagahi (cf. gahige) 'chief'. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 18:10:34 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:10:34 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > John wrote: > > I can't make anything of all this except that the > > ...ninikka part looks a lot like Winnebago > > miNiNmiNiNke form. The -kka matches -ke regularly, but > > the reduplicated part has ni(N)ni(N) instead of miNmiN. > > We do have a precedent of Proto-Dhegiha *miN > OP ni(N) > in the case of 'moon', don't we? Isn't OP ni'oNba > derived from PDh *miN'-aNpa, meaning something like > 'moonlight'? Could this be regular under certain > conditions, ... Right! I was actually thinking of this case under my breath, so to speak, but I think it's probably not a regular change, but some sort of more sporadic adjustment. I was trying to thionk of something like this in English, or some other familiar source of examples, but I couldn't come up with anything. Of course, 'moon' is pretty clearly connected, but I'm not sure I've offered any kind of convincing case for a connection here with 'butterfly'. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 18:16:44 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:16:44 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > Bob wrote: > > Kansa ... /nikkaphe/ 'comb' ... > And OP /mikka'he/ 'comb' > > So here we have a case of PDh *ni => OP mi ! Sharp eyes, Rory! We'd have to check other cases to be sure which way the shift went. Perhaps mi(N)- here is (or is intended for) 'woman'. Another example that I seem to recall, with apologies to everyone, is Quapaw mikka sabe (not sure I have the proper Quapaw forms) 'black person', literally 'black raccoon', recalling racist English usage. I think in this case the opportunity to pun with nikka ~ mikka was a factor. From napshawin at msn.com Wed Oct 29 18:28:34 2003 From: napshawin at msn.com (CATCHES VIOLET) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 12:28:34 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Henning, As I told you before, I attempt to teach five native languages here at Pierre Indian Learning Center, I have five words for butterfly to share; Arikara-saawiitakaa (final a should be accented) Chippewa-mimaengwaen (Turtle Mountain written version, I am sure pronunciation is the same) Hochunk-mimike (NE version, I am sure the i's are nasalized) Omaha-watininika (Ed Wolfe version, he has passed on) Lakxota-kimimela (unaspirated k, so its like a soft g) Dakoda have a different version, cause I heard it before, forgot it, sorry! have fun! Violet Catches napshawin le miye ye! "The Buddha was joined by his own son, Rahula, a young boy. He advised him: 'Cultivate, Rahula, a meditation on loving kindness, for by cultivating loving kindness, ill will is banished forever. Cultivate, too, a meditation on compassion, for by cultivating compassion, you will find harm and cruelty disappear.' " Majjhima Nikaya >From: "Henning Garvin" >Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu >To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu >Subject: butterfly >Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 15:45:40 -0600 > > >I believe my email messed up this post the first time I sent it. If not, >sorry for the repeat. > >No, this has nothing to do with the Volkswagen Grant:) > >I was recently asked an interesting question. THe Hocank word for >butterfly is : > >miNmiNke > >I was told the Menominee word for butterfly is exactly the same. I was >asked if this is a good example of a borrowing. Given the close proximity >and relations the Hocank had with the Menominee, I would hazard a guess >that it is indeed a borrowing. But they also asked from which direction >the borrowing would have occured. So what are the other Siouan, or >Alguonquian if you know, words for butterfly. I know the Ojibwe word is: > >memengwaa > >The words are similar enough that I am leaning toward the Alguonquian side >for origin, but I wanted more input before I could answer this question. >THanks > > >Henning Garvin >Linguistic research >Ho-Chunk Nation Language Division > >_________________________________________________________________ >Surf and talk on the phone at the same time with broadband Internet access. >Get high-speed for as low as $29.95/month (depending on the local service >providers in your area). https://broadband.msn.com > _________________________________________________________________ Cheer a special someone with a fun Halloween eCard from American Greetings! Go to http://www.msn.americangreetings.com/index_msn.pd?source=msne134 From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Wed Oct 29 19:15:13 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 13:15:13 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: John wrote: >On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: >> Bob wrote: >> > Kansa ... /nikkaphe/ 'comb' ... >> And OP /mikka'he/ 'comb' >> >> So here we have a case of PDh *ni => OP mi ! > > Sharp eyes, Rory! We'd have to check other cases > to be sure which way the shift went. Perhaps > mi(N)- here is (or is intended for) 'woman'. Yes, you're probably right. Actually, the verb 'to comb' in OP is /gahe/ (or /kkahe/ ??). So the first syllable is a separate element, and that breaks the supposed /nikka/ morpheme. So whichever way the shift went, the Kansa word /nikkaphe/ is apparently not based on /nikka/. Rory From jmcbride at kayserv.net Wed Oct 29 19:23:21 2003 From: jmcbride at kayserv.net (Justin McBride) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 13:23:21 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: > Another example that I seem to recall, with apologies to everyone, is > Quapaw mikka sabe (not sure I have the proper Quapaw forms) 'black > person', literally 'black raccoon', recalling racist English usage. I > think in this case the opportunity to pun with nikka ~ mikka was a factor. This happens in Osage, too, although with some degree of variation. I have heard both níhka sape and something begining with an m. Curiously, the m form of (n~m)i(hk)a sa(pe) comes out sounding like "miá sa" by just about everyone that uses it. I have been told that it is in fact the same pun that you mentioned above. And I also apologize for this, as it is definitely not my intention of offending anyone. From lcumberl at indiana.edu Wed Oct 29 19:30:22 2003 From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (lcumberl at indiana.edu) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 14:30:22 -0500 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Now John's gone and mentioned 'raccoon' - the Lakota is wic^a or wic^iteglega, which I recall Ella Deloria saying somewhere refers to the human-like appearance of the raccoon's face, something like 'spotted man face'. BTW - Asb for butterfly is kimaNmaNna, but other than the diminutive/nominalizing -na, I won't venture an analysis. Linda Quoting Koontz John E : > On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > > Bob wrote: > > > Kansa ... /nikkaphe/ 'comb' ... > > And OP /mikka'he/ 'comb' > > > > So here we have a case of PDh *ni => OP mi ! > > Sharp eyes, Rory! We'd have to check other cases to be sure which way the > shift went. Perhaps mi(N)- here is (or is intended for) 'woman'. > > Another example that I seem to recall, with apologies to everyone, is > Quapaw mikka sabe (not sure I have the proper Quapaw forms) 'black > person', literally 'black raccoon', recalling racist English usage. I > think in this case the opportunity to pun with nikka ~ mikka was a factor. > > > From rankin at ku.edu Wed Oct 29 19:43:54 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 13:43:54 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: > > > Kansa ... /nikkaphe/ 'comb' ... > > And OP /mikka'he/ 'comb' > > So here we have a case of PDh *ni => OP mi ! > > Sharp eyes, Rory! We'd have to check other cases to be sure which way the > shift went. Perhaps mi(N)- here is (or is intended for) 'woman'. Segmentation is properly -ka-phe, where ka- may well be the instrumental. Shown by Quapaw ikaphe 'comb', where i- is the "locative" (instrument) prefix. As for the n(i)/m(i), your guess is as good as mine. Bob From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Wed Oct 29 21:41:35 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:41:35 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: >> Another example that I seem to recall, with apologies to everyone, is >> Quapaw mikka sabe (not sure I have the proper Quapaw forms) 'black >> person', literally 'black raccoon', recalling racist English usage. I >> think in this case the opportunity to pun with nikka ~ mikka was a factor. > > This happens in Osage, too, although with some degree of variation. I have > heard both níhka sape and something begining with an m. Curiously, the m > form of (n~m)i(hk)a sa(pe) comes out sounding like "miá sa" by just about > everyone that uses it. I have been told that it is in fact the same pun > that you mentioned above. And I also apologize for this, as it is > definitely not my intention of offending anyone. I'd like to know which way the borrowing went. If it's a natural pun in Dhegihan, could southern U.S. English slang have borrowed the meaning from bilingual Quapaw or Osage speakers? Rory From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Wed Oct 29 22:03:46 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 16:03:46 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: >> > > Kansa ... /nikkaphe/ 'comb' ... >> > And OP /mikka'he/ 'comb' >> > So here we have a case of PDh *ni => OP mi ! >> >> Sharp eyes, Rory! We'd have to check other >> cases to be sure which way the >> shift went. Perhaps mi(N)- here is (or is >> intended for) 'woman'. > > Segmentation is properly -ka-phe, where ka- may > well be the instrumental. Shown by Quapaw ikaphe > 'comb', where i- is the "locative" (instrument) > prefix. As for the n(i)/m(i), your guess is as > good as mine. I'm seeing a problem with the Omaha. I just checked with Alberta Canby, and the verb 'to comb' seems indeed to be /gahe'/, not /kkahe/. That would agree with Bob's instrumental prefix explanation for the initial *ka-, but makes the shift to /kka-/ in the /mikka'he/, 'comb' (n), a little problematical. Perhaps this would require that the prefix ended in /h/ or a stop? Thus, PDh *m/nih-ka-phe or *m/nik-ka-phe perhaps? How about: PDh *miN-i'-ki-ka'-phe 'something used by a woman to comb herself' => *miik.ka'phe => OP mikka'he Ks nikka'phe Would that work? Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 22:13:46 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:13:46 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, CATCHES VIOLET wrote: > Lakxota-kimimela (unaspirated k, so its like a soft g) Dakoda have a > different version, cause I heard it before, forgot it, sorry! have fun! Just as I was wondering where some of those alternatives to kimimila in Riggs and in Williamson came from ... From goodtracks at gbronline.com Wed Oct 29 17:13:32 2003 From: goodtracks at gbronline.com (Jimm GoodTracks) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:13:32 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Ioway-Otoe is: rupáñi (rupa' n~i). This would not appear to be similar to Hochank. Potawatomi (from Kansas) also have the word: memíki (memi'ki). [From Jim McKinney's Bwaka Project]. ----- Original Message ----- From: "R. Rankin" To: Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 9:18 AM Subject: Re: butterfly > > The question is, of course, whether the > Omaha-Ponca form is in any way > > connected. The -tti- part isn't, of course, > because tt < *ht, not *t. > > However, *R merges with *t in Osage, Kaw, and > Quapaw, and *R becomes n in > > OP. So the PDh form might be *RiNdha, > potentially yielding *nidha in OP. > > In this context, the ...ninikka part might be > relevant. -nikka is > > 'person, man' in compounds. I don't think it > occurs alone in OP. > > Seeing /nikka/ as 'man' can be misleading. One > has to account for such oddities as Quapaw /ppiza > nikka/ 'lizard' (possibly 'dry fellow', but that's > a stretch), /ttitta nikka/ 'blue jay', and > /z^aNnikka/ 'gnat'. Then there's Kansa /hazu > nikka/ 'black [long stemmed] grape', /nikkaphe/ > 'comb', /wakkuje nikka/ 'kind of lark'. > > Dakotan looks like it might be at least partly > borrowed from Algonquian too, then. > > Bob > > > > From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 22:23:28 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:23:28 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: <1067455822.3fa0154e819cd@webmail.iu.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 lcumberl at indiana.edu wrote: > Now John's gone and mentioned 'raccoon' - the Lakota is wic^a or > wic^iteglega, which I recall Ella Deloria saying somewhere refers to the > human-like appearance of the raccoon's face, something like 'spotted man > face'. Wouldn't 'striped' make more sense? This might violate the normal translational sense of glega, but we've seen examples of that sort of thing recently. > BTW - Asb for butterfly is kimaNmaNna, but other than the > diminutive/nominalizing -na, I won't venture an analysis. It's within the range of variation exhibited so far for Dakotan, I think. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 22:38:02 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:38:02 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: <004201c39e52$24da50a0$4e02a8c0@Language> Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Justin McBride wrote: > This happens in Osage, too, although with some degree of variation. I > have heard both níhka sape and something begining with an m. > Curiously, the m form of (n~m)i(hk)a sa(pe) comes out sounding like "miá > sa" by just about everyone that uses it. I have been told that it is in > fact the same pun that you mentioned above. And I also apologize for > this, as it is definitely not my intention of offending anyone. Reduction of medial lax stops is pretty standard in Osage, Kaw, and, I think, Quapaw, especially in compounds. I think the progression is sape > sae > sa. I think this is old, since some of the earliest known forms probably of Osage origin are ethnonyms like Paniassa, possibly ppadhiN (w)asa 'Black (Painted?) Pawnee' = 'Wichita'. I've heard medial -d- reduced in OP, though I don't recall the example. OP - and I think the rest of Dhegiha, too - also reduce dh to 0, so e'gidhe 'and then, of course, ...' is egie or ege in fast speech. OP also reduces things like CVCe to CV in first elements of compounds, as do the others, but I think this is an outgrowth of old CVC- combining forms, examples are things like s^aNttaNga 'wolf' and waz^iNttu 'blue bird'. Finally, there is an alternation between nikkas^iNga and nias^iNga for 'person'. This actually has some sort of semantic distinction associated with it. I think the latter form refers to 'one of our people' vs. 'a person generally', but this is just a hunch. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 22:43:37 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:43:37 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > I'd like to know which way the borrowing went. If it's a natural pun in > Dhegihan, could southern U.S. English slang have borrowed the meaning > from bilingual Quapaw or Osage speakers? I think it's clear it comes from English. The similarity of Dhegiha nikka 'person' and mikka 'raccoon' is made humorous by the existence of the English epithet coon. I don't know if the latter really comes from raccoon, but it's an obvious assumption. The whole things grows out of the tendency to refer to African Americans as 'black whitemen', whatever the local term for 'whiteman' is. That term, of course, is seldom color-based. Color categorization seems to be imported from European patterns. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 22:49:43 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:49:43 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > I'm seeing a problem with the Omaha. I just checked with Alberta Canby, > and the verb 'to comb' seems indeed to be /gahe'/, not /kkahe/. That > would agree with Bob's instrumental prefix explanation for the initial > *ka-, but makes the shift to /kka-/ in the /mikka'he/, 'comb' (n), a > little problematical. Perhaps this would require that the prefix ended > in /h/ or a stop? Thus, PDh *m/nih-ka-phe or *m/nik-ka-phe perhaps? 'Woman' is probably historically *wiNh-, but the first question is whether and how mikkahe inflects. My recollection is that gahe alone behaves like a ga-instrumental form - aahe, dhaahe, gaha=i, aNgaha=i. With the instrumental locative it should yield i'dhagahe, idha'gahe, i'gaha=i, aNdhaNgaha=i. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 22:57:51 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:57:51 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Koontz John E wrote: > 'Woman' is probably historically *wiNh-, but the first question is whether > and how mikkahe inflects. My recollection is that gahe alone behaves like > a ga-instrumental form - aahe, dhaahe, gaha=i, aNgaha=i. With the > instrumental locative it should yield i'dhagahe, idha'gahe, i'gaha=i, > aNdhaNgaha=i. Sorry - these are first, second, third, and inclusive forms. I got the accentuation of igahe reversed in the first and second person. It should be idha'gahe 'I combed with it', i'dhagahe 'you combed with it', ... If we regard initial accent as conditioned by length, I suppose that works out to idha'gahe, ii'dhagahe, ... or possibly iidha'gahe, ii'dhagahe, ... From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Thu Oct 30 00:49:17 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 18:49:17 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: John wrote: > On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: >> I'd like to know which way the borrowing went. If it's a natural pun in >> Dhegihan, could southern U.S. English slang have borrowed the meaning >> from bilingual Quapaw or Osage speakers? > > I think it's clear it comes from English. The similarity of Dhegiha nikka > 'person' and mikka 'raccoon' is made humorous by the existence of the > English epithet coon. I don't know if the latter really comes from > raccoon, but it's an obvious assumption. [...] If it's clear that it comes from English, then there ought to be a known derivation for it, or else the contrary hypothesis has to be ruled out by something else, like place or time of origin. If the term is attested from east of the Appalachians in the 1700's, then it's probably not Dhegihan. Or if 'coon' is known to be a corruption of 'Cameroun', then again it's coming through other channels. But if it's from the 1800's, and we don't even know whether it relates to 'raccoon' or not, then it certainly isn't clear to me that it comes from English. Why would English speakers derisively refer to blacks as "raccoons", rather than, say, "skunks", "muskrats", "possums", or whatever? Although we can certainly imagine the Quapaw and Osage terms as a very clever pun on a prior English term 'coon', it seems much easier to me to explain the whole relationship as originating in these languages around the time of first contact. The Dhegihans would generally refer to blacks as /nikka sabe/, "black man". But in these languages, it would be very easy to maliciously convert that to /mikka sabe/, "black raccoon", and that may have happened now and then. A white frontiersman dealing with Dhegihans learns about the pun, and gleefully shares it with his fellows. In their dialect, raccoons are called "coons", and this term spreads among frontier and lower-class southern whites as a derogatory term for blacks. So do we know anything about the term 'coon' that shoots down the above hypothesis? Rory From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Thu Oct 30 01:22:39 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 19:22:39 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: >On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Koontz John E wrote: >> 'Woman' is probably historically *wiNh-, but the first question is whether >> and how mikkahe inflects. My recollection is that gahe alone behaves like >> a ga-instrumental form - aahe, dhaahe, gaha=i, aNgaha=i. With the >> instrumental locative it should yield i'dhagahe, idha'gahe, i'gaha=i, >> aNdhaNgaha=i. > > Sorry - these are first, second, third, and inclusive forms. I got the > accentuation of igahe reversed in the first and second person. It should > be idha'gahe 'I combed with it', i'dhagahe 'you combed with it', ... > > If we regard initial accent as conditioned by length, I suppose that works > out to idha'gahe, ii'dhagahe, ... or possibly iidha'gahe, ii'dhagahe, ... Alright, but the name of an instrument should be coming from the third person form of the verb it's derived from, so that leaves us with i'gaha=i. But I don't think the =i particle will normally be used in this case, so that gets us i'gahe. If we want to add 'self' to the implication of what is being combed, will that give us i'kigdhahe ? I believe Alberta said that 'I comb myself' is aki'gdhahe. (I think that's right-- my notes were co-opted by a girl who had dared me to draw her portrait during class today: they were on the same sheet.) A form like PDh *miNh-ka-phe would work, except that we would expect that instrumental i-: *miNh-i-ka-phe. What if the h and i switched places: PDh *miNhi'kaphe => *miNi'hkaphe => *mii'kkaphe => OP mii'kkahe Ks nii'kkaphe This is nice, except that the accent seems to end up on the first syllable, which ought to be long. Rory From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Thu Oct 30 02:15:43 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 20:15:43 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Casting out the 'comb' word, Bob has offered an interesting list of wildlife terms that use /nikka/: Quapaw: /ppiza nikka/ 'lizard' /ttitta nikka/ 'blue jay' /z^aNnikka/ 'gnat' Kansa: /hazu nikka/ 'black [long stemmed] grape' /wakkuje nikka/ 'kind of lark' OP: /wattininikka/ 'butterfly' In all of these cases, the term ends in /nikka/. If Quapaw /ppiza/ < PDh *puza 'dry', we seem to have a problem: the stative verb should come after the noun, not before it. The parsing /ppiza nikka/ 'dry fellow' seems plain ungrammatical. /z^aN nikka/ as 'wood fellow' and /hazu nikka/ as 'grape fellow' work, however, because a modifying noun precedes the noun it modifies. Does anyone know what Quapaw /ttitta/ and Kansa /wakkuje/ mean? Are they nouns or stative verbs? One way out of the problem with /ppiza nikka/ might be to deconstruct the apparent noun /nikka/. John has suggested that this is composed of the verb *niNh 'live' with the generalizer/nominalizer -*ka appended: *niNhka => nikka. That could give us three elements: *puza + *niNh + *ka, or 'dry' + 'live' + KA. In that case, the first two could be grouped together first to make a single verb, 'dry-live', which could then be turned into a noun by the addition of -*ka: *puzaniNh-ka => Qw ppizanikka. In this view, an active verb could be modified by either a noun or a stative verb in front of it, and the construction would reduce to an active verb. An active verb could be turned into a noun or a stative verb by appending -*ka to the end. Does this seem reasonable? If so, then all of the --nikka terms above might be understood as nouns derived from the verb *niNh, 'live', which has been modified by a noun or stative verb that tells something about the condition or context of how the animal (or plant) lives. Hope I didn't get carried away on a misunderstanding of Qw /ppiza/! Rory From rankin at ku.edu Thu Oct 30 15:04:27 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 09:04:27 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: > Reduction of medial lax stops is pretty standard in Osage, Kaw, and, I > think, Quapaw, especially in compounds. I think the progression is sape > > sae > sa. I think this is old, since some of the earliest known forms > probably of Osage origin are ethnonyms like Paniassa, possibly ppadhiN > (w)asa 'Black (Painted?) Pawnee' = 'Wichita'. Medial lax stops in Osage seem to do this, at least with the last generation of speakers, but I'm not so sure what you're describing here is an example of that. I don't find it in Kaw or Quapaw. There is a small set of stative stems that have no "root extension" when used as the second member of compounds. These typically include ttaN augmentative (rather than 'big') z^iN diminutive (rather than 'little'), and colors like tto blue sa black s^a dark zi yellow I think this phenomenon may be morphological rather than phonological, with the Osage VCV > VV a separate, and much more recent, occurrence. In OS, the two vowels are preserved as distinct from one another if they are different vowels. You fnd the truncated form of these verbs in languages like Tutelo, Ofo, etc. also, suggesting that these particular items have participated in the only-part-time relationship with their respective root extensions pretty much all along. I tend to look upon the languages that show only the forms with the RE's as having undergone analogical leveling. My view on this sort of solidified while working through a number of Carolyn's Osage examples recently. But it's hard to be certain . . . . Bob From rankin at ku.edu Thu Oct 30 15:14:18 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 09:14:18 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: No, Quapaw /piza/ "appears" to be 'dry'. Just as /nikka/ "appears" to be 'man, person'. But this appearance is just what I'm questioning. We may be over-analyzing some of this. And I don't care for the idea of turning Quapaw into New Guinea Pidgin with 'fella' attached to everything. :-) You're quite right that the syntax is often funny in these forms. I think it's just as likely that this/these is/are a different /nikka/. Seems to me I also have one of the spider terms with /nikka/ too, but I can't find it right now. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rory M Larson" To: Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 8:15 PM Subject: Re: butterfly > > Casting out the 'comb' word, Bob has offered an > interesting list of wildlife terms that use /nikka/: > > Quapaw: /ppiza nikka/ 'lizard' > /ttitta nikka/ 'blue jay' > /z^aNnikka/ 'gnat' > > Kansa: /hazu nikka/ 'black [long stemmed] grape' > /wakkuje nikka/ 'kind of lark' > > OP: /wattininikka/ 'butterfly' > > In all of these cases, the term ends in /nikka/. > If Quapaw /ppiza/ < PDh *puza 'dry', we seem to > have a problem: the stative verb should come after > the noun, not before it. The parsing /ppiza nikka/ > 'dry fellow' seems plain ungrammatical. > > /z^aN nikka/ as 'wood fellow' and /hazu nikka/ > as 'grape fellow' work, however, because a > modifying noun precedes the noun it modifies. > Does anyone know what Quapaw /ttitta/ and Kansa > /wakkuje/ mean? Are they nouns or stative verbs? > > One way out of the problem with /ppiza nikka/ > might be to deconstruct the apparent noun /nikka/. > John has suggested that this is composed of the > verb *niNh 'live' with the generalizer/nominalizer > -*ka appended: *niNhka => nikka. That could give > us three elements: *puza + *niNh + *ka, or > 'dry' + 'live' + KA. In that case, the first > two could be grouped together first to make a > single verb, 'dry-live', which could then be > turned into a noun by the addition of -*ka: > *puzaniNh-ka => Qw ppizanikka. > > In this view, an active verb could be modified > by either a noun or a stative verb in front of > it, and the construction would reduce to an > active verb. An active verb could be turned > into a noun or a stative verb by appending -*ka > to the end. Does this seem reasonable? > > If so, then all of the --nikka terms above might > be understood as nouns derived from the verb > *niNh, 'live', which has been modified by a > noun or stative verb that tells something about > the condition or context of how the animal (or > plant) lives. > > Hope I didn't get carried away on a misunderstanding > of Qw /ppiza/! > > Rory > > > From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Thu Oct 30 19:35:26 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 13:35:26 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Bob wrote: > No, Quapaw /piza/ "appears" to be 'dry'. So the /ppiza/ in the original was a typo? Or do *p and *pp come out the same in Quapaw? > Just as > /nikka/ "appears" to be 'man, person'. But this > appearance is just what I'm questioning. We may > be over-analyzing some of this. And I don't care > for the idea of turning Quapaw into New Guinea > Pidgin with 'fella' attached to everything. :-) Nor I! > You're quite right that the syntax is often funny > in these forms. I think it's just as likely that > this/these is/are a different /nikka/. But is the syntax really funny, or are we just misinterpreting it? I can't think of any single morpheme class that makes grammatical sense following a stative verb, in which the whole construction reduces to a noun. Well, possibly an adverb... sv + N !=> N [piza] + [nikka] !=> N But if we assume that /nikka/ is itself a compound, perhaps of the form I think John was suggesting, V + [*ka] => N [*niNh] + [*ka] => [*niNhka] > [nikka] 'live' + [*ka] => 'living one', 'person', 'man' then we might have an avenue to a solution: If sv + V => V [*puza] + [*niNh] => [*puzaniNh] 'dry' + 'live' => 'live dryly' and n + V => V [*z^aN] + [*niNh] => [*z^aNniNh] 'wood' + 'live' => 'live around wood' then V + [*ka] => N [*puzaniNh] + [*ka] => [*puzaniNhka] > Qw [pizanikka] 'live dryly' + [*ka] => 'one that lives dryly' [*z^aNniNh] + [*ka] => [*z^aNniNhka] > Qw [z^aNnikka] 'live around wood' + [*ka] => 'one that lives around wood' This way, we would still have the same /nikka/, but the order of evaluation of the morphemes would be different. Not (sv)(nikka), but (sv nik)(ka). > Seems to > me I also have one of the spider terms with > /nikka/ too, but I can't find it right now. Hope you can locate it! It sounds like it would fit right in. Rory From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU Thu Oct 30 19:43:03 2003 From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 12:43:03 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The "Dictionary of American Regional English" cites attestations beginning with 1832 for "coon" meaning just 'a person, a fellow' and especially a 'sly, knowing person' and sometimes 'a rascal'. The use as an (offensive) term for a Black is first cited from an 1848 source. David David S. Rood Dept. of Linguistics Univ. of Colorado 295 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0295 USA rood at colorado.edu On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > > >On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Koontz John E wrote: > >> 'Woman' is probably historically *wiNh-, but the first question is > whether > >> and how mikkahe inflects. My recollection is that gahe alone behaves > like > >> a ga-instrumental form - aahe, dhaahe, gaha=i, aNgaha=i. With the > >> instrumental locative it should yield i'dhagahe, idha'gahe, i'gaha=i, > >> aNdhaNgaha=i. > > > > Sorry - these are first, second, third, and inclusive forms. I got the > > accentuation of igahe reversed in the first and second person. It should > > be idha'gahe 'I combed with it', i'dhagahe 'you combed with it', ... > > > > If we regard initial accent as conditioned by length, I suppose that > works > > out to idha'gahe, ii'dhagahe, ... or possibly iidha'gahe, ii'dhagahe, ... > > Alright, but the name of an instrument should be > coming from the third person form of the verb it's > derived from, so that leaves us with i'gaha=i. > But I don't think the =i particle will normally > be used in this case, so that gets us i'gahe. > If we want to add 'self' to the implication of > what is being combed, will that give us i'kigdhahe ? > I believe Alberta said that 'I comb myself' is > aki'gdhahe. (I think that's right-- my notes were > co-opted by a girl who had dared me to draw her > portrait during class today: they were on the same > sheet.) > > A form like PDh *miNh-ka-phe would work, except that > we would expect that instrumental i-: *miNh-i-ka-phe. > What if the h and i switched places: > > PDh *miNhi'kaphe > > => *miNi'hkaphe > > => *mii'kkaphe > > => OP mii'kkahe > Ks nii'kkaphe > > This is nice, except that the accent seems to > end up on the first syllable, which ought to > be long. > > Rory > > > From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Oct 30 19:56:47 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 12:56:47 -0700 Subject: Cases of -kka from *...h+ka (Re: butterfly) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > But if we assume that /nikka/ is itself a compound, > perhaps of the form I think John was suggesting, > > V + [*ka] => N > [*niNh] + [*ka] => [*niNhka] > [nikka] > 'live' + [*ka] => 'living one', 'person', 'man' I should probably clarify that this source of -kka from *...h-ka was presumably a factor in Proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan, but is not being suggested as a recently productive process. Thus I was offering it as a possible etymology for nikka that led to an originally more general sense of nikka - 'being, living thing'. I doubt that would help with the morphosyntax of compounds in which nikka was a element. Also, I'm not sure if ni-living would be a concept that applied to plants, something that I overlooked before. From ahartley at d.umn.edu Thu Oct 30 20:03:45 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan Hartley) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 14:03:45 -0600 Subject: coon (was butterfly) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The OED's compilation is not (yet) as recent as DARE's, but here's what it has to say for derivative senses of COON: 2. Applied to persons: a. A nickname for a member of the old Whig party of the United States, which at one time had the racoon as an emblem. (The nickname came up in 1839.) 1848 Lowell Biglow P. ser. i. ix, A gethrin' public sentiment, 'mongst Demmercrats and Coons. a1860 Boston Post in Bartlett Dict. Amer. s.v., Democrats..rout the coons, beat them, overwhelm them. b. A sly, knowing fellow; a ‘fellow’. 1832 Polit. Examiner (Shelbyville, Ky.) 8 Dec. 4/1, I was always reckoned a pretty slick koon for a trade. 1839 Marryat Dairy Amer. Ser. i. II. 232 In the Western States, where the racoon is plentiful, they use the abbreviation 'coon when speaking of people. 1843 Simms Guy Rivers 155 To be robbed of our findings by a parcel of blasted 'coons. 1860 Punch XXXIX. 227 (Farmer) Then baby kicked up such a row As terrified that reverend coon. 1870 M. Bridgman R. Lynne II. xiv. 296 Dicky Blake's a 'cute little coon. 1881 J. Hawthorne Fort. Fool i. xxxiii, Jack they called him—a sort of half-wild little coon, that nobody knowd much about. c. A Negro. slang. (Derog.) 1862 Songs for the Times 3 Play up, Pomp, you yaller coon. 1892 Congress. Rec. 4 Feb. 856/1 Instead of seating one colored Representative, they seated two,—two coons in place of the elected Representatives of the people. 1903 Westm. Gaz. 18 May 3/2 The former represented a lively..jovial coon—possibly ‘coon’ is not the right word, which, however, is accepted here as modern slang for a nigger. 1948 Chicago Defender 23 Oct. 7/2 A lot of us are referred to as ‘nigger’, ‘coon’, ‘darky’, etc., right to our faces. 1969 Oz Apr. 46/3 You might+deplore the way that the publicity was angled—poor old coon, he'll thank us in the end. d. S. Afr. A Coloured reveller at Cape Town; esp. a member of various groups which parade in carnival fashion through the streets From rankin at ku.edu Thu Oct 30 20:19:24 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 14:19:24 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: > So the /ppiza/ in the original was a typo? Or do *p and *pp come out the same in Quapaw? Hmm, dunno. I'll have to check. They don't come out the same, so, IF it's 'dry' then the QU should come out with a simple /p/. And 'dry' should also end in an /-e/, not an /a/. Sorry if I screwed that up. In my old age I've got to start confirming things by checking the dictionary and not trusting my memory. OK, I have doublets, /pize'/ and /bize'/ 'dry' in QU. What I rashly thought was 'dry' was actually /ppi'za/ 'SAND'. That makes better sense, doesn't it. Don't ask me of /pize/ and /ppiza/ are derivationally related. They're not by any process I can see, but who knows? Personally, I resist the idea of ever being able to analyze the morpheme /-ka/ that ends so many forms, especially stative verbs, as having any sort of productive, identifiable meaning. This is the sort of thing I worry about when I talk about "overanalysis" of words. Still can't find my 'spider' term. Maybe I'm dreaming it. Bob From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Thu Oct 30 22:18:01 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 16:18:01 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Bob wrote: >> So the /ppiza/ in the original was a typo? >> Or do *p and *pp come out the same in Quapaw? > > Hmm, dunno. I'll have to check. They don't come out the same, so, IF > it's 'dry' then the QU should come out with a simple /p/. And 'dry' > should also end in an /-e/, not an /a/. Sorry if I screwed that up. In > my old age I've got to start confirming things by checking the > dictionary and not trusting my memory. > > OK, I have doublets, /pize'/ and /bize'/ 'dry' in QU. What I rashly > thought was 'dry' was actually /ppi'za/ 'SAND'. That makes better > sense, doesn't it. Yes, that makes much better sense! Sorry, I screwed up too-- I should have remembered that /ppiza/ was 'sand'. So that makes it a noun, and not a stative verb. So everyone please ignore the elaborate analysis I was promoting in my last two missives on this subject; it isn't needed! Meanwhile, I don't suppose you've run across the meaning of /ttitta/ or /wakkuje/, have you? Rory (shamefaced) From rankin at ku.edu Fri Oct 31 01:37:39 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 19:37:39 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: > Meanwhile, I don't suppose you've run across the > meaning of /ttitta/ or /wakkuje/, have you? Quapaw ttitta is 'living' according to Alice Gilmore, the very lively lady I recorded some Quapaw with in 1972. As in the term /maNzettitta/ 'clock' < "living iron". Kansa wakkuje is 'shooting'. FWIW, Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Oct 31 06:55:27 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 23:55:27 -0700 Subject: comb (was Re: butterfly) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > Alright, but the name of an instrument should be coming from the third > person form of the verb it's derived from, so that leaves us with > i'gaha=i. One might expect that, but there's no real trace of it here. I've found in the Dorsey texts: mikka'he 'comb' (only as noun) gahe 'to comb' giahe 'to comb for someone' i'gigahe 'to comb for someone with' i'kkigdhahe 'to comb oneself with' These are mostly attested in somewhat more elaborate form than here given, e.g., gahe is in gaha=b=a=z^i 'uncombed (proximate/plural)', and i'gigahe is in iNdhiNgaha=ga 'comb for me (with it)!'. It appears that the ga- instrumental is favored for combing, since there are also gas^nude 'to pull out with a comb' (ga + s^nude 'pluck, pull out, bare') gias^nap[h?]e 'to comb smooth for one' (gi + ga + s^na 'smooth' + phe) -p[h?]e in the last might be the *phe 'comb' root that shows up as -he in gahe et al. There's also xdhaz^e 'umcombed, disheveled' > But I don't think the =i particle will normally be used in > this case, so that gets us i'gahe. I usually give in providing a third person, since the proximate form is less marked. > If we want to add 'self' to the implication of what is being combed, > will that give us i'kigdhahe ? I believe Alberta said that 'I comb > myself' is aki'gdhahe. That agrees with the forms attested in Dorsey. The stem kkigdha'he would underlie i'kkigdhahe, and it's nice to have it confirmed! > A form like PDh *miNh-ka-phe would work, except that we would expect > that instrumental i-: *miNh-i-ka-phe. I suppose, if miN- here is 'woman', that we'd have to take in the capacity of a either an object or a 'kind of' modifier. That is, perhaps there were 'man-combs' and 'woman-combs', but only 'woman-combs' remain as a term. I guess the 'kind of' element amounts to a sort of subject here. I might expect an instrumental locative i- here, too, but if it doesn't seem to appear, my inclination is to leave it at that. I guess it would be nice to have some parallel examples of deverbative instrumental nouns without i-, but at the moment I don't have any in mind. As far as why there is a kk here and not just g, when the connection with gahe seems fairly obvious, the only explanation that occurs to me is the probability that miN 'woman' is an h-final stem, historically speaking, i.e., from PMS *wiNh-. The final -h is suggested by Crow bia, Hidatsa wia, Mandan miNiNh(e), Tutelo mi(i)he. The h-final forms seems to be the ones that condition Va (ia, ua) finally in Crow-Hidatsa. Note that Dhegiha does have mi(N)ga 'female animal' where one might expect mi(N)'kka if the wiNh-ka rule worked with complete regularity. The complete absence otherwise of any trace of final-h in Mississippi Valley, unless perhaps final-h explains the failure of Dakotan wiN(yaN) 'woman' to be *miNyaN, suggests we should be a bit careful in assuming that final-h explains the kk in 'comb' in some Dhegiha forms. I rather like the possibility myself, but it is rather going out on a limb. I don't think there's a trace of such forms outside of Dhegiha, and they would have to be very conservative. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Oct 31 08:11:06 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 01:11:06 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > Casting out the 'comb' word, Bob has offered an > interesting list of wildlife terms that use /nikka/: > > Quapaw: /ppiza nikka/ 'lizard' > /ttitta nikka/ 'blue jay' > /z^aNnikka/ 'gnat' ... > Does anyone know what Quapaw /ttitta/ and Kansa > /wakkuje/ mean? Are they nouns or stative verbs? Well, 'bluejay'! It's been a while since I thought about that. I wrote a paper on bird terms in 1988, actually. Santee has tete'nic^a 'bluejay', actually, in Riggs. Miner gives j^eej^ec(?e) 'bluejay'. These, and one assumes Quapaw ttittanikka fits in, reflect the bluejay's "jay" call, "A raucous call that has many variations and that can be given at various intensities ... At lower intensities, used as an assembly call that attracts other Jays, as in courtship flocking; at higher intensities, used as an alarm or mobbing call." (Stokes 1979:141) What's of special interest, of course, in the present contect, is that element nic^a in the Santee form. I'm pretty sure that's nic^a, not nic^ha, and I suspect it's a contextual variant of *yiNka 'little'. I think that's regularly c^hiNc^a' 'child' in Dakotan. I suspect that in contexts that allow *y to be intervocalic, it can be rhoticized and the resulting *riNka would appear as ni(N)c^a in Dakotan. This element could also be nic^a < *riNke 'to lack', but I don't see how that would work. Winnebago, which merges *r and *y regularly, has niNk as a diminutive, as in wake'(niNk) 'raccoon', s^uNuNgniNk 'puppy', and so on. Of course, whether or not nic^a is 'little', it's clearly a good match for the Quapaw nikka. It would be a regular match if Quapaw had nika. What I'm wondering, is if it actually does have nika. As I recall Dorsey's very phonetic scheme of recording stops results in a series of Dhegiha orthographies very different in approach from LaFlesche's. LaFlesche uses the same set of symbols for both Omaha-Ponca and Osage (allowing for errors and the mutilation of the system in The Omaha Tribe): bdg for lax stops, p. t. k. (underdots - omitted in the published material of The Omaha Tribe) for the tense stops, and ptk for aspirates. His only concession to Osage phonetic reality is to write psh and ksh for ph and kh (his p and k) before e and i. One has to assume that he actually heard the system as it exists logically. Perhaps the mechanics of this was that he understood the Omaha-Ponca system of contrasts and perceived the working of the system in Osage based on his perception of the cognacy of forms there with forms in his native Omaha-Ponca. In recording Osage he considered any but the most egregious differences in pronuciation to be trivial. Dorsey, on the other hand, tends to write ptk for anything voiceless aspirated, p. t. k. (turned letters in print or under-x in ms) for anything voiceless unaspirated, bdg for anything voiced, and so on. LaFlesche is systematic, but Dorsey is phonetic. He would never record anything but a lax stop as voiced, but his treatment of voicless lax, tense, and aspirated stops is rather variable, though it is fairly consistent within a given language. The problem is that within a particular language he sometimes merges two series. In his Omaha-Ponca materials he tends to merge the tense and aspirate series. Since Quapaw mostly has lax and tense stops as voiceless, it is the lax and tense series that tend to be merged. In editing Dorsey's forms, when faced with a ptk Bob Rankin has to regularize on ptk or pp tt kk, and the regularization rules may well produce occasional glitches. Maybe nikka in some cases should be nika? I know that in working with OP I tend to assume pp tt kk for ptk, but sometimes ph th kh is intended. Presumably something like this explains ppiza, too. I'm simplifying of course. Dorsey never had any problem hearing the voicing of lax stops in Omaha-Ponca and Kaw. Sometimes he heard voicing in Quapaw, too. In OP Dorsey came to realize that pp tt kk contrast with ph th kh and started marking the former with subposed x (turned letters in print). He missed quite a few, but what he marked is a big help. In Osage he sometimes hears and marks preaspiration with a turned h before the stop. Aspiration is mostly clear in his Osage because he writes px tx kx or pc - kc to indicate the velarization of the aspiration. And, of course, as anyone who has to deal regularly with Dakotan materials knows, you can frequently predict where aspiration will occur from a consideration of part of speech, location of the stop in the word and root, and recognition of particular grammatical and derivational morphemes. It almost works ... JEK From Rgraczyk at aol.com Fri Oct 31 17:48:42 2003 From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Randolph Graczyk) Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 12:48:42 EST Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Some items from the Crow dictionary: bachee' 'man' xusshi' 'fast' bacheexusshi' 'handsome man' bacheexusshi' raccoon' What is interesting is the connection of 'raccoon' and 'man' in several different Siouan languages. Is this a matter of (partial) loan translations? Randy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 1 23:24:07 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 17:24:07 -0600 Subject: 14.2554, Qs: Trivalent Verbs (fwd) Message-ID: Please excuse this repost from Linguist, which I thought of general interest to at least Mississippi Valley Siouanists. I know not all of you follow Linguist. John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 02:34:56 -0000 From: LINGUIST List To: LINGUIST at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG Subject: 14.2554, Qs: Trivalent Verbs ... -------------------------------- Message 1 ------------------------------- Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2003 14:05:32 +0000 From: Florian Zellmayer Subject: Trivalent verbs with 1/2 person theme or patient Divalent verbs in head-marking languages with two-slot agreement reference agent and patient. With trivalent verbs, in many of those languages the agent and the goal rather than the agent and the patient are agreed with. The same is the case in beneficatives and other applicatives where the agent and the benefactee or applied object rather than the agent and the patient is agreed with. In trivalent verbs, beneficatives, and applicatives the patient is often restricted to 3rd person, then, because it is not indicated in the agreement system. [JEK: This seems generally reasonable as a description of how things work in Siouan verbs, e.g., basic verbs like 'give' (rare, I think) and dative verbs fall under the heading of "trivalent verbs ... and beneficatives ...," collectively or separately. Such verbs generally can have a third person patient that is unmarked in the verb, except as the dative prefix itself, or its traces, might be considered in this role. We tend, of course, to refer to the person markers - concords, if you prefer - as the agent and patient series, using agent and patient as surface category terms, which conflicts with using agent, patient, and benefactee as terms for the underlying or semantic relationship of the NP to verb. Verbs with locative prefixes that govern the patient agreement fall under the heading of "other applicatives." Some locatives do this; others don't, more or less on a case by case basis. Resume Zellmayer:] Now, many of these head-marking languages (without case) do have possibilities of expressing 1st or 2nd person patients in trivalent verbs, benefactive verbs, or applicative construction. Some of them encode e.g. ''I killed you for him'' as ''I killed your body for him'' or the like, thereby providing an ''escape hatch construction'', so to say, for the 1st or 2nd person patient that cannot be expressed by agreement. Information on how 1st or 2nd patients in trivalent verbs or beneficatives or beneficatives or applicatives is expressed or circumlocuted in head-marking languages with two-slot agreement is rarely contained in the relevant grammars. So, if you work on such languages, or if you have materials or references on this topic, please let me know. [JEK: I'm not really aware of escape hatch constructions like this in Siouan languages, though I think causatives are perhaps sometimes used in this way - "I made him have you." - and then there are transitivized serial verb patterns like "having him, he came here" which in Omaha-Ponca could be combined with the s^u 'near you' locative to produce forms like "having me, he came here near you." I haven't checked to see if there are any examples in the texts with "having you/me/us."] From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Oct 5 04:46:59 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 22:46:59 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set Message-ID: I just happened to notice this *py set, not in the CSD: PMV *pyo (?), *pyu (?) IO pyu'braN 'mint, Indian perfume' Good Tracks IO haN'pyubraN 'mint, tall Indian perfume (pink flower)' Good Tracks NB These forms under 'mint' in the English side of Golod Tracks, but not under han- or py- in the IO side. JEK OP *ppe.z^e nu'bdhaN "Pezhe NubthoN" 'wild mint (Mentha canadensis)' Gilmore:90 NB The relevant part here is the IO pyubraN compared with OP nubraN. The braN is probably 'to have an odor', however, so really it's just the pyu- and nu- prefixal element that interestrs us. OP u is from PS *o, but IO has u here, too, not a perfect match. I looked around for c^ho- or c^hu-, without or without mnaN in Dakotan without finding anything. Also, no dice in Winnebago for *rupaNnaN or *ropaNnaN, and nothing under 'mint' or 'perfume' anywhere that looked reasonable. JEK John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From mary.marino at usask.ca Sun Oct 5 06:09:16 2003 From: mary.marino at usask.ca (Mary Marino) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 00:09:16 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: Message-ID: John, What is the CSD? Mary At 10:46 PM 10/4/2003 -0600, you wrote: >I just happened to notice this *py set, not in the CSD: > >PMV *pyo (?), *pyu (?) > >IO pyu'braN 'mint, Indian perfume' Good Tracks >IO haN'pyubraN 'mint, tall Indian perfume (pink flower)' Good Tracks > >NB These forms under 'mint' in the English side of Golod Tracks, but not >under han- or py- in the IO side. JEK > >OP *ppe.z^e nu'bdhaN "Pezhe NubthoN" 'wild mint (Mentha > canadensis)' Gilmore:90 > >NB The relevant part here is the IO pyubraN compared with OP nubraN. The >braN is probably 'to have an odor', however, so really it's just the pyu- >and nu- prefixal element that interestrs us. OP u is from PS *o, but IO >has u here, too, not a perfect match. I looked around for c^ho- or c^hu-, >without or without mnaN in Dakotan without finding anything. Also, no >dice in Winnebago for *rupaNnaN or *ropaNnaN, and nothing under 'mint' or >'perfume' anywhere that looked reasonable. JEK > >John E. Koontz >http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From wablenica at mail.ru Sun Oct 5 13:14:35 2003 From: wablenica at mail.ru (Wablenica) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 17:14:35 +0400 Subject: CSD (privately) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hello John: This is me, Connie from Moscow, if you forgot me. I keep on learning LDN, together with Jan Ullrich (perhaps you know, he is in IU with Parks and deMallie now) we are working on some joint project aimed at presenting online dictionary, grammar and some text corpus online. We've converted in electronic format Riggs DED, Buechel LED, Boas-Deloria DG, besides, Jan has lotsa texts himself. Just as a sample of our work you can check the test page: http://iyapi.net/search.php --where the access to Buechel dictionary database is provided. (the link will exist for roughly a week, it is for our private testing). There is a small bug in the search form: you should put a wildcard "%" in the Lakota field in case you want to look in the English definitions only, e.g. Lakota word: % AND English definition: temple Results:... The max. number of matching word entries is 25 for this page. Our task is to merge the Buechel with Riggs, add more lexicon from the texts, so the resulting database will be devoid of some traits of separate sources, perhaps copyrighted. Once you published the "raw" Bushotter Texts in the Siouanist List, and I saved a copy for myself, converted it into "human" coding, so I can make global search in the BO now (of course, there are many typos in it, this is what Jan and David are coping with). This preface is just to prove that I'm "a good boy" :-), I haven't published BO online (as well as many texts that Jan shared with me) or the Dorsey texts that you kindly sent me, etc. During the years of Siouanist List existence I often hear about the CSD and quite comprehend that it is a very valuable thing. You once said that CSD is stored in the Unix format that is incompatible with DOS/Win format, that's why it is unavailable. If this problem is "for real", you can send me a small sample of it and I'll try to convert it to DOS/Win format (I'm 99% certain that I can do it). Otherwise, I could suggest either to exchange with you - in this case I'll need Jan's OK on the deal, or make some additional electronic stuff - for example, I have a hard-copy of Osage dictionary (Fletscher, iirc), so I could convert it to make "a good trade" :-). Of course, if the only problem with CSD is its format, and the folks in CU won't object, I could convert it to Win format and send you for further distribution among Siouanist List members or whoever you think fit. And I would agree to any conditions of using and non-distribution of CSD, e.g. printing a single hard copy with erasing the soft-copies altogether. Toksha akhe Connie. From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sun Oct 5 13:36:25 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan Hartley) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 08:36:25 -0500 Subject: private message Message-ID: John, Connie's private message to you somehow got sent to the list (or at least to me). Alan From goodtracks at GBRonline.com Sun Oct 5 15:02:36 2003 From: goodtracks at GBRonline.com (Jimm GoodTracks) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 10:02:36 -0500 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set Message-ID: John: "py?braN" (mint; Indian perfume plant) is from: pi = good ubr?N = to smell; emit an odor The "y" is the contracted sound resulting from "pi + ubr?N". I am aware that many of the entries on the English side do not appear in the IOM side. In the enlarged unabridged edition of the dictionary, these lapses will be added. Jimm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Koontz John E" To: "Siouan List" Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2003 11:46 PM Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set > I just happened to notice this *py set, not in the CSD: > > PMV *pyo (?), *pyu (?) > > IO pyu'braN 'mint, Indian perfume' Good Tracks > IO haN'pyubraN 'mint, tall Indian perfume (pink flower)' Good Tracks > > NB These forms under 'mint' in the English side of Golod Tracks, but not > under han- or py- in the IO side. JEK > > OP *ppe.z^e nu'bdhaN "Pezhe NubthoN" 'wild mint (Mentha > canadensis)' Gilmore:90 > > NB The relevant part here is the IO pyubraN compared with OP nubraN. The > braN is probably 'to have an odor', however, so really it's just the pyu- > and nu- prefixal element that interestrs us. OP u is from PS *o, but IO > has u here, too, not a perfect match. I looked around for c^ho- or c^hu-, > without or without mnaN in Dakotan without finding anything. Also, no > dice in Winnebago for *rupaNnaN or *ropaNnaN, and nothing under 'mint' or > 'perfume' anywhere that looked reasonable. JEK > > John E. Koontz > http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz > > From wablenica at mail.ru Sun Oct 5 16:17:27 2003 From: wablenica at mail.ru (Wablenica) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 20:17:27 +0400 Subject: private message In-Reply-To: <3F801E59.9060204@d.umn.edu> Message-ID: Dear John and all, I apologize for using the wrong e-mail address (it was under "John Koontz" in my address book) and thus sending private message to the List. I'm awfully sorry. Constantine Chmielnicki From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Oct 5 17:17:35 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 11:17:35 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20031005000814.00b9e150@sask.usask.ca> Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Mary Marino wrote: > What is the CSD? Sorry for the unintended obscurity! CSD = draft, or textual database, of the Comparative Siouan Dictionary. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Oct 5 18:17:18 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 12:17:18 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: <002501c38b51$dc82d740$3c430945@JIMM> Message-ID: Note that this was a follow up on the discussion of *py and *ky in conneciton with 'pot' and 'ice'. On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Jimm GoodTracks wrote: > "py?braN" (mint; Indian perfume plant) is from: > pi = good > ubr?N = to smell; emit an odor > > The "y" is the contracted sound resulting from "pi + ubr?N". Aha! After I got done kicking myself for not seeing this it occurred to me that next question was what does OP nubdhaN mean? If it has some fairly straightforward analysis that explains nu from another source, then this set is just a figment of my imagination. Otherwise it offers a nice example of how *py clusters can arise. The obvious possibilities for nu that occur to me are niN 'water' + ubdhaN or compounds with nu 'male' or nu 'potato'. None of these seem especially plausible, but I may well be missing something. If this is a valid example, then note that *py here is from *hpi + u. > I am aware that many of the entries on the English side do not appear in > the IOM side. In the enlarged unabridged edition of the dictionary, > these lapses will be added. Jimm I wouldn't worry too much about this - in the sense of being embarrassed about it, anyway. Essentially all hand-compiled bilingual dictionaries have this problem, I think, e.g., the LaFlesche Osage Dictionary. My comment was more in the sense of warning people how to find the reference, and that the problem could occur, since your dictionary is actually pretty reliable about having words on both sides. One way to be fairly certain this doesn't happen, though it is not an absolute guarantee, is to not maintain the two halves of the dictionary as separate databases, but produce one or the other from the other by mechanical (computer-programmed) inversion. For example, Bob Hsu's seminal dictionary software would allow you to precede any word in a definition (or other field) with an asterisk, like this: hw phyubraN ma phi good ma ubraN have smell def *mint def Indian *perfume ... When you ran the inversion module it would produce an English variant of the database with entries like this: hw mint gl phyubraN hw perfume, Indian gl phyubraN There's nothing magic about the use of asterisk as the marker, but this is definitely an extremely important idea. Bob Hsu's programs were called Lexware, as I recall, though I've tended to think of them as Hsubox since Bob Rankin came up with that version. I couldn't resist throwing in those ma fields, too. Of course what the formatter produces from this entry is something like: phyubraN 1. mint, 2. Indian perfume, = phi ubraN 'good' + 'have smell'. And you can hav a tool that generates temporary supplementary entries for the IO side from the ma fields, e.g.: hw phi xref phyubraN hw ubraN xref phyubraN leading to formatter output like phi see phyubraN Of course, with appropriate modifications you can get the definition in here, too: hw phi xref phyubraN def mint def Indian perfume phi cf. phyubraN mint, Indian perfume The more you do mechanically, the easier it is to avoid simple editorial gaffes. Of course, you have to be alert from programming errors ... From mary.marino at usask.ca Sun Oct 5 18:49:43 2003 From: mary.marino at usask.ca (Mary Marino) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 12:49:43 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: Message-ID: John, Thanks . Is it possible for me to access the CSD, and if so, how? I think we talked about this at the Siouan Conference, but if we got into the details I have forgotten what you said. Mary At 11:17 AM 10/5/2003 -0600, you wrote: >On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Mary Marino wrote: > > What is the CSD? > >Sorry for the unintended obscurity! CSD = draft, or textual database, of >the Comparative Siouan Dictionary. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Oct 5 19:02:53 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 13:02:53 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20031005124736.020f13b0@sask.usask.ca> Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Mary Marino wrote: > Thanks . Is it possible for me to access the CSD, and if so, how? I think > we talked about this at the Siouan Conference, but if we got into the > details I have forgotten what you said. Well, I haven't let its lack of completion or publication prevent me from quoting form it at need, and I believe Bob Rankin and David Rood have, too, occasionally by delegating the task to me, but the issue of general access is really in the hands of the senior editors, Robert Rankin, Dick Carter, and Wes Jones, and the project manager David Rood. JEK From rankin at ku.edu Sun Oct 5 19:42:12 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 14:42:12 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: > IO pyu'braN 'mint, Indian perfume' Good Tracks > IO haN'pyubraN 'mint, tall Indian perfume (pink flower)' Good Tracks Jimm's segmentation tells us why IO has /u-/ instead of /o/. Proto-Siouan *o > u in IO in word-initial position. So at least the V correspondences are regular, and they also demonstrates that his analysis is correct. Initial position is the only place Omaha and IO /u/ should correspond. The Kaw form for 'Indian perfume' is ppezhe blaN yaali, where yaali is 'good', so we wouldn't expect the reflex of phi there. I can't identify the Omaha nu- either. There doesn't seem to be a Kaw analog. Bob From rankin at ku.edu Sun Oct 5 20:10:07 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 15:10:07 -0500 Subject: CSD (privately) Message-ID: No need to apologize for getting the wrong email address; everybody does it. The CSD is the product of several years of work done with the help of grants between about 1984 and 1992. David Rood applied for the grants through his institution, the University of Colorado, with the understanding that he would be the PI but that the reconstruction would be in the hands of the senior editors, myself, Dick Carter and Wes Jones. Many of the cognate sets were assembled during the Summer of 1984 with participation by the above four, plus John Koontz, Paul Voorhis, Pat Shaw, Willem DeReuse and I'm sure another one or two that I'm forgetting. We got quite far along before the money ran out, but a few tasks remain to be completed before we can publish the results of the research. The CSD is in a DOS file, but it uses a special DOS font. It is the font that needs to be converted from ASCII to Windows (ANSI). I think John, who has done most of the computer work with the file, has it in a Unix format for formatting purposes. I don't think anyone minds giving people access to information from the files at this point, but the file itself isn't very "portable" because of the font problems and the fact that we use a special Program Editor to read and search it. Wes Jones put the PE together for us as I recall. What we need to do now, I think, is to convert the database so that it can be "sucked up" into Doug's IDD and edited further there. That should ultimately produce publishable copy. Wally Hooper has a font conversion program that works with IDD, and I took tutoring in using IDD at Bloomington last June. The remaining tasks include a more thorough work-up of the kinship terminology that Dick Carter promised to do, some pronominal reconstruction that needs to be refined and maybe one or two other things. The database contains about 1200 cognate sets. Generally we have insisted that, in order to qualify as a cognate set, an etymon must be represented in at least two of the 4 major subgroups of Siouan -- preferably with some geographical separation. The dictionary could be expanded enormously if words found only in the Mississippi Valley Siouan subgroup were allowed to constitute sets. That's about where things stand today. David and John have a published paper in which they talk about the logistics of the project. They can provide the source for you. If scholars need some particular cognate set, I'm sure we can provide it, but access to the whole database is quite cumbersome at the moment. Hopefully this situation will soon improve. Bob From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Sun Oct 5 20:37:54 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 15:37:54 -0500 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set Message-ID: >On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Jimm GoodTracks wrote: >> "py?braN" (mint; Indian perfume plant) is from: >> pi = good >> ubr?N = to smell; emit an odor >> >> The "y" is the contracted sound resulting from "pi + ubr?N". > > Aha! After I got done kicking myself for not seeing this it occurred to > me that next question was what does OP nubdhaN mean? If it has some > fairly straightforward analysis that explains nu from another source, then > this set is just a figment of my imagination. Otherwise it offers a nice > example of how *py clusters can arise. The obvious possibilities for nu > that occur to me are niN 'water' + ubdhaN or compounds with nu 'male' or > nu 'potato'. None of these seem especially plausible, but I may well be > missing something. > > If this is a valid example, then note that *py here is from *hpi + u. I suppose "smelly wild potato [plant]" would be an obvious parsing of OP /nubdhaN/, assuming there is some reason for semantically associating mint with wild potatoes. The next question would be the meaning/cognancy of u- in IOM /ubraN/. I assume -braN is the root that actually means "smell", along with OP /bdhaN/. In OP, u- relates to MVS? o-, and means "in", or "in context of". But IOM u- ought to relate to some variety of OP i-. So what is the meaning of pre-verbal u- in IOM? One possibility is that OP /nubdhaN/ is a reinterpreted loan word from IO. There seems to be an historical friendship and association between these two groups, and it shouldn't be too hard to imagine a well-constructed IO term /pyubraN/ < /hpi=u=braN/ being heard by Omahas who understood that the -braN meant -bdhaN, but couldn't make sense of the phyu-. In this case, they might have heard the /y/ as /n/, rejected the initial /ph/ as phonologically unacceptable, and mapped the IO /u/ to OP /u/. This would give them /nu/, meaning "potato", which might be an odd species association, but still quite plausible, grammatical and memorable as the name of a plant. Thus, IO "mint", "smells good", being loaned into OP, becomes "mint", meaning "smelly potato" through the Omahas' best interpretation of the IO word. John's intuition that IO /pyubraN/, "mint", and OP /nubdhaN/, "mint", form a set would be correct, though not at the level of proto-MVS. Rory From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Sun Oct 5 20:55:11 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 15:55:11 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: Rory wrote: > The next question would be the meaning/cognancy of u- in IOM /ubraN/. > I assume -braN is the root that actually means "smell", along with OP > /bdhaN/. In OP, u- relates to MVS? o-, and means "in", or > "in context of". But IOM u- ought to relate to some variety > of OP i-. So what is the meaning of pre-verbal u- in IOM? Bob wrote: > Jimm's segmentation tells us why IO has /u-/ > instead of /o/. Proto-Siouan *o > u in IO in > word-initial position. So at least the V > correspondences are regular, and they also > demonstrates that his analysis is correct. > Initial position is the only place Omaha and IO > /u/ should correspond. I think Bob has answered my question. So pre-verbal u- in IO is in fact the same locative prefix as MVS o- and OP u- ? (Sorry if I'm scrambling linguistic jargon here-- I know what I mean, even if I don't know how to say it!) Rory From goodtracks at GBRonline.com Mon Oct 6 04:31:13 2003 From: goodtracks at GBRonline.com (Jimm GoodTracks) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 23:31:13 -0500 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set Message-ID: The suggestion for the Ponca term below suggested a "smelly potato" seem to be suggestive that the plant had an unpleasant odor. If the Ponca term does referr to "potato", the reference would be that of the Wild Potato, which is identified as the Arrow root, which grows in marsh or swappy wetland areas. I have seen the plant but never had the pleasure of digging up the root tubers. Some swappy areas do seem to emit an unpleasant odor, I believe, for which I am at a loss to explain. Perhaps the Botanist at Haskell Ind.Nat. University could explain the odor or smell, if any, of digging up the wild potato. Meanwhile, IOM has separate words that do convey "smelly; stinky" namely "xu'mi"; and when somthing is really stink, they say "nax'ta" (nax'tHa). The IOM sound of "i + u = y" heard in "pyu'braN" (mint; wild mint; Indian perfume" from (pi [good]) + (ubran [to smell, emit an odor]). This term is really meant for "wild mint" and includes another plant, the "Indian Perfume" plant, which is more specifically, as John found: "HaN'pyubraN", which is tall and has a pink/ purplish flower that resembles clover. While it is used as an herbal tea and also in the water used in the sweat lodge (yu'gwe chi), it is referred to in English as "perfume" because it is used to sweeten the smell within a suitcase of one's clothing. Also, it is tied into the two handkerchiefs worn on the bandoliers of the traditional Iroshka or "straight dancers" clothing, to form a small ball. IOM is quite consistant with this contraction as seen in the words: "?yu'wagu (spring) from "?i [n~iN (water) + uwe' (go along) + gu (start to come")]; "byu'wahu" (East) from: "bi (sun) + uwe' + hu (come from)" ; "byu'ware" (West) from: "bi + uwe' + re (go to). These are some words that come to mind. The prefix "u-" refers to "in; into; within". Some words in which it is used are: ube' (throw in; put into); ut^a'we (jump into). Sometimes its use is not so clear as in: uch^e' (talk to; converse; talk over), ugi'saN (help; aide), etc. Jimm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rory M Larson" To: Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2003 3:37 PM Subject: Re: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set > > >On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Jimm GoodTracks wrote: > >> "py?braN" (mint; Indian perfume plant) is from: > >> pi = good > >> ubr?N = to smell; emit an odor > >> > >> The "y" is the contracted sound resulting from "pi + ubr?N". > > > > Aha! After I got done kicking myself for not seeing this it occurred to > > me that next question was what does OP nubdhaN mean? If it has some > > fairly straightforward analysis that explains nu from another source, > then > > this set is just a figment of my imagination. Otherwise it offers a nice > > example of how *py clusters can arise. The obvious possibilities for nu > > that occur to me are niN 'water' + ubdhaN or compounds with nu 'male' or > > nu 'potato'. None of these seem especially plausible, but I may well be > > missing something. > > > > If this is a valid example, then note that *py here is from *hpi + u. > > I suppose "smelly wild potato [plant]" would be an obvious parsing of > OP /nubdhaN/, assuming there is some reason for semantically associating > mint with wild potatoes. > > The next question would be the meaning/cognancy of u- in IOM /ubraN/. I > assume -braN is the root that actually means "smell", along with OP > /bdhaN/. > In OP, u- relates to MVS? o-, and means "in", or "in context of". But IOM > u- ought to relate to some variety of OP i-. So what is the meaning of > pre-verbal u- in IOM? > > One possibility is that OP /nubdhaN/ is a reinterpreted loan word from > IO. There seems to be an historical friendship and association between > these two groups, and it shouldn't be too hard to imagine a > well-constructed > IO term /pyubraN/ < /hpi=u=braN/ being heard by Omahas who understood that > the -braN meant -bdhaN, but couldn't make sense of the phyu-. In this > case, > they might have heard the /y/ as /n/, rejected the initial /ph/ as > phonologically > unacceptable, and mapped the IO /u/ to OP /u/. This would give them /nu/, > meaning "potato", which might be an odd species association, but still > quite > plausible, grammatical and memorable as the name of a plant. Thus, IO > "mint", > "smells good", being loaned into OP, becomes "mint", meaning "smelly > potato" > through the Omahas' best interpretation of the IO word. John's intuition > that IO /pyubraN/, "mint", and OP /nubdhaN/, "mint", form a set would be > correct, though not at the level of proto-MVS. > > Rory > > > > > From rankin at ku.edu Mon Oct 6 14:19:54 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 09:19:54 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: > I think Bob has answered my question. So > pre-verbal u- in IO is in fact the same locative > prefix as MVS o- and OP u- ? Yes. The initial *o- > u in IOM is/was originally a strictly phonological change. I don't know what happens nowadays if you have something like ubraN but then add another prefix in front of the u-. Does it remain /u/ by analogical generalization, or does it revert to /o/? Originally, it certainly reverted, but this may have changed. (This is one of the ways you can *appear* to get "grammatically conditioned sound changes".) Bob From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Mon Oct 6 18:22:49 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 13:22:49 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: >> I think Bob has answered my question. So >> pre-verbal u- in IO is in fact the same locative >> prefix as MVS o- and OP u- ? > Yes. The initial *o- > u in IOM is/was originally > a strictly phonological change. I should add that this fact makes it quite possible that the IOM /pyubraN/ - OP /nubdhaN/ set is indeed from proto-MVS as John originally suggested, rather than a later garbled loan from IO to OP as I hypothesized yesterday. Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Oct 6 20:30:22 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 14:30:22 -0600 Subject: Indian perfume set. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 6 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > I should add that this fact makes it quite possible > that the IOM /pyubraN/ - OP /nubdhaN/ set is indeed > from proto-MVS as John originally suggested, rather > than a later garbled loan from IO to OP as I > hypothesized yesterday. I'm a little bothered by the chronology, I have to admit. ProtoMVS hpi opraN (h)pyopraN PostMVS pyobraN RobraN Modern (?) pyubraN nubdhaN The OP works out, assuming I've been right all along (more or less following in the footsteps of the CSD editors) in asserting that *py > *pr > *R, the last in word initial position only, in Dhegiha. The developments *R > n and *o > u are across the board in OP. But in IO, as I undestand it, *o > u is initial only. I had thought it was perhaps something more like "in pre-stem inflectional syllables," which would work, but if it's strictly initial, then this wouldn't work unless the sequence is new in IO or has remained essentially analyzable in parts since ProtoMVS. Of course, what I was actually assuming here was a certain degree of fuzziness or reanalysis in the IO transcription. I know the sources here are quite varied and not all entirely reliable. So maybe it's really pronounced pyobraN? Or may be in the context u and o don't contrast? Another alternative is that the OP form represents a really old instance of *hp(i)=opraN, where as the IO one is fairly recent, but accidentally parallel. It does seem to me that the IO analysis is a very plausible explanation of the OP form. As far as the nu '(wild) potato' analysis of nu in OP nubdhaN, I rather doubt that. Mint does spread by rhyzomes, very agressive rhyzomes, somewhat fleshy, but thin, but it's not usually the rhyzomes that interest someone who encounters it, unless they happen to plant it in their garden. Note that nu is from *Ro < *pro, another case of *pr > *r, though without preceding *py. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Oct 6 20:32:37 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 14:32:37 -0600 Subject: More Mint Etymology Message-ID: Here's an interesting question. What do Dakota etymologists make of c^heyaka (Gilmore has chiaka)? I have an idea what c^he might be, but I have no idea what the rest would be, which suggests I'm on the wrong track. John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 04:40:23 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 22:40:23 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: <009b01c38bc2$b0d1c680$3c430945@JIMM> Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Jimm GoodTracks wrote: > The suggestion for the Ponca term below suggested a "smelly potato" seem to > be suggestive that the plant had an unpleasant odor. If the Ponca term does > referr to "potato", the reference would be that of the Wild Potato, which > is identified as the Arrow root, which grows in marsh or swappy wetland > areas. I think that the traditional, though not necessarily only wild or Indian potato is identified as Apios americana (Te blo, OP nu, Wi doo). Arrow root as a regional English plant term per se I can't place, though I'm sure I've heard it as a term fo a starchy root product. Arrowleaf is Sagittaria latifolia (Te ps^ithola, OP siN, Wi siNiNporo). Wild onions are Allium canadense (Te ps^iN, OP maz^aNxe (also maz^aNkka?), Wi s^iNiNghop). There's also the tipsin or Psoralea esculenta (Te thipsiNla, OP nugdhe, Wi dookewehi). The roots of the words (*pro, *psiN ~ ps^iN), and maybe the roots of the plants, too, are similar enough in to show that there is a process of association here. A quick look through Buechel and other sources shows a fair number of plant terms with the root psiN, ps^iN, psi, ps^i, psiNc^a, etc., and I think we'd have similar numbers of forms in siN, s^iN, etc., for those languages that lose the initial p if we had better lists of plants for them. In some cases it's hard to know where a notion of similarity leaves off and one of considering the plants to be one taxon in ethnobotanical terms begins, though I think the three above were clearly all considered distinct plants by Gilmore's consultants. The word for 'rice' is psiN (> siN in OP, Wi, etc.), but I think this is just a chance similarity, though it's possible that the association here is one of edible wetland plant. > Meanwhile, IOM has separate words that do convey "smelly; stinky" namely > "xu'mi"; and when somthing is really stink, they say "nax'ta" (nax'tHa). The xu'mi form has a resemblant, in Omaha-Ponca xwiN. They're probably actually cognate, those this is something of an iconic sound. > IOM is quite consistant with this contraction as seen in the words: > "?yu'wagu (spring) from "?i [n~iN (water) + uwe' (go along) + gu (start > to come")]; "byu'wahu" (East) from: "bi (sun) + uwe' + hu (come from)" ; > "byu'ware" (West) from: "bi + uwe' + re (go to). These are some words > that come to mind. OK, this shows that there's no question of inconsistency or irregularity in the transcription of p(h)yubraN. Whatever the process, contractions with u- have u. Also, since we have a contrast of pyubraN and byuware, it's clear that the issue of p vs. ph is purely orthographic. Jimm writes p : b, t : d, etc., while I've been writing ph : b, th : d, etc., under the influence of Bob Rankin, to help clarify the tendency in some sources to write b, d, etc., as b ~ p, d ~ t, etc. Now if 'mosquito' were just attested as gyawaNge somewhere ... As far as I know it's not. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 05:06:11 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 23:06:11 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: <009b01c38bc2$b0d1c680$3c430945@JIMM> Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Jimm GoodTracks wrote: > This term is really meant for "wild mint" and includes another plant, the > "Indian Perfume" plant, which is more specifically, as John found: > "HaN'pyubraN", which is tall and has a pink/ purplish flower that resembles > clover. While it is used as an herbal tea ... This sounds like it might be what is variously called horsemint or bergamot or blazing star in English. It does usually have a very pleasant smell to it. The common garden varieties smell a bit like a cross between mint and basil. The smell is strong enough that it can be unpleasant if smelled too much. The genus is Monarda, a member of the mint family, with the diagnostic square stems and characteristic strong smell. It's not genus Mentha in the strict Linnaean sense. I noticed Gilmore has an interesting discussion for horsemint. In the theory of the groups he consulted there are two varieties of Monarda fistulosa: a bitter or bad smelling variety and a pleasant smelling variety. The former is used medicinally, while the latter is considered a perfume. He mentions that Dorsey says that the Dakota use the latter in connection with the Sun dance, which recalls Jimm's comment on its use by Iroshka. The first variety is: Da xexaka tha phez^uta 'elk medicine' or xexaka tha wote 'elk food' OP ppez^e ppa 'bitter herb' Pa "tsusahtu" 'ill smelling' The second variety is: Da waxpe was^temna 'fragrant leaves' OP is^na=khidhe igahi 'hair pomade' or ppez^e ppa miNga 'female bitter herb' Pa "tsostyu" (meaning unknown) Gilmore indicates that the Pawnee distinguish two more forms, and indicates that at least the first two are distinct genetic strains in his own experience, and not seasonal or locational variations. He says he has found them sometimes quite close to each other. Dorsey has a story about the elk having to eat bitter weeds. Notice that the Dakota name of the second variety of these follows the pattern for mint names that we have been noticing - waxpe 'leaves' refers to the plant, which is then characterized as was^te 'nice' mna(N) 'having a smell', where mnaN is the equivalent of the (u)bdhaN, (u)braN form we've seen in the other languages. I wonder about the first element in the IO term - the haN. I couldn't find anything that would fit. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 05:24:26 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 23:24:26 -0600 Subject: CSD (privately) In-Reply-To: <004301c38b7c$bf5c5210$d1b5ed81@Rankin> Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > Many of the cognate sets were assembled during the Summer of 1984 with > participation by the above four, plus John Koontz, Paul Voorhis, Pat > Shaw, Willem DeReuse and I'm sure another one or two that I'm > forgetting. Randy Graczyk, and briefly Allan Taylor, Josie White Eagle, and Ray (?) Gordon that I can immediately recall. > The CSD is in a DOS file, but it uses a special DOS font. It is the > font that needs to be converted from ASCII to Windows (ANSI). This is really the main issue. A few things were done with diacritics, when we couldn't squeeze everything into one font. David Rood has, I think, a set of fonts for this in Windows, and those are easy enough to create, but I don't know that any recoding software was ever created. > I think John, who has done most of the computer work with the file, has > it in a Unix format for formatting purposes. No. It's formatted with a nod to AskSAM's textbase format, but I always converted to the SIL SFM format for practical use. This involves the major notational change of fieldname[ field contents to \fieldname field contents I then would convert the various asterisks, daggers, and quotation marks used in the fields to what was in the last versions |subfieldcode{...}. The SIL tool that I used to convert the file to an MS Word DOC file needed that to encode formats. The main issue here was that subfields were often missing, or inconsistantly coded, or interlarded with arbitrary commentary, so I would have to deduce the correct coding heuristically. This worked 9 times out of 10, but that's a lot of not-working cases. I ultimately tried to get the editors to work with the data in the form \lg phonemic form | source form | gloss | source code \rem-lg .... but I didn't come up with this version until I had exhausted their patience with earlier cruder versions. Using those |subfieldcode{...} constructs directly, for example. > I don't think anyone minds giving people access to information from the > files at this point, but the file itself isn't very "portable" because > of the font problems and the fact that we use a special Program Editor > to read and search it. Wes Jones put the PE together for us as I > recall. I don't mind myself, but I think the actual, senior participants - i.e., not me - have to make that decision formally. > What we need to do now, I think, is to convert the database so that it > can be "sucked up" into Doug's IDD and edited further there. I could be wrong here, but I wonder if the IDD has the right set of fields and/or subfields? The general technology would work, of course. > That should ultimately produce publishable copy. There are various ways of getting from a database format to a publishable format. In a way that's a less strenuous problem than just getting the database edited into the regular form that feeds whatever is used. Many of the changes needed there are trivial, but it's often the non-automatable trivialities that are most laborious. > The remaining tasks include a more thorough work-up of the kinship > terminology that Dick Carter promised to do, some pronominal > reconstruction that needs to be refined and maybe one or two other > things. I thimk there was one other "domain" issue (like kinship terms), but I can't think what it was. Also, I discovered that many of the missing Omaha-Ponca forms are readily available in Dorsey's texts. > The dictionary could be expanded enormously if words found only in the > Mississippi Valley Siouan subgroup were allowed to constitute sets. That seems almost certain, though in the long run I'd like to see it actually done, of course. The CSD shouldn't be delayed for that, however. > That's about where things stand today. David and John have a published > paper in which they talk about the logistics of the project. They can > provide the source for you. Rood, David S., and Koontz, John E. 2002. The Comparative Siouan Dictionary Project. pp. 259-281 in Making Dicitonaries: Preserving Indigenous Languages of the Americas, ed. by William Frawley, Kenneth C. Hill, and Pamela Munro. U of California Press, Berkeley, CA. From alber033 at tc.umn.edu Tue Oct 7 06:47:43 2003 From: alber033 at tc.umn.edu (Patricia Albers) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 01:47:43 -0500 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I am also pretty certain from Jimm GoodTracks description that this is wild bergamot because this is the perfume plant Plains Apache collected in the 1960s and tied into handkerchiefs when I attended Bill Bittle's field school. The Plains Apaches also used this as a love medicine. The Plains Apache, as Judy Jordon writes, also distinguish between the varieties considering one the "true" perfume plant and the other a "look alike." Blazing star is an alternate name for the dotted gayfeather, Liatris punctata, which is a member of the aster or composite family. Another set of Lakota perfume plants found in Buechel come from the madder family. These are the bedstraws: wahpe wacanga hu winyela [sweet smelling leaf for women] Galium trifolium and wahpe wacanga hu bloka [sweet smelling leaf for men] G.alium aparine.. >On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Jimm GoodTracks wrote: >> This term is really meant for "wild mint" and includes another plant, the >> "Indian Perfume" plant, which is more specifically, as John found: >> "HaN'pyubraN", which is tall and has a pink/ purplish flower that resembles >> clover. While it is used as an herbal tea ... > >This sounds like it might be what is variously called horsemint or >bergamot or blazing star in English. It does usually have a very pleasant >smell to it. The common garden varieties smell a bit like a cross between >mint and basil. The smell is strong enough that it can be unpleasant if >smelled too much. The genus is Monarda, a member of the mint family, with >the diagnostic square stems and characteristic strong smell. It's not >genus Mentha in the strict Linnaean sense. > >I noticed Gilmore has an interesting discussion for horsemint. In the >theory of the groups he consulted there are two varieties of Monarda >fistulosa: a bitter or bad smelling variety and a pleasant smelling >variety. The former is used medicinally, while the latter is considered a >perfume. He mentions that Dorsey says that the Dakota use the latter in >connection with the Sun dance, which recalls Jimm's comment on its use by >Iroshka. > >The first variety is: > >Da xexaka tha phez^uta 'elk medicine' or xexaka tha wote 'elk food' >OP ppez^e ppa 'bitter herb' >Pa "tsusahtu" 'ill smelling' > >The second variety is: > >Da waxpe was^temna 'fragrant leaves' >OP is^na=khidhe igahi 'hair pomade' or ppez^e ppa miNga 'female bitter >herb' >Pa "tsostyu" (meaning unknown) > >Gilmore indicates that the Pawnee distinguish two more forms, and >indicates that at least the first two are distinct genetic strains in his >own experience, and not seasonal or locational variations. He says he has >found them sometimes quite close to each other. > >Dorsey has a story about the elk having to eat bitter weeds. > >Notice that the Dakota name of the second variety of these follows the >pattern for mint names that we have been noticing - waxpe 'leaves' refers >to the plant, which is then characterized as was^te 'nice' mna(N) 'having >a smell', where mnaN is the equivalent of the (u)bdhaN, (u)braN form we've >seen in the other languages. > >I wonder about the first element in the IO term - the haN. I couldn't >find anything that would fit. > >JEK -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rankin at ku.edu Tue Oct 7 14:42:02 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 09:42:02 -0500 Subject: CSD (privately) Message-ID: > > Many of the cognate sets were assembled during the Summer of 1984 with > > participation by the above four, plus John Koontz, Paul Voorhis, Pat > > Shaw, Willem DeReuse and I'm sure another one or two that I'm > > forgetting. > Randy Graczyk, and briefly Allan Taylor, Josie White Eagle, and Ray (?) > Gordon that I can immediately recall. Aaargh, sorry Randy! You came to mind with the others but my fingers didn't do the necessary walking. I had forgotten Ray Gordon, who came for a few days. Allan was mostly doing his fieldwork on Plains Algonquian as I recall. Ken Miner contributed his Winnebago lexicon and Kathy Shea her Catawba lexicon, but they were not physically present. The Workshop was funded by NSF, I believe, and organized very successfully by David Rood. > ... but I don't know that any recoding software was ever created. Wally Hooper has a conversion program that works within IDD. The particular ASCII/ANSI values can be plugged in. > > I don't think anyone minds giving people access to information... > I don't mind myself, but I think the actual, senior participants - i.e., > not me - have to make that decision formally. Agreed, but what we *really* need is to get it published and maybe distribute the book along with a CD. > I could be wrong here, but I wonder if the IDD has the right set of > fields and/or subfields? The general technology would work, of course. I looked at this problem last June, and the "other dialects" or "other languages" field could be used. It's set up so you can specify any number of other languages. it would make very heavy use of that one field, but it would work. And there are other fields for grammatical class, gloss, etc. Bob From rankin at ku.edu Tue Oct 7 14:58:32 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 09:58:32 -0500 Subject: Fw: Job announcement, Osage Language Director Message-ID: RE: The position of language coordinator for the Osage Nation that I forwarded to this list a few weeks ago. I have received further communication -- below. Please note the rather early closing date for applications. I assume it refers to October. Bob Rankin > The position IS being advertised externally. It doesn't appear on the osagetribe.com website (yet) but it is open. The closing date is the 10th. > The phone number to human resources is 918-287-5323. From rankin at ku.edu Tue Oct 7 15:10:33 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 10:10:33 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: > The OP works out, assuming I've been right all along (more or less > following in the footsteps of the CSD editors) in asserting that *py > *pr > > *R, the last in word initial position only, in Dhegiha. The > developments *R > n and *o > u are across the board in OP. But in IO, as > I undestand it, *o > u is initial only. I had thought it was perhaps > something more like "in pre-stem inflectional syllables," which would > work, but if it's strictly initial, then this wouldn't work unless the > sequence is new in IO or has remained essentially analyzable in parts > since ProtoMVS. As I mentioned, the *o > u change may affect locative o- when other elements are grafted on as prefixes or proclitics. This simply hasn't been determined yet. Jimm may know. The problem is that relatively few elements can precede the locative prefixes. Also it would be good for us to keep in mind that the sequence John reconstructs as *pr has two (at least) proto-Siouan sources. One is *wr (most of the instances, actually) and the other may be *pr (but there were precious few *p in these sequences, 'flat' may have been one). So *py may behave like one or the other or differently because it had a different chronology. Bob From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Tue Oct 7 16:49:52 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 11:49:52 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: > As far as the nu '(wild) potato' analysis of nu in OP nubdhaN, > I rather doubt that. Mint does spread by rhyzomes, very > agressive rhyzomes, somewhat fleshy, but thin, but it's > not usually the rhyzomes that interest someone who > encounters it, unless they happen to plant it in their garden. > Note that nu is from *Ro < *pro, another case of *pr > *r, > though without preceding *py. Two possible replies to this: If OP nubdhaN is original, the '(wild) potato' analysis could work assuming that nu < *Ro < *pro originally had a wider semantic salience than the modern word, such as 'vegetable', 'herb', 'plant sought for consumption'. The meaning of the unrestricted term would then have been narrowed across the MVS daughter languages to refer only to the wild potato, perhaps in conjunction with an increased exploitation of this resource. At the same time, some older compounds of this term, such as "smelly-herb", might still survive with the original root. Compare English 'starfish', 'cuttlefish', 'jellyfish', and 'whalefish', which are not fish in the modern sense of the word, but were 'fish' at a time when the term referred to any aquatic animal. On the other hand, if OP nubdhaN << IO pyubraN as a reinterpreted loan, the choice of the first element is conditioned jointly by the IO phonetic sequence /pyu/ and by OP vocabulary that both sounds something like that and makes grammatical and semantic sense in context. In this case, their word for 'potato' might simply be the best possible candidate. The 'odoriferous' part is clear, and if folks seem to be calling the mint plant a type of potato, that's as easily learnable and understandable as 'jellyfish' is to an English-speaking child. Rory From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU Tue Oct 7 16:49:10 2003 From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 10:49:10 -0600 Subject: CSD (for everyone) In-Reply-To: <001b01c38ce1$407beee0$d1b5ed81@Rankin> Message-ID: As the keeper of the CSD files, let me chime in here for a moment. I arranged about a year ago to have a character set conversion for the old files, so we can view the whole product in current versions of Word, I think (I need to do some more checking, and probably can't get to that til Thurs. or Fri.) The primary reason it's not ready for distribution is the incredibly inconsistent formatting from entry to entry. In the past 10 years, technology has made a lot of what we need to do much simpler, but I'm seriously committed to Wichita at the moment, and not thinking much about Siouan. Let me review what I did do with it last year and report back. If you haven't heard from me again by Monday, please remind me. The reference to John's and my paper on the project is Frawley, William, Kenneth C. Hill and Pamela Munro, eds., Making Dictionaries: Preserving Indigenous Languages of the Americas, pp. 259-281. Univ. of Calif. Press, 2002. David David S. Rood Dept. of Linguistics Univ. of Colorado 295 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0295 USA rood at colorado.edu On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > > > Many of the cognate sets were assembled during > the Summer of 1984 with > > > participation by the above four, plus John > Koontz, Paul Voorhis, Pat > > > Shaw, Willem DeReuse and I'm sure another one > or two that I'm > > > forgetting. > > > Randy Graczyk, and briefly Allan Taylor, Josie > White Eagle, and Ray (?) > > Gordon that I can immediately recall. > > Aaargh, sorry Randy! You came to mind with the > others but my fingers didn't do the necessary > walking. I had forgotten Ray Gordon, who came for > a few days. Allan was mostly doing his fieldwork > on Plains Algonquian as I recall. Ken Miner > contributed his Winnebago lexicon and Kathy Shea > her Catawba lexicon, but they were not physically > present. The Workshop was funded by NSF, I > believe, and organized very successfully by David > Rood. > > > ... but I don't know that any recoding software > was ever created. > > Wally Hooper has a conversion program that works > within IDD. The particular ASCII/ANSI values can > be plugged in. > > > > I don't think anyone minds giving people > access to information... > > I don't mind myself, but I think the actual, > senior participants - i.e., > > not me - have to make that decision formally. > > Agreed, but what we *really* need is to get it > published and maybe distribute the book along with > a CD. > > > I could be wrong here, but I wonder if the IDD > has the right set of > > fields and/or subfields? The general technology > would work, of course. > > I looked at this problem last June, and the "other > dialects" or "other languages" field could be > used. It's set up so you can specify any number > of other languages. it would make very heavy use > of that one field, but it would work. And there > are other fields for grammatical class, gloss, > etc. > > Bob > > From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 17:16:56 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 11:16:56 -0600 Subject: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Patricia Albers wrote: > Blazing star is an alternate name for the dotted gayfeather, Liatris > punctata, which is a member of the aster or composite family. Oops, quite right. I was trying to recover a third name I seemed to recall and fished up something quite wrong. Another nice flower, but not the right one! JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 17:36:50 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 11:36:50 -0600 Subject: CSD (privately) In-Reply-To: <001b01c38ce1$407beee0$d1b5ed81@Rankin> Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > Wally Hooper has a conversion program that works within IDD. The > particular ASCII/ANSI values can be plugged in. I think this approach would work for the CSD. Because it used a single set of characters plus some supplementary digraphs it is easier to handle than files which use different sets in different fields and subfields. > I looked at this problem last June, and the "other dialects" or "other > languages" field could be used. It's set up so you can specify any > number of other languages. it would make very heavy use of that one > field, but it would work. And there are other fields for grammatical > class, gloss, etc. Well, I still wonder, because one of the functions of the fieldname in cases like this is to key what formatting is needed. If the other language field is used only for consistantly formatted data fields and the language in question is coded as a new initial subfield, then this might work. It might be useful if they could add a field or set of fields for comparative citations. The information we need in that context has certain subfields: 1) Language name. 2) Phonemic form, optionally tagged to indicate that it is an internal reconstruction itself. 3) Source form, as transcribed in the original source. 4) Source gloss. 5) Source code, usually some mnemonic plus a page or item number. There has to be some way to attach comments or remarks to this at this level, which might be a 6th subfield or a paired field. This can be handled as multiple fields, but in that case it's desirable that editing copy consolidate the fields on one line or successive lines. It can be useful in the phonemic form and gloss to be able to bracket the part compared, but whatever bracketing there is should be invisible to searches, e.g., nu should be locatable as nubdhaN. The other sorts of fields we used were Proto-X, and Pre-X, where X is some language, a rather limited set of these, and Other Reconstructions, for citations of reconstructions by others. Those could be handled as a variant of the general citation field. We had a general comment field. In comments in multiperson work it's useful to be able to sign and date your comment. I've often thought that we needed something like CVS - a tool for keeping track of changes. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 17:55:16 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 11:55:16 -0600 Subject: Indian perfume set. In-Reply-To: <003e01c38ce5$3aabe890$d1b5ed81@Rankin> Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > As I mentioned, the *o > u change may affect locative o- when other > elements are grafted on as prefixes or proclitics. This simply hasn't > been determined yet. Jimm may know. The problem is that relatively few > elements can precede the locative prefixes. Jimm confirmed that *o- appears as u- in all cases of incorporation of some element before it that he could think of. > Also it would be good for us to keep in mind that the sequence John > reconstructs as *pr has two (at least) proto-Siouan sources. One is *wr > (most of the instances, actually) and the other may be *pr (but there > were precious few *p in these sequences, 'flat' may have been one). So > *py may behave like one or the other or differently because it had a > different chronology. We've discussed this before. Bob prefers to distinguish *wr and *pr, while I consolidate all these sets phonologically. There are sets of this type or types arising in nouns root initials, in verb root initials, in *r with first person pronominals, and medially (basically, in 'three'). Dakota pretty nuch treats all of them as *pr, which becomes bl/bd/md/mn before orals depending on the dialect, and mn before nasals generally. Dhegiha treats the nouns (*wr in Bob's analysis) as *R, n/d ~ j^/t ~ c/t depending on the dialect, but n before nasals, and the rest appear as *pr (bdh/bl/br/pd, depending on the dialect, and no nasal variant, e.g., bdhaN 'to smell of something'). \ IO and Wi treat the nouns and the inflected verb forms and the medial form as *R (d with nasal variant n), but retains *pr in verb stem initials (br/pVrV, depending on the dialect and no nasal variant). So, the verb-stem initial forms (like 'flat' *pras(ka)) are the only ones that never get reduced anywhere. Of course, though I don't find any reason but this last to distinguish *wr from *pr, I don't claim that there are not multiple origins for *pr, or perhaps we should always write *wr. In particular, most of the polymorphemic cases of *pr (or *wr) clearly have a paired uncontracted variant *wV-r, suggesting that these are from *w + *r or perhaps that a lot of earlier **pV sequences "soften" to *wV. From rankin at ku.edu Tue Oct 7 19:44:19 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 14:44:19 -0500 Subject: CSD (privately) Message-ID: > Well, I still wonder, because one of the functions of the fieldname in > cases like this is to key what formatting is needed. I admit I didn't think much about things like formatting. I just wanted to get something lined up so I could see the thing through to completion from a scholarly point of view so that I wouldn't tread off this mortal coil someday with the thing still in limbo. Not to mention the fact that a lot of people are out there waiting for access. Being able to read it in Micorsoft Word would be useful too, but we have to actually do it. B. From ahartley at d.umn.edu Tue Oct 7 20:03:12 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan Hartley) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 15:03:12 -0500 Subject: CSD (privately) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Would it be impossibly time-consuming to convert the CSD into XML, which seems to be gaining currency rapidly in lexicography? Alan From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 22:49:27 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 16:49:27 -0600 Subject: Indian perfume set. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > If OP nubdhaN is original, the '(wild) potato' analysis could work > assuming that nu < *Ro < *pro originally had a wider semantic > salience than the modern word, such as 'vegetable', 'herb', > 'plant sought for consumption'. This is all certainly possible. The parallels in IO, Ks, Da, etc., terms all suggest that something like 'good-smelling plant' is the best bet, but it doesn't necessarily follow that this is a *py cluster form parallel with the IO one. However, it occurs to me that there are a couple more necessary observations here. One is that while Gilmore is generally pretty reliable, it would be worthwhile asking if anyone else knows this term in this form. More generally, it might be useful revisiting the issue of names of plants and animals, though I'm afraid we might be a little too late on this. In the case of mint and/or bergamot we might luck out because of the ceremonial connections that Jimm Good Tracks points out. Another point, which the Dhegihanists are aware of, but maybe not others, is that OP *ppi 'good' is completely obsolete. In fact, I think *ppi is obsolete throughout Dhegiha. It exists in a few fossil forms, e.g., ppi'=az^i ~ ppez^i' 'bad < good + not'. The usual OP term for 'good' is u(u)daN. The Osage cognate of this - o(o)taN - means essentially 'be a coup'. Bob cited the Kaw form for 'good' as yaali and I seem to recall that the Osage form is dha(a)li, cognate with that. Anyway, if nubdhaN < *p(p)y=obdhaN then it isn't likely to be a recent form. This is also evident in the necessity that any such form has undergone the *py > *pr > *R changes, with *R subsequently becoming n in OP by regular sound changes. Corresponding Osage, Kaw, and Quapaw forms would be *tobraN, *doblaN, and, I think, *topdaN or *dobdaN - I forget how the *R and *pr sounds come out in Quapaw at the moment! I don't believe there are any cases of n ~ bdh alternations in OP at present. That is, there is no perceptible contemporary connection between the two. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 23:02:03 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 17:02:03 -0600 Subject: Fw: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set (fwd) Message-ID: Posted for Mark Awakuni-Swetland. John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Mark-Awakuni Swetland" To: "Siouan List" Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 7:25 AM Subject: Fw: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set > > Mentha canadensis > > pezhe nubthoN, "fragrant herb" (Gilmore 1977:60) > > Omaha Man's Perfume: > > Grandma Elizabeth Stabler and several other ladies of her generation told > > stories of elder men taking the seeds from this mint plant, masticating > > them, spitting the crushed pulp into the hands, then rubbing their hands > > through their hair as a perfume. It was said to be quite effective in > > attracting women. Caveat: they never specified if it attracted young > > women or old women... > > > > uthixide > > > > Mark Awakuni-Swetland > > University of Nebraska > > Anthropology/Native American Studies > > Bessey Hall 132 > > Lincoln, NE 68588-0368 > > 402-472-3455 > > FAX 402-472-9642 > > mawakuni-swetland2 at unl.edu From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 23:04:15 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 17:04:15 -0600 Subject: Fw: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set (fwd) Message-ID: Posted for Mark Awakuni-Swetland. John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Mark-Awakuni Swetland" To: "Siouan List" Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 7:24 AM Subject: Fw: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set > > Jimm's reference to the use of pezhinubthoN in dance regalia and clothing > > trunks matches with Omaha usage in the first half of the 20th century. > Small > > balls are tied up in handkerchiefs and attached to the bandoleers of Omaha > > Gourd Dancers and Straight Dancers. The ability to attract women still > > holds. More recently (post AIM days), patchouli oil is used as male and > > female perfume. > > > > uthixide > > > > Mark Awakuni-Swetland > > University of Nebraska > > Anthropology/Native American Studies > > Bessey Hall 132 > > Lincoln, NE 68588-0368 > > 402-472-3455 > > FAX 402-472-9642 > > mawakuni-swetland2 at unl.edu From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 23:11:07 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 17:11:07 -0600 Subject: CSD (privately) In-Reply-To: <3F831C00.5060102@d.umn.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Alan Hartley wrote: > Would it be impossibly time-consuming to convert the CSD into XML, which > seems to be gaining currency rapidly in lexicography? That's an option, though I think that the ... encoding would be very difficult to edit directly, i.e., without a tool that hid that encoding from the editors in the way that Word et al. hide the similarly cumbersome internal representation for Word documents from Word users. The editors didn't care for |tag{...} (and I don't blame them) and my alternative of |tag ... (to be converted back to |tag{...} for publication formatting came too late. XML would make a pretty good web publication format, of course. It has a tag notation for Unicode characters, I believe, too, though this makes for bulky files, and, again, wouldn't be very plesant to edit directly. From ahartley at d.umn.edu Tue Oct 7 23:31:28 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 18:31:28 -0500 Subject: CSD (privately) Message-ID: > That's an option, though I think that the ... encoding would be > very difficult to edit directly, i.e., without a tool that hid that > encoding from the editors in the way that Word et al. hide the similarly > cumbersome internal representation for Word documents from Word users. Check out Corel's XMetaL, which lets you view the file in plain text (showing all the XML tagging); with color-coded graphical tags; or normally (without any markup visible). It's very easy to work with, requiring only a nodding acquaintance with XML. Alan From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 7 23:50:58 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 17:50:58 -0600 Subject: CSD (privately) In-Reply-To: <3F834CD0.9040307@d.umn.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Alan H. Hartley wrote: > > That's an option, though I think that the ... encoding would be > > very difficult to edit directly, i.e., without a tool that hid that > > encoding from the editors in the way that Word et al. hide the similarly > > cumbersome internal representation for Word documents from Word users. > > Check out Corel's XMetaL, which lets you view the file in plain text > (showing all the XML tagging); with color-coded graphical tags; or > normally (without any markup visible). It's very easy to work with, > requiring only a nodding acquaintance with XML. That certainly sounds like one way to go. From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Wed Oct 8 03:05:59 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 22:05:59 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: John wrote: > Another point, which the Dhegihanists are aware of, > but maybe not others, is that OP *ppi 'good' is > completely obsolete. In fact, I think *ppi is > obsolete throughout Dhegiha. It exists in a few fossil > forms, e.g., ppi'=az^i ~ ppez^i' 'bad < good + not'. > The usual OP term for 'good' is u(u)daN. This is a good point, and it might help to explain the outcome in OP of the first syllable. For a Dhegihan speaker, the first syllable *hpi=u- would be unanalyzable because they no longer had the word *ppi. But since the second syllable *braN was clear, there would be some motivation to reanalyze the first syllable into a familiar morpheme. > The Osage cognate of this - o(o)taN - means essentially > 'be a coup'. "Be a coup"?? Do you mean as in 'counting coup'? I don't understand this translation. > Anyway, if nubdhaN < *p(p)y=obdhaN then it isn't > likely to be a recent form. This is also evident > in the necessity that any such form has undergone > the *py > *pr > *R changes, with *R subsequently > becoming n in OP by regular sound changes. > Corresponding Osage, Kaw, and Quapaw forms would > be *tobraN, *doblaN, and, I think, *topdaN or *dobdaN - > I forget how the *R and *pr sounds come out in Quapaw > at the moment! I don't believe there are any cases > of n ~ bdh alternations in OP at present. That is, > there is no perceptible contemporary connection > between the two. If nubdhaN is coming from MVS (Hypothesis 1), then it certainly wouldn't be recent. If it is coming as a loan from a prehistoric IOM *pyobraN or *pyubraN (Hypothesis 2), then the most likely time for it to happen would be at the *pr stage of the above sequence (assuming OP nu < *pro, but not < *pyo). Since all the Dhegihan languages have single consonant sounds where the *pr should be, I would suppose that *pr had gone to *R before Dhegihan diverged. That would favor putting the borrowing after proto-MVS but before proto-Dhegihan (Hypothesis 2a). On the other hand, the circumstantial considerations that this set apparently exists only in IOM and OP, and that there are traditions of OP and IO associating with each other after the divergence of OP, and that the IO template pyu- is a significantly modified contraction of the hypothetical proto-MVS *hpi=o-, make the idea of a later transference tempting (Hypothesis 2b). For Hypothesis 2, these considerations might be resolved if we imagine proto-Dhegihan existing as a dialect field over a wide area for a period of several centuries. During this period, *pr > *R, and thence toward its reflexes in the various Dhegihan daughter languages, which are still contiguous dialects. During the same period, proto-IOM lives in a neighborhood adjacent to the pre-proto-OP part of Dhegihan, and maintains especially close relations with these people. Early in the proto-Dhegihan phase, pre-proto-OP adopts and readapts the proto-IOM word for mint, IOM *pyubraN > pre-proto-OP *prubraN, where *pru is reinterpreted as 'potato'. Later in the phase, this evolves to *RubraN and still later to *nubdhaN. Finally, in the course of some crisis, the proto-OP people move away from the other Dhegihan groups, accompanied by their IO associates. Otherwise, we always have Hypothesis 3, which holds that the first syllables of IOM pyubraN and OP nubdhaN are only coincidentally similar! Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 8 16:04:01 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 10:04:01 -0600 Subject: Indian perfume set. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > "Be a coup"?? Do you mean as in 'counting coup'? Yes. I think LaFlesche terms it an honor, but I have't rechecked the reference. > If nubdhaN is coming from MVS (Hypothesis 1), then > it certainly wouldn't be recent. If it is coming > as a loan from a prehistoric IOM *pyobraN or *pyubraN > (Hypothesis 2), then the most likely time for it > to happen would be at the *pr stage of the above > sequence (assuming OP nu < *pro, but not < *pyo). > Since all the Dhegihan languages have single > consonant sounds where the *pr should be, I would > suppose that *pr had gone to *R before Dhegihan > diverged. Yes. So it *couldn't* be a loan from IO per se. In fact, one would be forced to say that the IO form was not so much a correspondance as a later parallel in another language, showing where *R < *pr might have come from, possibly a preservation of a Proto-Mississippi Valley age form. The former strikes me as more likely, because Cy clusters seem fairly rare and/or unstable in Siouan. In regard to assuming *py in OP, since we know from the first person of 'to think' that *py > *pr in Dhegiha, and we know from forms like 'potato' and 'male' that *pr > *R in initial position, and we can suspect from forms like 'pot' and 'frost' that *py in initial position leads to *R in Dhegiha, too, we can suspect that nu < *Ro (the only source of nu in OP) comes from either *pro or *pyo. The IO form shows how *pyo could occur in the context. We'd expect *hpi-o- to contract to either *hp-o- or *hpy-o-. We have to assume that *hpyo- simplifies to *pyo-, or, effectively, does not contrast with it. All this would have to have occurred in or before Proto-Dhegiha, however, making it likely to be independent of the IO form. Unfortunately, however, another possibility, relevant to *pro, i.e., to nu 'male', occurs to me, which is that nubraN refers to the 'scent for male(s)', as opposed to, say, 'smelling like a male' (not necessarily a good thing). Jimm Good Tracks and Mark Awakuni-Swetland (and Dorsey, cited by Gilmore) refer to the significance of horsemint in male adornment contexts, and Patricia Albers has referred to distinctions between scented plants suitable for males and scented plants suitable for females. One problem with this is that I'd expect some sort of dative stem for the verb. From rankin at ku.edu Wed Oct 8 17:13:06 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 12:13:06 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: > "Be a coup"?? Do you mean as in 'counting coup'? >Yes. I think LaFlesche terms it an honor, but I have't rechecked the reference. Osage otaN is 'military honors'. Also look up taNhe' in LaFlesche. DoN-he' in the old spelling. It describes the virtues necessary in a man in order to qualify as taNhe (where -he) is one of the verbs of being, presumably the same one we get in thaN-he 'standing animate', miNk-he 'sitting animate', k-he 'lying', etc.). In modern Kaw daNhe is found in the various forms of "How are you doing?" If the answer is 'OK' or 'well', it would be daNhe. Bob From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU Wed Oct 8 20:03:21 2003 From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 14:03:21 -0600 Subject: CSD report Message-ID: I just looked at what I have for CSD files, and have both good and bad news to report. The old database has been converted into a shoebox file, which is good news; all the field names we used now have shoebox codes, etc. In addition, there is a formatting program which, when applied to that file, produces paragraphs with various type faces for different kinds of information -- essentially what John did for formatting the original database. The output of the formatting is a Word file, so it will be very easy to edit on screen. There should be no need to involve the IDD at any stage now, and it seems to me that Shoebox would convert to xml, etc. without too much trouble, too. The bad news is that, as of today, I'm not getting the right fonts to go with the formatting. My recollection is that my programmer fixed that, but I can no longer remember what she told me to do to make it work. I'll have to get her to tell me again. Meanwhile, Armik is taking the cd home with him tonight to see if running it on a mac with the Siouan fonts installed will matter (my programmer, poor misguided child, used a mac for this work). The really bad news, however, is that none of this takes care of the messy editing that still needs doing. Because the conversion to Shoebox was automatic, all the errors in demarking stuff in the original database have translated into formatting errors in the currently "final" version. Amazing what a missing period can do!! David S. Rood Dept. of Linguistics Univ. of Colorado 295 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0295 USA rood at colorado.edu From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 8 23:57:38 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 17:57:38 -0600 Subject: Gentium Message-ID: It looks like the folks at SIL (Victor Gaultney) have created a new Unicode-supporting font called Gentium. It is freely available. http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=Gentium John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Oct 9 00:12:53 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 18:12:53 -0600 Subject: CSD report In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, ROOD DAVID S wrote: > I just looked at what I have for CSD files, and have both good and bad > news to report. The old database has been converted into a shoebox file, > which is good news; all the field names we used now have shoebox codes, > etc. In addition, there is a formatting program which, when applied to > that file, produces paragraphs with various type faces for different kinds > of information -- essentially what John did for formatting the original > database. I don't know how Taime did this, but there are at least three ways. One is that Shoebox has limited abilities to export directly (http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software.asp?id=26). Another is SF Converter (http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software.asp?id=44): "The SF Converter is a utility designed to read a plain text file tagged with SIL Standard Format Markers and produce a file in Microsoft's Rich Text Format (RTF) suitable for printing with Word and many other word processors. It can be used to format and print dictionaries and other documents." SF Converter works with the Shoebox database files (SF or Standard Format files), but doesn't work through Shoebox itself. It's just another program that knows about SF. The third was something called, I believe, Multilingual Dictionary Formatter. It was quite elaborate. I don't see it anymore. It was OK for bilingual dictionaries of some sorts, but the set of fields was fixed in advance and didn't look like it would work well with either Siouan materials in specific or comparative dictionaries in general. I suspect Taime used method one or two. > The output of the formatting is a Word file, so it will be very easy to > edit on screen. However, it would probably not be a good idea to edit that Word document, because there is probably nothing to reverse the process and convert it back to the underlying database. I suppose someone could copy the changes by hand. It would probably be better to edit using the Showbox interface. > There should be no need to involve the IDD at any stage now, and it > seems to me that Shoebox would convert to xml, etc. without too much > trouble, too. I'm not sure if it supports this directly, but Word might be able to export the Word-formatted version. > The bad news is that, as of today, I'm not getting the right fonts to go > with the formatting. My recollection is that my programmer fixed that, > but I can no longer remember what she told me to do to make it work. My direct experience with the newer Shoeboxes is limited, but my recollection is that there is a menu that allows you to attach a particular font to each field. If Taime set this up and it was saved, but it's not working now, then I'd suspect that the problem might be that Shoebox was unable to find the file or files that describe its configuration for the CSD files. Probably you have a copy of the new CSD that omits these files and you opened up that copy instead of the one with the configuration information added. That's just a guess. > I'll have to get her to tell me again. Meanwhile, Armik is taking the > cd home with him tonight to see if running it on a mac with the Siouan > fonts installed will matter (my programmer, poor misguided child, used a > mac for this work). I might be able to figure this out, too, if needed. > The really bad news, however, is that none of this takes care of the messy > editing that still needs doing. Because the conversion to Shoebox was > automatic, all the errors in demarking stuff in the original database have > translated into formatting errors in the currently "final" version. > Amazing what a missing period can do!! I can try to fix the conversion, if you started with my version of it. I know I haven;t gotten around to this in the past. I'm pretty sure I still have and more or less understand the series of AWK scripts I used. From rankin at ku.edu Sat Oct 11 15:37:35 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 10:37:35 -0500 Subject: IPA declared a virus by Microsoft Outlook Express Message-ID: I recently bought a new Dell desktop running Windows XP Professional and typically use Outlook Express as my email program. I have recently received messages with attachments, one containing Osage vocabulary and another with IPA symbols from our department phonologist. Both messages were declared to contain a "dangerous" material and were unceremoniously stripped of their attachments. At first I thought the university anti-virus program had done this, but after investigating I discovered that Outlook Express provides this "service". And new computers come with the "feature" turned ON. Thus, the Osage language (and all other upper-ANSI characters) and the IPA are "viruses" and they trigger this genocidal software. So, if this happens to you in Outlook Express, just click on TOOLS > OPTIONS > SECURITY. Then UNcheck the box that says "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus." Otherwise, apparently OE only allows the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet, numerals and punctuation in your attachments. Bob Rankin From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Oct 12 00:36:12 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 18:36:12 -0600 Subject: IPA declared a virus by Microsoft Outlook Express In-Reply-To: <000b01c3900d$ab402c30$d1b5ed81@Rankin> Message-ID: On Sat, 11 Oct 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > So, if this happens to you in Outlook Express, just click on TOOLS > > OPTIONS > SECURITY. Then UNcheck the box that says "Do not allow > attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus." > Otherwise, apparently OE only allows the 26 letters of the Roman > alphabet, numerals and punctuation in your attachments. I don't know if I understand the details fully, but it sounds like OE thinks that character material with bits set reflecting use of characters in the upper 128 character range implies covert presence of non-textual material. This is certainly worth knowing, but, of course, sometimes it might be right ... From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sun Oct 12 22:45:15 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan Hartley) Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 17:45:15 -0500 Subject: Partisan Message-ID: William Clark records as "Torto-hongar, Partezon (Bad fellow)" the name of the second chief of a band of Tetons encountered in Sept. 1804. Moulton, in a footnote says the name may be blotahungka 'war leader'. Though the context is Teton, Clark's version shows no trace of bl-. Is inital bl- a recent development in Lakota (or might Clark have got the name through a non-Teton (but Sioux) interpreter? Riggs has mde-tang'-hung-ka and Teton blo-tang'-hung-ka 'leader of a war party': could Clark be recording something like mdotanghungka? (His R's here are silent, and it isn't surprising that he omits the initial m- and the eng after the second vowel.) Thanks, Alan From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sun Oct 12 23:10:14 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan Hartley) Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 18:10:14 -0500 Subject: Partisan In-Reply-To: <3F89D97B.70502@d.umn.edu> Message-ID: > could Clark be recording something like mdotanghungka? On second thought, his tor- may just represent tV-, where V is unstressed. From nancyh at linguist.umass.edu Mon Oct 13 14:24:01 2003 From: nancyh at linguist.umass.edu (Nancy E Hall) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:24:01 -0400 Subject: Dorsey's Law Message-ID: Miner's Hocank Lexicon contains the word [k'orok'oros] 'be hollow'. This looks like a Dorsey's Law root in that it contains identical vowels flanking a sonorant, and it behaves like a DL root in that it reduplicates in its entirety. But while Miner 1979 lists [kr] among the clusters that trigger DL, [k'r] is not mentioned. Similarly, the Lexicon contains [haik'InI] 'stay to protect' ([I] = nasalized [i]). This is like a DL root in that the vowel before the nasal is nasalized, but again it involves [k']. Can anyone tell me if these are indeed cases of DL, and if so, is there any other information on DL after [k']? Thanks, Nancy Hall University of Haifa From rankin at ku.edu Mon Oct 13 14:20:34 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 09:20:34 -0500 Subject: Partisan Message-ID: > > could Clark be recording something like mdotanghungka? I don't see why not. If he really heard it from a Teton speaker, you might expect bl-, but, as you say, it could have been from a D-dialect interpreter. The *wR- sequence is quite variable across Mississippi Valley Siouan. Reflexes of the *w are often missing and the *R evolves regularly into [l, d, t, n] at least in different languages/dialects. At some point there may have been variability within Teton too. Bob From rankin at ku.edu Mon Oct 13 14:22:22 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 09:22:22 -0500 Subject: Partisan Message-ID: BTW, the cited Riggs form with mdetaN is very strange. This word has /o/ everywhere else, at least within Dakotan and Dhegiha. Bob > > could Clark be recording something like mdotanghungka? From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Mon Oct 13 15:30:17 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:30:17 -0500 Subject: Partisan Message-ID: > William Clark records as "Torto-hongar, Partezon (Bad fellow)" the name > of the second chief of a band of Tetons encountered in Sept. 1804. > Moulton, in a footnote says the name may be blotahungka 'war leader'. > Though the context is Teton, Clark's version shows no trace of bl-. Is > inital bl- a recent development in Lakota (or might Clark have got the > name through a non-Teton (but Sioux) interpreter? Riggs has > mde-tang'-hung-ka and Teton blo-tang'-hung-ka 'leader of a war party': > could Clark be recording something like mdotanghungka? (His R's here are > silent, and it isn't surprising that he omits the initial m- and the eng > after the second vowel.) Moulton's suggestion makes sense to me, along with Alan's ideas that the name came to Clark through a non-Teton Sioux interpreter, and that the accent was not on the first syllable. In OP, the corresponding word is /nudoN'hoNga/, again meaning 'war leader'. I believe the initial *R consonant goes to an oral stop (d/t) in the other Dhegihan languages. If Clark's R's are silent, and Moulton's view is correct, I would guess that Clark's "Torto-hongar" was intended to represent /tota'-hoNga/. This would be very similar to the OP pronunciation, except for the first few phonemes. How about Osage or Kaw? Wouldn't the Osage version be pronounced something like /totaN'-hoNka/? I don't suppose the expedition had picked up any temporary followers from downstream who might have been helping with the interpretation? Or could Clark and the others have already learned enough words themselves from the Dhegihans they had passed through earlier to prejudice their pronunciation of Dakotan? Otherwise, a Santee version like /mdota'-huNka/ would be pretty close too. Perhaps by the time they reached the Tetons, their representation of the local varieties of common Siouan words would have become something of a pastiche. Rory From bi1 at soas.ac.uk Mon Oct 13 16:51:10 2003 From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (bi1 at soas.ac.uk) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 17:51:10 +0100 Subject: Indian perfume set. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On the subject of plants, rice is I think psiN and onion ps^iN in Lakota (haven't got a dictionary to hand). This looks like the familiar Lakota sound symbolism. Does it work that way in other Siouan languages? Bruce On 7 Oct 2003 at 11:55, Koontz John E wrote: Date sent: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 11:55:16 -0600 (MDT) Send reply to: siouan at lists.colorado.edu From: Koontz John E To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Indian perfume set. > On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > > As I mentioned, the *o > u change may affect locative o- when other > > elements are grafted on as prefixes or proclitics. This simply hasn't > > been determined yet. Jimm may know. The problem is that relatively few > > elements can precede the locative prefixes. > > Jimm confirmed that *o- appears as u- in all cases of incorporation of > some element before it that he could think of. > > > Also it would be good for us to keep in mind that the sequence John > > reconstructs as *pr has two (at least) proto-Siouan sources. One is *wr > > (most of the instances, actually) and the other may be *pr (but there > > were precious few *p in these sequences, 'flat' may have been one). So > > *py may behave like one or the other or differently because it had a > > different chronology. > > We've discussed this before. Bob prefers to distinguish *wr and *pr, > while I consolidate all these sets phonologically. There are sets of this > type or types arising in nouns root initials, in verb root initials, in *r > with first person pronominals, and medially (basically, in 'three'). > > Dakota pretty nuch treats all of them as *pr, which becomes bl/bd/md/mn > before orals depending on the dialect, and mn before nasals generally. > > Dhegiha treats the nouns (*wr in Bob's analysis) as *R, n/d ~ j^/t ~ > c/t depending on the dialect, but n before nasals, and the rest appear > as *pr (bdh/bl/br/pd, depending on the dialect, and no nasal variant, > e.g., bdhaN 'to smell of something'). \ > > IO and Wi treat the nouns and the inflected verb forms and the medial form > as *R (d with nasal variant n), but retains *pr in verb stem initials > (br/pVrV, depending on the dialect and no nasal variant). > > So, the verb-stem initial forms (like 'flat' *pras(ka)) are the only ones > that never get reduced anywhere. > > Of course, though I don't find any reason but this last to distinguish *wr > from *pr, I don't claim that there are not multiple origins for *pr, or > perhaps we should always write *wr. In particular, most of the > polymorphemic cases of *pr (or *wr) clearly have a paired uncontracted > variant *wV-r, suggesting that these are from *w + *r or perhaps that a > lot of earlier **pV sequences "soften" to *wV. > > From ahartley at d.umn.edu Mon Oct 13 18:29:24 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan Hartley) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 13:29:24 -0500 Subject: Partisan In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks, Bob and Rory. > I don't suppose the expedition had picked up any temporary followers > from downstream who might have been helping with the interpretation? > Or could Clark and the others have already learned enough words > themselves from the Dhegihans they had passed through earlier to > prejudice their pronunciation of Dakotan? Otherwise, a Santee > version like /mdota'-huNka/ would be pretty close too. Perhaps > by the time they reached the Tetons, their representation of the > local varieties of common Siouan words would have become something > of a pastiche. You're probably right, Rory. Pierre Cruzatte was a permanent member of the expedition, and he spoke Omaha, the language of his mother. Moulton suggests that he may have been interpeting through some Omaha prisoners of the Tetons. (Cruzatte was also a renowned fiddler. And he had only one eye, which may help explain how he shot Lewis in the rear end while hunting.) Alan From rankin at ku.edu Mon Oct 13 18:32:09 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 13:32:09 -0500 Subject: Dorsey's Law Message-ID: Nancy, et al. These are indeed interesting forms. Actually, there should be NO underlying sequences of /k?r/ in any Siouan language. Glottalized stops do not participate in such clusters at the phonological level (nor do aspirates, although a few secondary aspirate clusters occur in some languages, notably Ofo and Dakotan). The only historical explanation I can think of for these relates to the fact that 'hollow, empty' does have a glottalized k?, but not as part of the cluster. E.g. in Kansa it is /xlok?a/. I suppose that the root could have been reanalyzed in Winnebago as the ordinarily-forbidden /k?ro/. If that is the case, then I guess you would have to consider /k?orok?oros/ to be a genuine DL output in that language. /haik?iNniN/ is a little different, but the same constraint OUGHT to apply. The problem is that the root here is from proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan */kriN/ 'stay, sit, continue', and the /k/ is not glottalized in any other dialect as far as I know. In Dhegiha it comes out /kriN/ with dialect variants Omaha-Ponca /gthiN/, Quapaw /kniN/, Kansa, Osage /liN/. Here there is no obvious source for glottalization at all in Winnebago, and I'd first check for a transcription error. Nobody's perfect. But it may be that Winnebago simply lacks the constraint against such complex underlying clusters in these (very) few forms. Bob > Miner's Hocank Lexicon contains the word [k'orok'oros] 'be hollow'. This looks like a Dorsey's Law root in that it contains identical vowels flanking a sonorant, and it behaves like a DL root in that it reduplicates in its entirety. But while Miner 1979 lists [kr] among the clusters that trigger DL, [k'r] is not mentioned. Similarly, the Lexicon contains [haik'InI] 'stay to protect' ([I] = nasalized [i]). This is like a DL root in that the vowel before the nasal is nasalized, but again it involves [k']. > Can anyone tell me if these are indeed cases of DL, and if so, is there any other information on DL after [k']? From rankin at ku.edu Mon Oct 13 18:46:40 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 13:46:40 -0500 Subject: Dorsey's Law again Message-ID: I just checked Marino's 1968 dictionary, based on Radin's slip file, and she lists /koro/ 'to rattle' (no ejective). So either some sort of sound symbolism is at work here, or you may have another transcription error. Couldn't find any of the forms you have from Miner, but that doesn't mean they don't occur, just that they weren't in the Radin file. Bob > Miner's Hocank Lexicon contains the word [k'orok'oros] 'be hollow'. From rankin at ku.edu Mon Oct 13 18:57:57 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 13:57:57 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: I'm not crazy about the semantics if this is indeed fricative symbolism. There's been quite a bit of innovation in these sets though. The Kansa term for 'onion', mazhaNghe, is cognate with Dakotan for 'sweetgrass'. > On the subject of plants, rice is I think psiN and onion ps^iN in Lakota (haven't got a dictionary to hand). This looks like the familiar Lakota sound symbolism. Does it work that way in other Siouan languages? From mary.marino at usask.ca Tue Oct 14 06:51:19 2003 From: mary.marino at usask.ca (Mary Marino) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 00:51:19 -0600 Subject: Indian perfume set. In-Reply-To: <6CFE0AAEA0B7E84A9E6292B3A056A68D164D94@meadowlark2.home.ku.edu> Message-ID: I'm not crazy about it either, and I have looked at a lot of "sound symbolism" (consonant ablaut) sets, in both Dakota and Hotchunk. /s/ and /s^/ do not invariably interact with each other in c ablaut sets, if I may state the obvious. In these parts, among my consultants, 'sweetgrass' is pez^uta was^temna. I think there is likely to be as much regional variation is this as in other plant and animal lexica. I don't quite have the hang of e-mail phonetic orthography in Siouan, so if my usage is deficient, please set me straight. Mary At 01:57 PM 10/13/2003 -0500, you wrote: >I'm not crazy about the semantics if this is indeed fricative symbolism. >There's been quite a bit of innovation in these sets though. The Kansa >term for 'onion', mazhaNghe, is cognate with Dakotan for 'sweetgrass'. > > > On the subject of plants, rice is I think psiN and onion ps^iN in >Lakota (haven't got a dictionary to hand). This looks like the familiar >Lakota sound symbolism. Does it work that way in other Siouan >languages? From Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc Tue Oct 14 12:41:46 2003 From: Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc (Louis Garcia) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 07:41:46 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set Message-ID: Hi gang: I would like to bud in here. The Dakota word for Sweetgrass is Wacanga. The 'g' is gutteral. LouieG From rankin at ku.edu Tue Oct 14 14:05:31 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 09:05:31 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: Sorry -- I don't think I included the whole cognate set for Kansa 'onion' : Lakota 'sweetgrass'. Kansa /maNz^aNghe/ : Lakota /wachaNgha/. That would be common Mississippi Valley Siouan */wayaNghe/ with a meaning involving some smelly plant. All but the final vowel a/e correspondence is completely regular. My /gh/ is IPA gamma, Lakota orthographic "g". Nasalization with upper case N. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mary Marino" To: Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 1:51 AM Subject: RE: Indian perfume set. > I'm not crazy about it either, and I have looked at a lot of "sound > symbolism" (consonant ablaut) sets, in both Dakota and Hotchunk. /s/ and > /s^/ do not invariably interact with each other in c ablaut sets, if I may > state the obvious. > > In these parts, among my consultants, 'sweetgrass' is pez^uta was^temna. I > think there is likely to be as much regional variation is this as in other > plant and animal lexica. > > I don't quite have the hang of e-mail phonetic orthography in Siouan, so if > my usage is deficient, please set me straight. > > Mary > > > > At 01:57 PM 10/13/2003 -0500, you wrote: > >I'm not crazy about the semantics if this is indeed fricative symbolism. > >There's been quite a bit of innovation in these sets though. The Kansa > >term for 'onion', mazhaNghe, is cognate with Dakotan for 'sweetgrass'. > > > > > On the subject of plants, rice is I think psiN and onion ps^iN in > >Lakota (haven't got a dictionary to hand). This looks like the familiar > >Lakota sound symbolism. Does it work that way in other Siouan > >languages? > > > From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 14 16:02:13 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 10:02:13 -0600 Subject: Indian perfume set. In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20031014004028.00ba2d38@sask.usask.ca> Message-ID: On Tue, 14 Oct 2003, Mary Marino wrote: > I'm not crazy about it either, and I have looked at a lot of "sound > symbolism" (consonant ablaut) sets, in both Dakota and Hotchunk. /s/ and > /s^/ do not invariably interact with each other in c ablaut sets, if I may > state the obvious. I agree that these are probably only coincidentally similar, though looking at the whole range of *pSi(N)-based tuber/wetland plant terms I sometimes wonder. To answer Bruce, though, yes these terms do recur across Mississippi Valley Siouan, though presumably most of the groups knew rice mainly by hearsay or possibly trade. The original terms sometimes gets applied to imported rice, too. In Winnebago it's (part of) a personal name, I think, though the reference I know for it is in Omaha form. Except in Dakotan the initial p- is lost, as part of the regular reduction of *CS clusters to S. Terms for onion are replaced in Dhegiha, as far as I recall. > In these parts, among my consultants, 'sweetgrass' is pez^uta was^temna. I > think there is likely to be as much regional variation is this as in other > plant and animal lexica. Definitely. > I don't quite have the hang of e-mail phonetic orthography in Siouan, so if > my usage is deficient, please set me straight. There are some idiolectal variants, but your usage is regular. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 14 16:45:31 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 10:45:31 -0600 Subject: Dorsey's Law In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, Nancy E Hall wrote: > Miner's Hocank Lexicon contains the word [k'orok'oros] 'be hollow'. This > looks like a Dorsey's Law root in that it contains identical vowels > flanking a sonorant, and it behaves like a DL root in that it reduplicates > in its entirety. > Similarly, the Lexicon contains [haik'InI] 'stay to protect' ([I] = > nasalized [i]). This is like a DL root in that the vowel before the > nasal is nasalized, but again it involves [k']. I agree with Bob that in principle they can't be Dorsey's Law form because there is no underlying k?r cluster. On the other hand, the first does at least resemble a DL form for reduplication. I don't remember the examples, but there are one or two forms in Hollow's Mandan Dictionary that he reduced to CRV form in his process of presenting CVRV forms are underlyingly CRV that are probably underlyingly (or historically, anyway) CVRV. You have to be a bit careful with this sort of analysis, as there are occasional medial R's. The possible example in this line in Winnebago that I know of is the friend term, hic^akoro, if I recall it correctly. This is historically something like *i-hta-k(V)ro, with *i-hta- third person possessive. The exact form of 'friend' is debatable, as it is a pretty irregular set and may involve one or more borrowings from outside sources. Resemblants occur in Algonquian and Muskogean, for example, though, generally speaking everybody has been content to think of all these forms (Siouan included) as internal developments. In any event, compare Dakotan khola, suggesting *hkoRa. This is perhaps somehow related to the -khota root itself, with its dependent variant -khol, though in that case the -l- (etc., in the other dialects) in khola is rather irregular. We expect CCVta ~ CCVl, but not the third form CCVla. Given that third variant CCVla we know we have either something irregular or something unconnected. An easy assumption would be that khola is the irregular form, but it is also possible that the original is actually khola ~ khol, and that -khota is a back formation from the latter. This is consistant with the apparent lack of *hkot cognates, though, of course, this is a negative evidence argument. In that case the Dakotan and Winnebago forms are closer to matching, though Winnebago would have to have -d- (-t- in Miner's orthography) to match *R. That is, -koro could come from -hkoro, which might be an analogical modification of *hkora, but we have -r- here, and not -R-. *R comes out as d. Still, given the similarity in meaning, not to mention the weak appreciation of the *r : *R contrast between Dorsey and Kaufman, it's generally assumed that the Dakotan and Winnebago forms are related. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 15 16:22:45 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:22:45 -0600 Subject: Dorsey's Law again In-Reply-To: <6CFE0AAEA0B7E84A9E6292B3A056A68D164D95@meadowlark2.home.ku.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 rankin at ku.edu wrote: > > Miner's Hocank Lexicon contains the word [k'orok'oros] 'be hollow'. The Winnebago and Ioway-Otoe materials suggest a phonaestheme k?o 'hollow'. The relevant forms (except perhaps k?o(o) 'thunder') all have definitions in regard to shape. Forms include IO k?owe 'hollow'. Winnebago doesn't seem to have a corresponding *k?oop, but it does have several k?o hollow words, which I don't recall off the top of my head. I wonder if this form might not be characterized as the interesting collision of a CRVC 'make sound' phonaesthemic root with the k?o phonaestheme? In regard to haik?iNniN 'look after', I suspect that the stem here is gik?iN 'carry one's own on one's back'. The definitions in various sources suggest hovering animal mothers over their young or humans caring for sick and pregnant people. I'm not sure what niN is in the context. Some sort of auxiliary. In this case the two syllables k?iN and niN are not from original *kriN at all. The 'on, over' sense derives entirely from the locative (h)a-. From rankin at ku.edu Wed Oct 15 18:02:14 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:02:14 -0500 Subject: Dorsey's Law again Message-ID: The full meaning(s) given by Miner is 'stay in vicinity to protect young (animal); stay within earshot to protect inhabitants; stay with pregnant woman'. (Miner 1984:#575) Seems to me it matches *kriN 'stay, continue, sit, camp' a lot better than 'pack on the back' (which also leaves niN unidentified). But, of course, that leaves the glottal unaccounted for. I wonder if an earlier form might have been *ha?ikiNniN, with some sort of glottal transposition. In that case, it could just be a "Grenzsignal". Bob > In regard to haik?iNniN 'look after', I suspect that the stem here is gik?iN 'carry one's own on one's back'. The definitions in various sources suggest hovering animal mothers over their young or humans caring for sick and pregnant people. I'm not sure what niN is in the context. Some sort of auxiliary. In this case the two syllables k?iN and niN are not from original *kriN at all. The 'on, over' sense derives entirely from the locative (h)a-. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 15 18:41:19 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:41:19 -0600 Subject: Dorsey's Law again In-Reply-To: <6CFE0AAEA0B7E84A9E6292B3A056A68D164D9A@meadowlark2.home.ku.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 rankin at ku.edu wrote: > The full meaning(s) given by Miner is 'stay in vicinity to protect young > (animal); stay within earshot to protect inhabitants; stay with pregnant > woman'. (Miner 1984:#575) Seems to me it matches *kriN 'stay, continue, > sit, camp' a lot better than 'pack on the back' (which also leaves niN > unidentified). But, of course, that leaves the glottal unaccounted for. > I wonder if an earlier form might have been *ha?ikiNniN, with some sort > of glottal transposition. In that case, it could just be a > "Grenzsignal". I believe Winnebago hai- is usually < (h)a + gi-. There actually is an auxiliary niN, though I'm not sure if the example I remember is from Winnebago or Mandan (or both). The example is xop + niN 'be holy'. This may or may not be *riN 'to move', but say it was *riN 'to move', then the form would be something like 'go along carrying one's own on the back'. Which brings us to the gloss 'protect young (animal)', which I took as the root sense. I was thinking of the protector as the mother and recalling cases like the opossum, where the mother carries the young on her back. This would certainly make a good metaphor for a protective mother or, by extension, anyone else especially solicitous. I looked for comparable forms elsewhere, however, and didn't find any quickly. Forms like gik?iN 'carry one's own on back' do exist, of course. Anyway, that was my logic. JEK From rankin at ku.edu Wed Oct 15 20:04:58 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 15:04:58 -0500 Subject: Dorsey's Law again Message-ID: I take the WI auxiliary niN you mention in xopniN to just be the cognate with Dhegiha *dhiN 'be of class membership'. B-liN 'I am', $-niN 'you are', dhiN 's/he is', etc., as in KkaNze bliN 'I'm Kaw'. But the semantics point to 'stay, continue'. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Koontz John E" To: Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 1:41 PM Subject: RE: Dorsey's Law again > On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 rankin at ku.edu wrote: > > The full meaning(s) given by Miner is 'stay in vicinity to protect young > > (animal); stay within earshot to protect inhabitants; stay with pregnant > > woman'. (Miner 1984:#575) Seems to me it matches *kriN 'stay, continue, > > sit, camp' a lot better than 'pack on the back' (which also leaves niN > > unidentified). But, of course, that leaves the glottal unaccounted for. > > I wonder if an earlier form might have been *ha?ikiNniN, with some sort > > of glottal transposition. In that case, it could just be a > > "Grenzsignal". > > I believe Winnebago hai- is usually < (h)a + gi-. There actually is an > auxiliary niN, though I'm not sure if the example I remember is from > Winnebago or Mandan (or both). The example is xop + niN 'be holy'. This > may or may not be *riN 'to move', but say it was *riN 'to move', then the > form would be something like 'go along carrying one's own on the back'. > Which brings us to the gloss 'protect young (animal)', which I took as the > root sense. I was thinking of the protector as the mother and recalling > cases like the opossum, where the mother carries the young on her back. > This would certainly make a good metaphor for a protective mother or, by > extension, anyone else especially solicitous. I looked for comparable > forms elsewhere, however, and didn't find any quickly. Forms like gik?iN > 'carry one's own on back' do exist, of course. Anyway, that was my logic. > > JEK > From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Oct 16 07:27:14 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 01:27:14 -0600 Subject: Winnebago *p > w (long) Message-ID: This gathers together several threads in my reasoning about Proto-Siouan, or mainly Proto-Mississippi Valley, phonology and morphology as they underpin modern Mississippi Valley. Almost nothing here is new to those who have been listening to my chatter on the subject over the years will notice, but the issue of how to deal with the conundrum of final -p in Winnebago struck me forcibly recently, leading me to synthesize several of my arguments here. Naturally, most of the basic assumptions and phonology here trace historically to Wolff, Matthews, and Kaufman, separately, and occasionally even to Dorsey, as well as to Rankin, Carter, Jones, and Rood, collectively and severally, not to mention Rood and Taylor, who individually introduced me to all this and Taylor specifically relative to *th, discussed by him as *rh. I may be unique in my willingness to merge all cases of *wr and *pr and/or *br in at least Proto-Mississippi Valley, distinguishing them only by context, in my treatment of final *-e and *-[velar]a in Winnebago-Chiwere, and in my tendency to treat final -e/-a/-ka in PMV as morphemes. I think, however, that most recent students have considered most of these angles before me without necessarily coming to the same final conclusions or mentioning all the possibilities out loud or in print. One of the interesting things about Winnebago phonology is that *hC (preaspirates *hp/ht/hk) merge to such an extent with *C (inaspirates *p/*t/*k). The merged *ht and *t both come out c^, of course, while hp/p > p, and hk/k > k. Unmerged *C come out w, j^, g. For example, *hpe(e)t- 'fire' > peec^, *se(e)p- 'black' > seep, *pe(e)thaN 'to fold' > weej^aN, *pras-ka 'flat' > paras (*-ka not attested in Winnebago). These mergers occur because Winnebago eliminates the contrast of preaspiration vs. non-aspiration in favor of voicelessness vs. voice. As a result, it is syllable initial *C, mainly, remains distinct, as the voiced series w/j^/g. All cases of d come from *R (or *pr), e.g., *Reek- 'MoBro' > hi-dek ~ dee(k)-ga, *pro-ka 'male' > -dok 'augmentative'. Interestingly, the scarce true aspirates become *w/j^/g, too, so, for example, *thi becomes OP thi 'arrive here', but Winnebago j^ii. (Note for Dakotanists - *th > h in Dakotan, hence pehaN and hi for the verbs above.) The initial *hC sequences - some people like to think of such things as clusters, some don't - appear as p/c^/k, as does *C (where retained) in *Cr or *C when word final final, as in the examples in the first paragraph. Word final instances of -C occur quite frequently, as Winnebago seems to have lost all final *-e. And there are quite a few of these, since final *-a after velars seems to have become -e as well. Thus the proto-forms - nouns and verbs - in final *C-, which appear with -Ca or -Ce elsewhere, are just -C in Winnebago, per the examples above again. With *-a after velars this loss via *-e occurs with clear *-Ca forms like those in *-ka, e.g., the *pro-ka example, which is just nu in OP (no *-ka), but is -dok in Winnebago. The exception is cases where there is a sequence *-C-ka, which manifests as *-Cke. So *yaNt- 'heart', which manifests sometimes as if it had been *yaN(aN)t-e and sometimes as if *yaN(aN)t-ka (different classs of absolute marker?), appears in Winnebago as both naNaNc^ and naNaNc^ge. The same merger of post-velaric -a and -e is also attested in Ioway-Otoe. As the -Cke examples show, too, *C (when t or k) is voiceless in CC clusters, though *p becomes w, cf. *yaN(aN)tpa 'ear' > naNaNc^awa. The final -C forms do seem to voice when a resonant-initial enclitic is added to them, cf., -xjuk 'pulverized' (an instrumental stem), but xjuug-re 'be crushed'. Miner generally writes *C as voiced in SC clusters, again cf. -xjuk < *-xtuk-, or *ska 'white' > sgaa. With *p this voicing means w, as in *s^paN 'soft' > s^aN(aN)waN (length not expected here, but indicated by Miner). Probably the way to think of this is that *C is voiced in initial position and when it preceeds a resonant (before resonant-initial enclitics), and that *hC consistently loses preaspiration. (I think all initial voiceless stops are aspirated, and I think final ones probably are not, but merely unreleased.) This doesn't handle cases like *tp or *Sp, however. One very interesting thing about this system of changes though, is that final *-p actually does appear as -p ~ -b#r-. This is problematic because in Ioway-Otoe, where these final *-p are not final, since final *-e has not been lost, they appear as -w-, e.g., *sep- 'black' is e(e)we. The IO behavior suggests that all initial and final-medial *p > w in both Winnebago and Ioway-Otoe. In fact, since it is generally assumed that these two languages share a common ancestor later than Proto-Mississippi Valley, we could say this happened in Proto-Winnebago-Chiwere. But if it did happen that way, then when final *-e was lost, forms like Proto-Winebago-Chiwere (or Pre-Winnebago) *seewe (cf. IO (th>e(e)we) must have become seep, the form attested in Winnebago, with nominal reversal of *p > *w. What seems more likely is that Pre-Winnebago speakers were somehow aware that *w in this context was really or alternatively *p (or *b), perhaps because there were still at that time alternating forms like *seewe ~ *seep (or *seeb) in different contexts, not unlike the contemporary cases of (?) sapa ~ sap (or sab), *(wV-)ra(a)p- 'beaver' > c^hapa ~ c^hap (or c^hab) in Dakotan. Of course, such alternates are virtually eliminated in modern Winnebago, which is all seep, and modern Ioway-Otoe, which is all ewe. A possible exception to this is Winnebago was^c^iNiNk 'rabbit', but was^c^iNiNge-ga 'the Rabbit', in contrast with hi-dek, but dee(k)-ga 'uncle'. The -e- certainly looks like a relict *-e. Dhegiha tends to follow the Ioway-Otoe model, though we see probable reflexes of the *-C-e ~ *-C alternation in cases like *khet- 'shoulder' > OP iNkhede, but iNkhe-sabe 'black-shouldered' (epithet of the buffalo preserved in a clan name), with no -d(e). I believe the Dhegiha compounds with truncated first stems reflect phonetic loss of -C in relict *-C forms, since compounds are -C alternate contexts in Dakotan. In recalling the Winnebago-Chiwere shift of *p to *w, it might be appropriate to notice that something similar, occurring in a different and earlier context might explain the *b- (or *p-) ~ *wa- alternation in the Proto-Siouan first person. That is, perhaps we see here reflexes of **ba-, which becomes *wa-, except in contexts where it was reduced to *b- before certain consonants. (We might also wonder if *wa- (perhaps from **Ba-) occurs where it does (especially before *R and *CC-, including *hC- and *Ch- and *C?-) because epenthetic *a was needed there to simplify to *baCC- the **bCC cluster that would otherwise result. However, it is not necessary here to explain how we come to have the vocalic alternation that we find in *b- ~ *wa-.) John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Fri Oct 17 17:43:50 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 12:43:50 -0500 Subject: Winnebago *p > w (long) Message-ID: Thanks for the great overview, John! I'll be a while trying to absorb that! So for single-consonant, syllable-initial situations, we have: ? MVS Da OP Os IO Winn *p p b p w *t t d t j^ *k k g k g *hp ph pp hp ph *ht th tt ht th *hk kh kk hk kh *ph ph ph ph w *th h th th j^ *kh kh kh kh g Is this paradigm correct? One minor correction (I think): > *pro-ka 'male' > -dok 'augmentative' [...] > With *-a after velars this loss via *-e occurs with > clear *-Ca forms like those in *-ka, e.g., the *pro-ka > example, which is just nu in OP (no *-ka), but is -dok > in Winnebago. Actually, 'male' in OP is nu'ga, which matches *pro-ka. OP nu means 'man'. Based partly on this pair, I've been coming to the view that *-ka functions as a qualitative generalizer. I would suppose that it acted to abstract the quality of the base that it attached to, making either a stative verb, as in this case, or a noun as an oblique reference to an entity that characteristically manifested that quality. Does this seem likely to you? Rory Koontz John E o.edu> cc: Sent by: Subject: Winnebago *p > w (long) owner-siouan at lists.c olorado.edu 10/16/2003 02:27 AM Please respond to siouan This gathers together several threads in my reasoning about Proto-Siouan, or mainly Proto-Mississippi Valley, phonology and morphology as they underpin modern Mississippi Valley. Almost nothing here is new to those who have been listening to my chatter on the subject over the years will notice, but the issue of how to deal with the conundrum of final -p in Winnebago struck me forcibly recently, leading me to synthesize several of my arguments here. Naturally, most of the basic assumptions and phonology here trace historically to Wolff, Matthews, and Kaufman, separately, and occasionally even to Dorsey, as well as to Rankin, Carter, Jones, and Rood, collectively and severally, not to mention Rood and Taylor, who individually introduced me to all this and Taylor specifically relative to *th, discussed by him as *rh. I may be unique in my willingness to merge all cases of *wr and *pr and/or *br in at least Proto-Mississippi Valley, distinguishing them only by context, in my treatment of final *-e and *-[velar]a in Winnebago-Chiwere, and in my tendency to treat final -e/-a/-ka in PMV as morphemes. I think, however, that most recent students have considered most of these angles before me without necessarily coming to the same final conclusions or mentioning all the possibilities out loud or in print. One of the interesting things about Winnebago phonology is that *hC (preaspirates *hp/ht/hk) merge to such an extent with *C (inaspirates *p/*t/*k). The merged *ht and *t both come out c^, of course, while hp/p > p, and hk/k > k. Unmerged *C come out w, j^, g. For example, *hpe(e)t- 'fire' > peec^, *se(e)p- 'black' > seep, *pe(e)thaN 'to fold' > weej^aN, *pras-ka 'flat' > paras (*-ka not attested in Winnebago). These mergers occur because Winnebago eliminates the contrast of preaspiration vs. non-aspiration in favor of voicelessness vs. voice. As a result, it is syllable initial *C, mainly, remains distinct, as the voiced series w/j^/g. All cases of d come from *R (or *pr), e.g., *Reek- 'MoBro' > hi-dek ~ dee(k)-ga, *pro-ka 'male' > -dok 'augmentative'. Interestingly, the scarce true aspirates become *w/j^/g, too, so, for example, *thi becomes OP thi 'arrive here', but Winnebago j^ii. (Note for Dakotanists - *th > h in Dakotan, hence pehaN and hi for the verbs above.) The initial *hC sequences - some people like to think of such things as clusters, some don't - appear as p/c^/k, as does *C (where retained) in *Cr or *C when word final final, as in the examples in the first paragraph. Word final instances of -C occur quite frequently, as Winnebago seems to have lost all final *-e. And there are quite a few of these, since final *-a after velars seems to have become -e as well. Thus the proto-forms - nouns and verbs - in final *C-, which appear with -Ca or -Ce elsewhere, are just -C in Winnebago, per the examples above again. With *-a after velars this loss via *-e occurs with clear *-Ca forms like those in *-ka, e.g., the *pro-ka example, which is just nu in OP (no *-ka), but is -dok in Winnebago. The exception is cases where there is a sequence *-C-ka, which manifests as *-Cke. So *yaNt- 'heart', which manifests sometimes as if it had been *yaN(aN)t-e and sometimes as if *yaN(aN)t-ka (different classs of absolute marker?), appears in Winnebago as both naNaNc^ and naNaNc^ge. The same merger of post-velaric -a and -e is also attested in Ioway-Otoe. As the -Cke examples show, too, *C (when t or k) is voiceless in CC clusters, though *p becomes w, cf. *yaN(aN)tpa 'ear' > naNaNc^awa. The final -C forms do seem to voice when a resonant-initial enclitic is added to them, cf., -xjuk 'pulverized' (an instrumental stem), but xjuug-re 'be crushed'. Miner generally writes *C as voiced in SC clusters, again cf. -xjuk < *-xtuk-, or *ska 'white' > sgaa. With *p this voicing means w, as in *s^paN 'soft' > s^aN(aN)waN (length not expected here, but indicated by Miner). Probably the way to think of this is that *C is voiced in initial position and when it preceeds a resonant (before resonant-initial enclitics), and that *hC consistently loses preaspiration. (I think all initial voiceless stops are aspirated, and I think final ones probably are not, but merely unreleased.) This doesn't handle cases like *tp or *Sp, however. One very interesting thing about this system of changes though, is that final *-p actually does appear as -p ~ -b#r-. This is problematic because in Ioway-Otoe, where these final *-p are not final, since final *-e has not been lost, they appear as -w-, e.g., *sep- 'black' is e(e)we. The IO behavior suggests that all initial and final-medial *p > w in both Winnebago and Ioway-Otoe. In fact, since it is generally assumed that these two languages share a common ancestor later than Proto-Mississippi Valley, we could say this happened in Proto-Winnebago-Chiwere. But if it did happen that way, then when final *-e was lost, forms like Proto-Winebago-Chiwere (or Pre-Winnebago) *seewe (cf. IO (th>e(e)we) must have become seep, the form attested in Winnebago, with nominal reversal of *p > *w. What seems more likely is that Pre-Winnebago speakers were somehow aware that *w in this context was really or alternatively *p (or *b), perhaps because there were still at that time alternating forms like *seewe ~ *seep (or *seeb) in different contexts, not unlike the contemporary cases of (?) sapa ~ sap (or sab), *(wV-)ra(a)p- 'beaver' > c^hapa ~ c^hap (or c^hab) in Dakotan. Of course, such alternates are virtually eliminated in modern Winnebago, which is all seep, and modern Ioway-Otoe, which is all ewe. A possible exception to this is Winnebago was^c^iNiNk 'rabbit', but was^c^iNiNge-ga 'the Rabbit', in contrast with hi-dek, but dee(k)-ga 'uncle'. The -e- certainly looks like a relict *-e. Dhegiha tends to follow the Ioway-Otoe model, though we see probable reflexes of the *-C-e ~ *-C alternation in cases like *khet- 'shoulder' > OP iNkhede, but iNkhe-sabe 'black-shouldered' (epithet of the buffalo preserved in a clan name), with no -d(e). I believe the Dhegiha compounds with truncated first stems reflect phonetic loss of -C in relict *-C forms, since compounds are -C alternate contexts in Dakotan. In recalling the Winnebago-Chiwere shift of *p to *w, it might be appropriate to notice that something similar, occurring in a different and earlier context might explain the *b- (or *p-) ~ *wa- alternation in the Proto-Siouan first person. That is, perhaps we see here reflexes of **ba-, which becomes *wa-, except in contexts where it was reduced to *b- before certain consonants. (We might also wonder if *wa- (perhaps from **Ba-) occurs where it does (especially before *R and *CC-, including *hC- and *Ch- and *C?-) because epenthetic *a was needed there to simplify to *baCC- the **bCC cluster that would otherwise result. However, it is not necessary here to explain how we come to have the vocalic alternation that we find in *b- ~ *wa-.) John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Oct 17 23:39:54 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 17:39:54 -0600 Subject: PMS Correspondences [was Re: Winnebago *p > w (long)] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 17 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > MVS Da OP Os IO Winn > > *p p b p w *p p b p w w (I'm glossing over OP use of p in Sp clusters, and so on below for t and k.) > *t t d t j^ *t t d ~ j^ t ~ c d ~ j^ j^ ~ c^ OP has j^ in diminutives. Os has c before eiu and maybe some diminutives. IO has j^ before ei. Wi has c^ finally and in CC clusters. > *k k g k g *k k ~ c^ g k g g ~ k Da has c^ after i and some e. Wi has k finally and in CC clusters. > *hp ph pp hp ph *hp ph pp hp p p > *ht th tt ht th *ht th tt ~ c^c^ ht ~ hc t ~ c^ c^ OP, Os, and IO conditioning as for *t. > *hk kh kk hk kh *hk kh ~ c^h kk hk k k Da conditioning as for *k. > *ph ph ph ph w *ph ph ph ~ h ph ~ h w ~ h w ~ h Most of the languages have h in some forms, especially first person of 'to say'. OP also in *-phe 'travel' (uhe). Os ph is ps^/eiu ~ px. > *th h th th j^ *th h ~ th th ~ c^h th ~ ch d ~ j^ j^ Da has th in *waNtho 'grizzly', but mostly h. OP, Os, IO palatal variants as for *t. Os th is tx (tends to become kx). > *kh kh kh kh g *kh kh ~ c^h kh kh g g Da conditioning as for *k. Os kh is ks^ ~ kx, conditioning as for *ph. *p? p? p? p? p? p? *t? t? t? ~ c^? t? ~ c? t? ~ c^? c^? *k? k? ~ c^? ? k? k? k? Palatalization, again, as above. I seem to recall that one of the languages loses p in *p?, but ???? *s s s s t^ ~ h s *s^ s^/0 s^/h/0 s^/s s s^ *x x x x x x Here the /... variants occur in the second person of *r-stems and sometimes a few other forms (as in OP =s^na HABITUAL (or maybe better, EXCLUSIVELY). T^ is theta. IO has conservative variants that match Winnebago. The h alternant occurs in some clusters, e.g., sk can be sk, t^k, or hk. There is a voiced fricative set that parallels the voiceless one, and is often considered to derive from it. (See *y below for IO.) *s? s? s? c? t^? s? *s^? s^? s^? s^? s? s^? *x? x? ? k? x? x? *h h ~ 0 h h h h *? ? ? ? ? ? 0 is zero, of course! Da has 0 in at least the motion verbs, h mostly otherwise - nouns and statives. The ? set really refers to the ?-stem verbs, and is rather a vexed issue. You don't find ?-initial nouns or ? in medial or final position (except sporadically in Mandan). Usually ? otherwise in a sunchronic sense is a transition with some vowel sequences and an epenthetic initial before vowels. The ?-stem verbs usually lack ?, but sometimes have k? or s^? where k or s^ figure in some languages. They don't get epenthetic h in Wi. For the most part, however, ?-stems behave suspiciously like *V-initial stems, cf. *?uN leading to OP aN 'do': A1 m-aN < *w(a)-aN or *b-?aN or *p-?aN (?), A2 z^aN < *y(a)-aN or *s^-?aN (?). Wi is the only language that actually does have s^? in second persons. Other languages often borrow the *r-stem form and show n-. Interestingly enough, the only clear oral ?-verb known is ?o 'to shoot and wound' (or something like that) in older Wi. But *(h)u 'come' looks like one in the second part of older Da wahibu, yahinu, hiyu (A123). OP has phi, s^i, i (not *hi) (A123) even though it keeps h in verbs. [unk] 0 0 h h h This unknown initial occurs initially with the *[unk]aNp 'day(light)' set and at least one demonstrative *[unk]a- INDEFINITE. The first person agent behaves just a bit like this, if you consider only OP (a), IO (ha), Wi (ha). Os and Da break the pattern, with a and wa. *R l/... n t ~ c r d *W b/... m w w w Recall that *pr (or *wr or *br) often behaves as *R or *pR. So does *r in *sr and *s^r clusters, though the pattern do not correlate. Da l/.. refers to the dialect differences l ~ d ~ n, which get a bit more complex in conditioning around nasalization. Note that things like the diminutive =la are =daN in other dialects: presence of nasality varies with the dialect in certain morphemes. Da b/... seems to be b in Santee, but w in Teton. However, a few stems show m, e.g., me. Not sure what's up there. The stem *pi 'moon, sun' appears nasalized (miN) in Dhegiha. *r y dh dh r r *y c^h z^ z^ r ~ y r *w w w/0 w/0 w/h w/h Here the the /... alternates occur in the first person agent. Winnebago adds epenthetic h in the #V[short] context generally, but IO does not. Nobody can explain why IO has z^ in a few forms. For what it's worth, the one I remember is 'penis' PMV *ye. I've suggested that these are either loans from PDh (though they're very basic words, as can be seen), or that PCh was on the border between PDh and PWi and some words went one way and some another. Note that IO y and Dh z^ are essentially the same thing. I believe IO has y for z^ from *z^, too, but I'm not sure. I won't try to go into nasalized variants of *r (n) and *w (m). This is a rather vexed area. Basically, you get n and m with some unexpected oral reflexes, or n and m in nouns and oral reflexes (at least for *r) in verbs. I summarized this a while back to some extent with *r and *R and *pr. One example of a weird nasal set is *wiNh- 'female'. OP has miN (in names) and miNga 'female animal'. It doesn't sound especially nasal, at least in the latter. Da has wiN- (compounds) and wiNyaN. I take the latter to have the -a noun formant attached, with epenthetic y (from epenthetic *r, perhaps) and nasal spreading, i.e., *wiN-ra > wiNyaN. One possible explanation for the failure to nasalize w to m is the -h that is attested in some of the non-MV languages. I'd assume something like *wiNh-ra > *whiN-raN > wiN-yaN, but at least some reanalysis seems to be needed. By the way, Bob Rankin has been able to explain the Da -kha, OP -kka, IO/Wi -ke formant as what happens when you add *-ka to *h-final stems. So, you have to suppose that nouns like Da maNkha ~ OP maNkka are from *waNh-ka. But note that in this case you don't get *waNka in Da. You get -ke in IO and Wi because *a > e after a velar. Of course, you get -s-ke in *-s-ka nouns, too. But when you see apparent V-ke, it is from *Vh-ka. I couldn't seem to fit this in above without interrupting something: Os students like to write br (not bdh) for *pr in verb stems and verb inflection. I haven't dealt with clusters or vowels to any great extent in this summary, though they have been mentioned in passing. > One minor correction (I think): > > > *pro-ka 'male' > -dok 'augmentative' > [...] > > With *-a after velars this loss via *-e occurs with > > clear *-Ca forms like those in *-ka, e.g., the *pro-ka > > example, which is just nu in OP (no *-ka), but is -dok > > in Winnebago. > > Actually, 'male' in OP is nu'ga, which matches *pro-ka. > OP nu means 'man'. I omitted to say that OP has doublets for this form, with and without *-ka. Other languages don't. There's variation on *wiNh- 'female', too, with Dhegiha having doublets. I'm not sure that the qualifier reading of *-ka (applies in Dakotan, too) doesn't arise from its use as a nominalizer with what amount to relative clauses 'that which is a ...'. In any event, the glosses offered are the sort of generic glosses one might deduce for PMVS from the range of glosses in the individual languages. The CSD is more correct or assiduous with glosses. From Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc Wed Oct 22 13:14:31 2003 From: Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc (Louis Garcia) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 08:14:31 -0500 Subject: Hda / Sna Message-ID: Hi gang: I have a question for you guys: A new book was published by the Minnesota Historical Society this past summer "Being Dakota" The book is about the Amos OneRoad manuscript. Amos' Indian name is Mahpiyasna which he translated as Ringing Cloud. As far as I understand Hda is ringing. Sna is a rustling sound. We find this for the Dakota month for October Canwapekasna Wi or Rustling leaf moon. What are your thoughts? LouieG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcumberl at indiana.edu Wed Oct 22 17:13:04 2003 From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (lcumberl at indiana.edu) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 12:13:04 -0500 Subject: Hda / Sna In-Reply-To: <004901c3989e$6e08efc0$d200c90a@voced1> Message-ID: Hi Louie, Might -sna be a mis-transcription for s^na? In Assiniboine there is a root -s^na 'ring, jingle', (kas^sna 'to ring', s^na's^nana 'a bell') although we have one example in which snaN (with a nasalized a, and /s/ rather than /s^/)means 'jingle': snaNyena omanipi uNpi 'they're jingling as they walk around, as girls in jingle dresses' The root -xap is 'rustle', as in naxapxam 'making a rustling sound with the feet, as when walking in leaves' The root -xna is 'rattle', as in kaxna' and yuxna' 'to rattle, make a rattling sound' and kaxna'xnapina 'a rattle' Linda Quoting Louis Garcia : > Hi gang: > I have a question for you guys: > A new book was published by the Minnesota Historical Society this past summer > "Being Dakota" The book is about the Amos OneRoad manuscript. > Amos' Indian name is Mahpiyasna which he translated as Ringing Cloud. > As far as I understand Hda is ringing. Sna is a rustling sound. We find this > for the Dakota month for October Canwapekasna Wi or Rustling leaf moon. > What are your thoughts? > LouieG From Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc Wed Oct 22 21:04:27 2003 From: Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc (Louis Garcia) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 16:04:27 -0500 Subject: Hda / Sna Message-ID: Linda: The way sna is pronounced here, is unexasperated. I think that is the proper term. It is not xna. Just a plain old 's', ha!, ha! The name used here for Jingle dress is xdaxda sugsugnica. I hope I spelled sugnica correctly. The 'x' is an s with a dot over it. Toksta ake, LouieG From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Oct 23 04:07:19 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 22:07:19 -0600 Subject: Fricatives (was Re: Hda / Sna) In-Reply-To: <001a01c398e0$1460f2a0$d200c90a@voced1> Message-ID: On Wed, 22 Oct 2003, Louis Garcia wrote: > The name used here for Jingle dress is xdaxda sugsugnica. > I hope I spelled sugnica correctly. The 'x' is an s with a dot over it. Usage varies, historically, especially for Dakotan and Omaha and Winnebago - a function of the number of sources available. Under the one source - one orthography principle, the better documented a language is the more orthographies it has. There are three fricative series s, s^, x like English s, sh, and German ch, approximately. These also occur voiced (or less strident) z, z^, gh, like English s, English ge in garage (for some) or z in azure, essentially like French j. I can't think of any convenient widely known examples for gh! Like gh in ghage 'to cry' in OP, I guess. The s/z set is pretty much always written s/z, except in languages that change it to th/dh (like Ioway-Otoe), where theta and edh become more common. This is also what underlies LaFlesche's use of c-cedilla for both s and z in Omaha (and Osage). Apparently he spoke a variant of Omaha with th/dh for s/z. This is mentioned in once place in Dorsey's notes, as characteristic of Frank LaFlesche, and examples from Fletcher show it was fairly general in Bikkude (a/k/a Village of Make-Believe Whitemen). Dorsey used c-cedilla for theta and LaFlesche seems to have learned this from him. For sh/zh you see those diagraphs (not always convenient), or s^/z^ (representing s and z with a little "vee" (hacek) over them), the usual recent Americanist linguistic convention, or s-dot/z-dot, or s-accent/z-accent, or c or z for sh and j for zh or some combination of the last few. For x/gh (gh being a way to write gamma when you haven't got a gamma) you might see x and gamma (Greek g), the usual recent Americanist linguistic convention. The Colorado Lakota Project uses h^/g^ (same explanation of ^). Various sources use h-dot/g-dot. I haven't seen accents with h and g. Dorsey used q and x (q for x, x for gh!). LaFlesche crunches them together as x. Dakotanists are perfectly happy with g for gh, since contexts where gh occurs are contexts where g can't occur. You might find r for gh (based on what French r sounds like). Dorsey used this at one point. Of course, particular sources have some particular way of doing things, i.e., Riggs is internally consistent, Buechel is, Dorsey is, LaFlesche is, and so on. That is, these folks are consistent in a particular source. They often differ between publications, or between the draft in the archives and the published version, and so on. I haven't tried to list these particular schemes, however, but only to give a general idea of the variation you will encounter. I believe Linda used s, s^, x for Riggs's s, s-accent, h-dot and Buechel's s, s-dot, and h-dot. I'm not absolutely positive I remember these two gentlemens' practice! At this point I sort of see what it is when I open one of their books and go on without much of a pause. A Siouanist who isn't flexible in this respect is in a bad way ... As far as the precise senses of the sound symbolism sets for sounds, it wouldn't surprise me to see huge differences from one place to another, maybe from one family to another, maybe even from one idiom to another. One man's rattle is another man's buzz or ringing. Actually, in the high pitches a whistle in my left ear is a rattle in the right, I've discovered. Apparently something is broken in there. Particular names will probably always have the same sound value and same gloss, but might be wildly out of step with another person or place's preferred gloss of that sound value. This problem is even worse between languages. The CSD folks didn't want to allow themselves to freely compare any fricative to any other fricative - what we might call the Greenbergian approach - and had many anguished debates over this issue. They eventually developed some practical protocols - informed by the patterns of Siouan languages - under which they would look at sets with essentially a reconstruction of *S (a cover symbol for *s/*s^/*x) as opposed to *s, *s^ or *x. In such sets *S represents a set in which sound symbolism has been at work leaving non-corresponding fricative grades behind, e.g., forms that suggest *sra in one language, *s^ra and *xra not being in use; and forms that suggest *s^ra in another, *sra and *xra not being in use, and so on, but with clearly related glosses. These protocols interact with the requirement that a form be attested in at least 2 branches of Siouan as opposed to just Mississippi Valley. Actually, requiring attestation outside MV tends to clean up a lot of the worst cases of this sort of thing, I think. From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Thu Oct 23 15:44:26 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 10:44:26 -0500 Subject: Fricatives (was Re: Hda / Sna) Message-ID: John wrote: > I can't think of any convenient widely known examples for > gh! Like gh in ghage 'to cry' in OP, I guess. In teach-yourself language books, the example I've seen most often is German "sagen". (Accent on first syllable, pronounce 's' as [z], 'a' as [a], 'e' as schwa, 'n' as [n], and go into doing the 'g' in the middle as [g], except don't quite hit it. This produces a sound somewhere between [g] and [y]. English "say" is the same word; we took it all the way to [y].) > The s/z set is pretty much always written s/z, except in > languages that change it to th/dh (like Ioway-Otoe), where > theta and edh become more common. This is also what underlies > LaFlesche's use of c-cedilla for both s and z in Omaha > (and Osage). Apparently he spoke a variant of Omaha with > th/dh for s/z. This is mentioned in once place in Dorsey's > notes, as characteristic of Frank LaFlesche, and examples > from Fletcher show it was fairly general in Bikkude > (a/k/a Village of Make-Believe Whitemen). Dorsey used > c-cedilla for theta and LaFlesche seems to have learned this > from him. That's interesting. I've sometimes wondered too if one reason for LaFlesche's tendency to crunch the voiced and voiceless fricatives together wasn't related to the situation that Dorsey notes with a dot or cross under his 's' or 'c' ([s^]). As far as I can figure out, a properly voiceless sibilant ([s] or [s^]) appearing before a nasal consonant ([n] at least) or after a nasal vowel ([oN] at least) becomes somewhat voiced. I think what's happening is that the nasalization bleeds into the sibilant, so that the air stream goes out the nose. This mutes the hissing effect to the point that one might not be able to hear the sibilant at all without bringing voicing into that phase as well. In these situations, it's hard to decide whether to classify the phoneme as 's' or 'z', 's^' or 'z^'. An advantage of using c-cedilla is that one doesn't have to worry about that issue in dealing with [s] and [z]. He does distinguish [s^] from [z^] however, and I don't know that this nasal-muting issue involves the velar set of [h^] and [g^], which he also collapses. Rory From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU Thu Oct 23 15:42:59 2003 From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 09:42:59 -0600 Subject: Allan Taylor -- good news Message-ID: Many, if not most of you, know that Allan Taylor was diagnosed with bladder cancer a couple of months ago. He called me last night with some good news: he has just undergone an operation that took out the part of the bladder that was involved (it's a much longer story than that, but that's the important part), and it tested negative for cancer cells, as did the lymph nodes nearby. They'll continue to monitor him, of course, but for right now it looks like he caught it early and the prognosis is very good. Naturally, he's very happy. He'll be recovering at home for a while yet. David S. Rood Dept. of Linguistics Univ. of Colorado 295 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0295 USA rood at colorado.edu From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Oct 23 23:46:02 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 17:46:02 -0600 Subject: Fricatives (was Re: Hda / Sna) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 23 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > In teach-yourself language books, the example I've seen most > often is German "sagen". (Accent on first syllable, pronounce > 's' as [z], 'a' as [a], 'e' as schwa, 'n' as [n], and go into > doing the 'g' in the middle as [g], except don't quite hit it. > This produces a sound somewhere between [g] and [y]. English > "say" is the same word; we took it all the way to [y].) In Old English it is written sg ( = aesc, the ae digraph), but they usually put a dot over the g in modern student editions to remind you to pronounce it y. There's a long tradition among languages scholars of putting dots under and over things. JEK From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU Fri Oct 24 03:54:58 2003 From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 21:54:58 -0600 Subject: Fricatives (was Re: Hda / Sna) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: That's certainly not standard German pronunciation! For stage German and for the broadcast media, [g] between vowels is as much a voiced stop as it is in English. Only in the far south is orthographic "g" a fricative; in the northwest and in Berlin, it's usually become "y" (English y, IPA [j]). But either of those pronunciations will brand you as poorly educated anywhere outside the area where they're used regularly. David S. Rood Dept. of Linguistics Univ. of Colorado 295 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0295 USA rood at colorado.edu On Thu, 23 Oct 2003, Koontz John E wrote: > On Thu, 23 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > > In teach-yourself language books, the example I've seen most > > often is German "sagen". (Accent on first syllable, pronounce > > 's' as [z], 'a' as [a], 'e' as schwa, 'n' as [n], and go into > > doing the 'g' in the middle as [g], except don't quite hit it. > > This produces a sound somewhere between [g] and [y]. English > > "say" is the same word; we took it all the way to [y].) > > In Old English it is written sg ( = aesc, the ae digraph), but > they usually put a dot over the g in modern student editions to remind you > to pronounce it y. There's a long tradition among languages scholars of > putting dots under and over things. > > JEK > From johannes.helmbrecht at Uni-Erfurt.de Fri Oct 24 10:12:16 2003 From: johannes.helmbrecht at Uni-Erfurt.de (Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 12:12:16 +0200 Subject: Documentation of the Hocank language Message-ID: Dear Siouanists, I'd like to diseminate some information about a recently launched project for the documentation of the Hocank language via this list. It might be of interest for linguists working on other Siouan languages as well. The documentation project is one of about twenty or so projects within the large funding initiative for the documentation of endangered languages of the Volkswagen Foundation in Germany. The Volkswagen Foundation has nothing to do with cars as you might assume. It is a foundation with a remarkable budget (the money came originally from the privatization of the Volkswagen company - I guess way back in the 50ies)that aims at funding innovative research in various fields of science, and sometimes even in the humanities. The funding initiative for the documentation of endangered languages started a few years ago. The central goal of the specific projects is to create a representative text corpus of the specific endangered language including audio and video tapes of all kinds of text types such as narrations, conversations, and so on. The recordings of the texts have to be transcribed, grammatically glossed, and translated so that they are accessible for non-speakers of the language. The texts corpora will be archived at the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen (The Netherlands, they are supposed to be accessible to everyone, to the people of the community that is in danger of loosing its language, to linguists, to anthropologists etc. If you wish to learn more about the general outline of the funding initiative, check out the web sites of the Max Planck Institute and the Volkswagen Foundation: http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/ http://www.volkswagen-stiftung.de/suchen/index_e.html Now, I would like to turn over to an outline of the project for the documentation of the Hocank language. Within this three years project we try to accomplish several sub-projects. First of all, we work on a represenative corpus of texs, a kind of oral library of the Hocank language. We plan (and already have begun) to tape (audio and video)stories and conversations of all kinds of situations, participants, and genres. Because of the degree of endangerment of Hocank, there are some restrictions, e.g. it seems that parents - kids conversations are no longer possible to document and the like. But the situation is definitely much better in Hocank than in other languages such as in Wichita where only a few speakers and semi-speakers are left. The second sub-project of our project is the creation of a bidirectional dictionary Hocank-English and English-Hocank. We start from the various lexical studies that already exist and that are compiled in Valdis Zeps dictionary. We have already converted this dictionary into a shoebox database (with more than 6000 entries) and have begun to revise the entries linguistically. Josephien Withe Eagle's lexical study served in a way as a linguistic role model for the format of the entries. A lot of words are missing in the Zeps file, many entries lack grammatical information altogether, and many English glosses are wrong or rather missleading. Based on the glossing and translation of our recorded texts we will enrich and revise the whole dictionary within the next three years. The third sub-project is the grammatical description of the Hocank language. For quite a while, I am myself working on the grammar of Hocank. A first draft of the a grammar of Hocank will/ should (?) be written by the end of the next year. This grammar will go beyond the somewhat restricted morphological perspective of Lipkind and Susman. Currently, I am working hard to learn more about the syntax (simple and complex clauses etc.)of Hocank. I will also distribute some of my findings in form of papers to the Siouanists community so that they may be discussed from a wider Siouan point of view. The fourth sub-project is the development of linguistically structured teaching materials that should be helpfull useable for the language teachers of the Hocank Language Division (in Mauston, WI), as well as for the students. Here we are really starting from the scratch, although the Hocank Language Division has developed some materials mostly dealing with structured vocabularies. The grammar, the dictionary, and the text corpus we are working on should serve as a basis for this enterprise. It is also planned to teach the language teachers to use these materials efficiently. Such a project as the documentation of the Hocank language cannot be achieved by one person, we are a team and I should now introduce the individuals involved in this project. The directors of the project are Prof. Christian Lehmann and myself from the University of Erfurt, Germany. Prof. Lehmann has worked a lot on language endangerment and the possibilities of the docmentation of a language. He was also one of the group of German linguists who worked out a proposal for such a large funding initiative for the Volkswagen Foundation back in the second half of the 90ies. We have two co-workers, Nils Jahn, Juliane Lindenlaub (she joined us very recently), and a student aid, Iren Hartmann. This is the German side of the project that works in close cooperation with the Hocank side of the project. The Hocank side is basically the Hocank Language Division in Mauston, WI. The director of the Language Division, Willard Lonetree, has supported this project from the beginning. The trib al government, the legislators, approved this project as useful for the tribe and documented their commitment to this project by funding two additional positions in the Hocank Language Division particularly for this project. So there are two tribal members, Henning Garvin and Kjetil Lowe, who both graduated in linguistics. I think this should suffice for the moment, but I promise to add some news about the project occasionally in the future. **************************************************** Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht Universit?t Erfurt Seminar f?r Sprachwissenschaft Postfach 900221 D-99105 Erfurt, Deutschland Tel. ++49/ 361/ 737-4202 Fax. ++49/ 361/ 737-4209 E-Mail: johannes.helmbrecht at uni-erfurt.de **************************************************** From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Oct 24 19:40:40 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 13:40:40 -0600 Subject: Documentation of the Hocank language In-Reply-To: <3a6233c09d.3c09d3a623@uni-erfurt.de> Message-ID: On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht wrote: > I'd like to diseminate some information about a recently launched > project for the documentation of the Hocank language via this list. It > might be of interest for linguists working on other Siouan languages as > well. I'm looking forward to the results of this with great excitement! JEK From warr0120 at umn.edu Fri Oct 24 20:50:45 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (warr0120) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 15:50:45 CDT Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: This forward is in response to "General Motors Purchases Indian Languages" an spoof article from the Watley Review that someone posted to the Dakota and Ojibwe mailing lists at the university of minnesota a month ago. That article is available at: http://www.watleyreview.com/2003/072903-2.html Here's some of my thoughts: Sometimes funny things aren't so funny anymore. Here's a forward from the Siouan languages list. Keep in mind the key phrases "documentation of endangered languages", "so that they are accessible for non-speakers", "archived at the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics in The Netherlands", and "they are supposed to be accessible to everyone." It'll be great if it's true, right? While this may benefit the Hochank nation to some extent, the key attractiveness seems to be that it seems easy. A bunch of people want to do all this work for us? Great! But it scares me. It's the perennial outside expert problem magnified a thousand times. We, the experts, shall come to you, take your language, and store it for safe keeping in our museum in the Netherlands. Sounds kind of like Franz Boas' desperate need to import a few Eskimos from Greenland, then oops they died in his offices during their stay, and well, since they're already here, let's just put skeletons in these nice glass cases for 'posterity's sake'. It's so nice that all these academics can get paid, build their reputations, and help everyone feel good about "doing the right thing" and working like emergency room doctors to preserve these languages as they gasp their last breaths (while the cameras are rolling, of course). And then feel good that another large "corpus" (dead body) of data has been successfully removed from its environment to the safe keeping of some dominant cultural institution. What I would like to see is: Take that big chunk of money and GIVE IT TO THE HOCHUNK NATION to do this work themselves, and offer your expertise to help out. Use that money to put Hochank people in the position to be empowered, not further subjugated, objectified, and packaged for the museum. Like Darrell Kipp says, no you can't come make a movie about us. Give us the cameras, show us how to use them, and we'll make a movie about ourselves. And we'll make sure we get plenty of copies of the movie. But, no, look who's always got to be in the driver's seat (linguist, missionary, politician...) Here's the forward: Fwd: Documentation of the Hocank language: On 24 Oct 2003, Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht wrote: > Dear Siouanists, > > I'd like to diseminate some information about > a recently launched project for the documentation of > the Hocank language via this list. It might be of > interest for linguists working on other Siouan > languages as well. > > The documentation project is one of about twenty > or so projects within the large funding initiative > for the documentation of endangered languages of the > Volkswagen Foundation in Germany. The Volkswagen > Foundation has nothing to do with cars as you > might assume. It is a foundation with a > remarkable budget (the money came originally > from the privatization of the Volkswagen company > - I guess way back in the 50ies)that aims at funding > innovative research in various fields of science, > and sometimes even in the humanities. The funding > initiative for the documentation of endangered > languages started a few years ago. The central goal > of the specific projects is to create a > representative text corpus of the specific > endangered language including audio and video tapes > of all kinds of text types such as narrations, > conversations, and so on. The recordings of the > texts have to be transcribed, grammatically glossed, > and translated so that they are accessible for > non-speakers of the language. The texts corpora will > be archived at the Max Planck Institute of > Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen (The Netherlands, they > are supposed to be accessible to everyone, to the people of the community > that is in danger of loosing its language, to linguists, to anthropologists > etc. If you wish to learn more about the general outline of the funding > initiative, check out the web sites of the Max Planck Institute and the > Volkswagen Foundation: > > http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/ > http://www.volkswagen-stiftung.de/suchen/index_e.html > > Now, I would like to turn over to an outline of the project for the > documentation of the Hocank language. Within this three years project we try > to accomplish several sub-projects. First of all, we work on a represenative > corpus of texs, a kind of oral library of the Hocank language. We plan (and > already have begun) to tape (audio and video)stories and conversations of all > kinds of situations, participants, and genres. Because of the degree of > endangerment of Hocank, there are some restrictions, e.g. it seems that > parents - kids conversations are no longer possible to document and the like. > But the situation is definitely much better in Hocank than in other languages > such as in Wichita where only a few speakers and semi-speakers are left. > > The second sub-project of our project is the creation of a bidirectional > dictionary Hocank-English and English-Hocank. We start from the various > lexical studies that already exist and that are compiled in Valdis Zeps > dictionary. We have already converted this dictionary into a shoebox database > (with more than 6000 entries) and have begun to revise the entries > linguistically. Josephien Withe Eagle's lexical study served in a way as a > linguistic role model for the format of the entries. A lot of words are > missing in the Zeps file, many entries lack grammatical information > altogether, and many English glosses are wrong or rather missleading. Based > on the glossing and translation of our recorded texts we will enrich and > revise the whole dictionary within the next three years. > > The third sub-project is the grammatical description of the Hocank language. > For quite a while, I am myself working on the grammar of Hocank. A first > draft of the a grammar of Hocank will/ should (?) be written by the end of > the next year. This grammar will go beyond the somewhat restricted > morphological perspective of Lipkind and Susman. Currently, I am working hard > to learn more about the syntax (simple and complex clauses etc.)of Hocank. I > will also distribute some of my findings in form of papers to the Siouanists > community so that they may be discussed from a wider Siouan point of view. > > The fourth sub-project is the development of linguistically structured > teaching materials that should be helpfull useable for the language teachers > of the Hocank Language Division (in Mauston, WI), as well as for the > students. Here we are really starting from the scratch, although the Hocank > Language Division has developed some materials mostly dealing with structured > vocabularies. The grammar, the dictionary, and the text corpus we are working > on should serve as a basis for this enterprise. It is also planned to teach > the language teachers to use these materials efficiently. > > Such a project as the documentation of the Hocank language cannot be achieved > by one person, we are a team and I should now introduce the individuals > involved in this project. The directors of the project are Prof. Christian > Lehmann and myself from the University of Erfurt, Germany. Prof. Lehmann has > worked a lot on language endangerment and the possibilities of the > docmentation of a language. He was also one of the group of German linguists > who worked out a proposal for such a large funding initiative for the > Volkswagen Foundation back in the second half of the 90ies. We have two > co-workers, Nils Jahn, Juliane Lindenlaub (she joined us very recently), and > a student aid, Iren Hartmann. This is the German side of the project that > works in close cooperation with the Hocank side of the project. The Hocank > side is basically the Hocank Language Division in Mauston, WI. The director > of the Language Division, Willard Lonetree, has supported this project from > the beginning. The trib > al government, the legislators, approved this project as useful for the tribe > and documented their commitment to this project by funding two additional > positions in the Hocank Language Division particularly for this project. So > there are two tribal members, Henning Garvin and Kjetil Lowe, who both > graduated in linguistics. > > I think this should suffice for the moment, but I promise to add some news > about the project occasionally in the future. > > > **************************************************** > > Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht > Universit?t Erfurt > Seminar f?r Sprachwissenschaft > Postfach 900221 > D-99105 Erfurt, Deutschland > Tel. ++49/ 361/ 737-4202 > Fax. ++49/ 361/ 737-4209 > E-Mail: johannes.helmbrecht at uni-erfurt.de > > **************************************************** p.s. how much will it cost to put the Hochunk Nation on a plane to the Netherlands? From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Oct 24 21:32:47 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 15:32:47 -0600 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language In-Reply-To: <200310242050.h9OKojtP027259@dingo.software.umn.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, warr0120 wrote: > Sometimes funny things aren't so funny anymore. I guess reactions are mixed. I should perhaps point out for the benefit of those who don't know that warr0120 is Pat Warren at the U of Minnesota. It hadn't dawned on me that the "General Motors Acquires ..." humor articles were perhaps spoofing the Volkswagon grants. I guess I had those imbecilic (Sony?) ads with the clicks in mind. I have to admit that I consider documentation projects to be good things, and I believe that Volkswagon has a good track record as far as getting the contracted work done. Anyone who's every worked on language knows that the only way to get a reasonable amount of work done is to spend a lifetime on it. Several lifetimes, actually. If you can find somebody who will pay some of the incidental costs, so nuch the better. Apart from that, I have a pretty good opinion of Johannes Helmbrecht, based on his work on Winnebago to date. He's been a long term member of the list and occasional contributor. I appreciate him letting us know what's going on. JEK From hhgarvin at hotmail.com Sat Oct 25 15:04:53 2003 From: hhgarvin at hotmail.com (Henning Garvin) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 10:04:53 -0500 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: Since my name has been mentioned in the note from Johannes about the Hocank Documentation Project, I would like to reply to some of the apparent jeers directed at this project. The Volkswagen grant is a wholly cooperative venture Between our Nation and the administrators of the grant First of all, my self and another young lady are both enrolled members of the Hocank Nation, both of us born and raised within our communities. We have been put on this project because it has already been recognized that research is better if conducted from within the community rather than by an outsider. (yes, we have all read 'Deconstructing Methodologies' and realize it can be extrapolated to a variety of fields) An extensive project such as this has never been undertaken before, regarding the Hocank Language. We don't have the material this project has the opportunity to provide. Kjetil and I have degrees in Linguistics, but you should all know that an undergraduate degree does not provide the experience or expertise necessary to do a project such as this on our own. Johannes and his "crew" will provide that background. The data we gather will be archived in Nimjegen, but we also will have that Data in our own archives within the Nation. Our Division Manager coined the term "Oral Library" for this purpose and it will be used both as teaching tools and repository of data for future generations. The currciculum developers will be responsible for creating useable teaching material based on the outcomes of this project. We, as members of our tribe, will be ascertaining the needs of our potential learners and trying to determine the best method of presentation. WE will be determining how best to use what has been done. We also fully realize that the use of grammatically oriented material is not the only way to teach a language. Our Language Division is currently involved in numerous projects including, Immersion, Master-Apprentice Program, Language Nests, and others. The threat of Language extinction is too great to solely focus on one method. So rest assured we are not leaving other proven methods in the dust for the sake of an outsiders research. As far as the motivations of our researchers, I know plenty of people that do work such as this to further their own career. Fortunately, I have met Johannes and have been able to see his respectfulness and how genuine he is about preserving not only the Hocank language, but endangered languages in general. People tend to forget when they make off hand accusations such as this that they usually haven't met the people it is directed at and are, at that point, working off stereotypes. Even if Johannes' motivations were not solely for the sake of our language, which I think I have stated they surely are, he would still be providing something of benefit. We could still get alot of use out of what he will produce, even if he was "doing it for his own career". Lastly, it would have been great if the money were given to the tribe directly, but guess what? We don't have anybody in the tribe the expertise or experience necesary to do this project, so we probably would have had to hire an outside white linguist anyway, so what is the difference. Our language division, our president, and our legislators made the decision that this would be a good project and could benefit our Nation greatly. Most importantly, the men of our traditional Court, our Clan Leaders including our Traditional Chief, agreed that this could work well for our people. I was brought up not to question them, so those of you who disagree and insist on casting a shadow on what we are trying to do, I can put you into contact and you can take it up with them. Henning Garvin Linguistic research Ho-Chunk Nation Language Division >From: Koontz John E >Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu >To: Siouan List >Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language >Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 15:32:47 -0600 (MDT) > >On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, warr0120 wrote: > > Sometimes funny things aren't so funny anymore. > >I guess reactions are mixed. I should perhaps point out for the benefit >of those who don't know that warr0120 is Pat Warren at the U of Minnesota. >It hadn't dawned on me that the "General Motors Acquires ..." humor >articles were perhaps spoofing the Volkswagon grants. I guess I had those >imbecilic (Sony?) ads with the clicks in mind. > >I have to admit that I consider documentation projects to be good things, >and I believe that Volkswagon has a good track record as far as getting >the contracted work done. Anyone who's every worked on language knows >that the only way to get a reasonable amount of work done is to spend a >lifetime on it. Several lifetimes, actually. If you can find somebody >who will pay some of the incidental costs, so nuch the better. > >Apart from that, I have a pretty good opinion of Johannes Helmbrecht, >based on his work on Winnebago to date. He's been a long term member of >the list and occasional contributor. I appreciate him letting us know >what's going on. > >JEK _________________________________________________________________ Want to check if your PC is virus-infected? Get a FREE computer virus scan online from McAfee. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com Sat Oct 25 19:51:08 2003 From: dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com (David Kaufman) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 12:51:08 -0700 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Siouanists: While I can certainly understand Pat Warren's concerns about language and linguistic data being locked away in some "ivory tower" with only limited academic access and a continuation of European and/or European-American subjugation and dominance over indigenous peoples, I think we need to be careful about "reverse" prejudice or stereotyping (to use Henning's word) and lumping all "linguists" into a common mold who are only looking out for themselves and have no genuine interest in the people and culture who speak the languages they work with. I admit I'm still a "fledgling" linguist barely leaving the nest to try flying on my own, but I, for one, see my interest in Native American languages and linguistics less as a "linguist" and more as someone who can offer his language and linguistic skills and abilities to serve the benefit and betterment of the world by helping to at least slow down or, better, reverse the death process of endangered languages and cultures. Personally, I don't see how linguists can possibly be involved in such revitalization efforts without having any interest or respect for the people and culture who use the language. As a linguist/language teacher/language learner/writer, I think it's important to what I call "ground" yourself in the language, meaning have at least some knowledge of the land, people, and culture in order to successfully learn or research a language and help in these revitalization efforts. Personally, I have been invited by Henning to work with his tribe and Johannes in some capacity in their language documentation and revitalization efforts. I feel honored to be invited, by a member of the tribe no less, to assist in their revitalization efforts. I would hope that whatever work I do would NOT be stored away in some back office or closet somewhere. I would wholly intend for it to be shared and used for teaching purposes (maybe that's just the teacher in me!). When we leave the world, none of what we've accomplished will mean much except if it's shared and used for the benefit of future generations. That's my thought for the day, anyway! Dave Kaufman Koontz John E wrote:On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, warr0120 wrote: > Sometimes funny things aren't so funny anymore. I guess reactions are mixed. I should perhaps point out for the benefit of those who don't know that warr0120 is Pat Warren at the U of Minnesota. It hadn't dawned on me that the "General Motors Acquires ..." humor articles were perhaps spoofing the Volkswagon grants. I guess I had those imbecilic (Sony?) ads with the clicks in mind. I have to admit that I consider documentation projects to be good things, and I believe that Volkswagon has a good track record as far as getting the contracted work done. Anyone who's every worked on language knows that the only way to get a reasonable amount of work done is to spend a lifetime on it. Several lifetimes, actually. If you can find somebody who will pay some of the incidental costs, so nuch the better. Apart from that, I have a pretty good opinion of Johannes Helmbrecht, based on his work on Winnebago to date. He's been a long term member of the list and occasional contributor. I appreciate him letting us know what's going on. JEK --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From warr0120 at umn.edu Sat Oct 25 22:29:58 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (warr0120) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 17:29:58 CDT Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: John, Henning, and David: I forwarded your messages to the Dakota and Ojibwe mailing lists at the u of mn. These are the adresses for those lists, if anyone's interested: dakota-net at mail.socsci.umn.edu ojibwe-net at mail.socsci.umn.edu You can subscribe to them here: https://mail.socsci.umn.edu/mailman/listinfo/dakota-net https://mail.socsci.umn.edu/mailman/listinfo/ojibwe-net I hope you guys are okay that I make sure everyone gets your ideas. Thanks for responding, by the way. Pat Warren From warr0120 at umn.edu Sat Oct 25 22:52:50 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (warr0120) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 17:52:50 CDT Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: Well, Henning, I wish YOU had been the one to inform people in the first place about the project and a Hocank person and scholar's perspective on it. Thank you for addressing some of the issues that were not addressed in Johannes' email. Seeing the project from a Hocank perspective is exactly what I find most important, and almost always missing from linguists' and anthros' work who claim authorship or directorship and leave no space for the voices of the community being studied to come through enedited, as far as how they view the project. (except see Young Bear and Theisz 1994, Standing in the light a Lakota way of seeing, with an introduction written by the primary informant.) My immediate concern is the extreme emphasis on documentation, which to be done well and usefully does require expertise and much attention to detail. But documentation can be a distraction, one of those activities that can let you feel busy and productive while the real problems continue unhindered, and can even exacerbate the problems of identity as reliance on experts from outside the community becomes more acute. I know the powerful roles that documentation can play for self-empowerment and language revitalization in particular. But I wish people's first initiative when big sums of money came around was NOT to manufacture objects: dictionaries, grammars, "children's" books, videotapes, or interactive cdroms, that make you feel proud, but are static. It would seem much more important to spend every penny possible getting all the fluent speakers together with children in the community so the language can be passed on in the most efficient and natural way possible. And probably the only really lasting way of language transmission for a whole culture. I hope the Hocank nation is successful in its current use of natural language learning methods, but I will NOT rest assured. Every step toward strengthening natural language and culture transmission is an amazing and important experience. But it will never be enough. The tide against the language and culture is so very strong. (By the way I'm offering these thought in general, not just as response to you, Henning - you clearly emphasized much of this in your own email.) I see the training of new generations of teachers as essential, people with voracious scholarly appetites (I hope you're hungry Henning, and from the emails you send to the Siouan languages list, I think you fit my stereotype of a healthy native scholar) and acccess to great materials, who can create new materials: but all so that ADULTS who need to learn the language can learn. Kids don't need dictionaries or picture books. They need fluent adult speakers who care for them and spend extended time with them, giving them encouragement, love, and a positive identity in the language. You can't get that from materials, not matter how interactive they are. I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different when you do get to meet people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is minimized. When motives and hopes aren't discused, I fear the continuation of the colonization and genocide project. No one is doing it intentionally, but if the sum of many well-funded projects continues to shift focus away from the real activities of language empowerment (fluent speakers spending lots of caring time with younger people, most especially), I fear that people with amazing skills and inspiration like you, Henning, will spend mountains of effort on endeavors with very low leverage, as far as getting the language to the next generation, and insuring the language as a source of life-giving identity for everyone (not just the few kids who excel in language classes). At the very least when someone promotes a project, I wish they would say WHY they're doing it, what their feelings about the situation and propsed project are. Motivation, to me, is always more important than credentials, because motivation seems a greater determinant of good work than initials after your name. Though it seems the longer your CV, the less people feel they should explain themselves. But that is definitely my stereotype of academics (though not totally unfounded). I envision using all resources to get people who are fluent in the language and culture together with young people in a positive environment where healthy identities can be nurtured in the language. It is those people who learn the natural way that will grow up and produce the great literature appropriate to a healthy literate language. It's great when a few individuals create strong indentities in their traditional cultures, but a few people commited to acquiring and documenting the language, even supported by a whole army of (non-speaking) linguists isn't going to tip the balances against the forces of hundreds of years of ever more refined and invisible genocide. (see http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/ for the original United Nations definition of genocide, before the big nations who regularly practice it trimmed the convention down a lot, and see Churchill 1997, A little matter of genocide, Chapter 7 "The United States and the Genocide Convention" p.363-398, for an enlightnening discussion of the matter...actually no, you should just read the whole book.) When it comes down to it, I see myself and all other academics, as agents of the dominant culture. (see Churchill 1997 p.93-94, "The specter of Hannibal Lecter", for discussion of some unintended (at least consciously) consequences of academic work) Whether or not we want to admit it, and it's really better if we DO admit it, we are possbily the ones who will finalize the genocide (e.g., by focusing everyone's attention away from what would really make the difference, like dealing with the social problems that lead to negative identity and hence language loss), or else we finalize the acculturation of indigenous people into the dominant culture (e.g., by convincing people of the necessity of being liguists and converting the language to a corpus of bastardized english-dependent texts; when IS somebody going to write a real native language dicitonary? an english dictionary doesn't explain everything in Hocank, so why do native language dictionaries convert everything to english?). So when intiative (even my own) comes from outside a native community and works its way into the community, I fear for what we are all not seeing. At least the Hocank nation gets to archive the material at home, and they already do have strong language efforts underway. Now why didn't Johannes mention that? Sorry if I've attacked individuals too strongly (or whole nations). But criticism is a good thing, I think. It's all the talk about etymolgies and semantics and dictionaries (which I do enjoy) while I know there's little kids who could be learning the language who are being forgotten. If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... But why do academics RALLY do their work? (see Hull 1988, Science as a process, for the best psychosocial analysis of academia I've ever seen...then you'll see where my stereotypes come from, personified by real people I know/am.) I'll stop talking now, Pat Warren From kdshea at ku.edu Sun Oct 26 01:35:11 2003 From: kdshea at ku.edu (Kathleen Shea) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 20:35:11 -0500 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: I didn't know where to jump into this conversation. Just to get a cultural background from a Ponca perspective on "Indian perfume," I checked by phone with my main consultant, Uncle Parrish Williams. He called it i'nubdhaN'khidhe (with ' indicating that the preceding syllable is accented) 'You smell like a man' (his gloss). Several years ago he had shown me some that he kept in a handkerchief, and he repeated what he had told me then--that men would wear the perfume (an amount about the size of a silver dollar in a handkerchief in the pocket or elsewhere) as a deodorant. Sometimes it was used to attract women, but it could also be used every day and could be smelled about 10 feet away from a dancer who was wearing it. He said that there are four kinds of Indian perfume but only three are used. (The kind that isn't used is called nuga' 'male.') The three that are used vary from mild in fragrance with a smell like an orange peeling, a stronger smelling type, and a third that smells really strong. The second type of plant, with the smell of middle strength is the one preferred. He says that all the plants look alike, with purple flowers and leaves that are really green. They grow in clumps about two feet tall, except the very stong smelling one, which is small and grows only about 4-5" high. They can be replanted, but they won't propagate and will quit growing if someone keeps picking them. Uncle Parrish says that that's the reason that he would always keep three different plants going in the wild and would keep the knowledge of their whereabouts to himself, so that no one would over-harvest them. Most of the time, he would just use the leaves and not the flowers; the flowers can be used, but the seeds from the flowers are needed for new growth. Other people have told me that Indian perfume is hard to find and that you will usually smell it before you see it. Another of my consultants, Grandma Edna Hinman, sadly now dhiNge' ('gone'), told me that women would put the Indian perfume in their mouth and blow it on a shawl to perfume the shawl. Uncle Parrish confirms this and says that the women would chew the leaves (about 1/2 teaspoon) and just use their saliva for the liquid with which to spray the shawl. About the near non-existence of the word ppi 'good' in Ponca, I have a few thoughts about what might be some fossilized instances of it in certain words. One is a word for 'to love,' ppi/dhe (with the slash here to show where the person markers can attach), so that 'I love you' is ppiwidhe. Uncle Parrish describes this as "puppy love," and LaFlesche's Osage dictionary lists it as 'the love of a woman for a man or boy.' Another remnant of ppi might be seen in ppiduba 'some more' (duba 'more'), as in, MakkaN sabe ppiduba akkigdhize ttiNkhe, 'I'm going to get myself some more coffee.' I'm sure there must be some more instances of ppi.... Kathy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rory M Larson" To: Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 10:05 PM Subject: Re: Indian perfume set. > > John wrote: > > Another point, which the Dhegihanists are aware of, > > but maybe not others, is that OP *ppi 'good' is > > completely obsolete. In fact, I think *ppi is > > obsolete throughout Dhegiha. It exists in a few fossil > > forms, e.g., ppi'=az^i ~ ppez^i' 'bad < good + not'. > > The usual OP term for 'good' is u(u)daN. > > This is a good point, and it might help to explain > the outcome in OP of the first syllable. For a > Dhegihan speaker, the first syllable *hpi=u- would > be unanalyzable because they no longer had the word > *ppi. But since the second syllable *braN was clear, > there would be some motivation to reanalyze the first > syllable into a familiar morpheme. > > > > The Osage cognate of this - o(o)taN - means essentially > > 'be a coup'. > > "Be a coup"?? Do you mean as in 'counting coup'? > I don't understand this translation. > > > > Anyway, if nubdhaN < *p(p)y=obdhaN then it isn't > > likely to be a recent form. This is also evident > > in the necessity that any such form has undergone > > the *py > *pr > *R changes, with *R subsequently > > becoming n in OP by regular sound changes. > > Corresponding Osage, Kaw, and Quapaw forms would > > be *tobraN, *doblaN, and, I think, *topdaN or *dobdaN - > > I forget how the *R and *pr sounds come out in Quapaw > > at the moment! I don't believe there are any cases > > of n ~ bdh alternations in OP at present. That is, > > there is no perceptible contemporary connection > > between the two. > > If nubdhaN is coming from MVS (Hypothesis 1), then > it certainly wouldn't be recent. If it is coming > as a loan from a prehistoric IOM *pyobraN or *pyubraN > (Hypothesis 2), then the most likely time for it > to happen would be at the *pr stage of the above > sequence (assuming OP nu < *pro, but not < *pyo). > Since all the Dhegihan languages have single > consonant sounds where the *pr should be, I would > suppose that *pr had gone to *R before Dhegihan > diverged. That would favor putting the borrowing > after proto-MVS but before proto-Dhegihan (Hypothesis 2a). > On the other hand, the circumstantial considerations that > this set apparently exists only in IOM and OP, and > that there are traditions of OP and IO associating > with each other after the divergence of OP, and that the > IO template pyu- is a significantly modified contraction > of the hypothetical proto-MVS *hpi=o-, make the > idea of a later transference tempting (Hypothesis 2b). > > For Hypothesis 2, these considerations might be > resolved if we imagine proto-Dhegihan existing as > a dialect field over a wide area for a period of > several centuries. During this period, *pr > *R, > and thence toward its reflexes in the various > Dhegihan daughter languages, which are still > contiguous dialects. During the same period, > proto-IOM lives in a neighborhood adjacent to the > pre-proto-OP part of Dhegihan, and maintains > especially close relations with these people. > Early in the proto-Dhegihan phase, pre-proto-OP > adopts and readapts the proto-IOM word for mint, > IOM *pyubraN > pre-proto-OP *prubraN, where > *pru is reinterpreted as 'potato'. Later > in the phase, this evolves to *RubraN and still > later to *nubdhaN. Finally, in the course of > some crisis, the proto-OP people move away from > the other Dhegihan groups, accompanied by their > IO associates. > > Otherwise, we always have Hypothesis 3, which > holds that the first syllables of IOM pyubraN > and OP nubdhaN are only coincidentally similar! > > Rory > > > From kdshea at ku.edu Sun Oct 26 02:37:31 2003 From: kdshea at ku.edu (Kathleen Shea) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 21:37:31 -0500 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: I think that we all have our built-in biases and that learning to function within another culture can often be an uncomfortable process, even though it's ultimately worthwhile and rewarding. Often we don't learn without making mistakes and stepping on someone's toes, and it seems that growth doesn't occur without some struggle and overcoming obstacles. I don't know if Pat is Hocank or has ever tried to work within a community on language maintenance, but it can be a humbling experience. Often there are many seemingly more immediate problems to be overcome, hindered in their solution by many political and economic limitations. Every community is different, and a "one-size-fits-all" approach doesn't work. Sure, it would be great if languages could be passed down as they traditionally have been, orally, from parent to child, but what do you do if the speakers are all great-grandparents of not-very-good health, even if a preschool exists? What do you do if a federally funded program that helps parents with young children get their GED's (i.e., Even Start) won't let the parents or children learn their ancestral language as part of the program? And so on.... A grassroots effort is definitely needed, with people in the community aware enough of the need to be behind it, and it takes more than just one person--if that's what the community wants. The logistics can be daunting. I don't think any of us academic "experts" know what works best when it comes to passing on a language, other than the tried-and-true traditional way, but I would think that the more approaches used the better. I do agree with Pat, though, that linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying. (I believe it was Durbin Feeling at a sovereignty conference in Tulsa several years ago who first encouraged me to do this.) Kathy Shea ----- Original Message ----- From: "warr0120" To: ; ; Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 5:52 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language > Well, Henning, I wish YOU had been the one to inform people in the first > place about the project and a Hocank person and scholar's perspective on > it. Thank you for addressing some of the issues that were not addressed in > Johannes' email. Seeing the project from a Hocank perspective is exactly > what I find most important, and almost always missing from linguists' and > anthros' work who claim authorship or directorship and leave no space for > the voices of the community being studied to come through enedited, as far > as how they view the project. (except see Young Bear and Theisz 1994, > Standing in the light a Lakota way of seeing, with an introduction written > by the primary informant.) > > My immediate concern is the extreme emphasis on documentation, which to be > done well and usefully does require expertise and much attention to detail. > But documentation can be a distraction, one of those activities that can > let you feel busy and productive while the real problems continue > unhindered, and can even exacerbate the problems of identity as reliance on > experts from outside the community becomes more acute. > > I know the powerful roles that documentation can play for self-empowerment > and language revitalization in particular. But I wish people's first > initiative when big sums of money came around was NOT to manufacture > objects: dictionaries, grammars, "children's" books, videotapes, or > interactive cdroms, that make you feel proud, but are static. It would seem > much more important to spend every penny possible getting all the fluent > speakers together with children in the community so the language can be > passed on in the most efficient and natural way possible. And probably the > only really lasting way of language transmission for a whole culture. I > hope the Hocank nation is successful in its current use of natural language > learning methods, but I will NOT rest assured. Every step toward > strengthening natural language and culture transmission is an amazing and > important experience. But it will never be enough. The tide against the > language and culture is so very strong. (By the way I'm offering these > thought in general, not just as response to you, Henning - you clearly > emphasized much of this in your own email.) > > I see the training of new generations of teachers as essential, people with > voracious scholarly appetites (I hope you're hungry Henning, and from the > emails you send to the Siouan languages list, I think you fit my stereotype > of a healthy native scholar) and acccess to great materials, who can create > new materials: but all so that ADULTS who need to learn the language can > learn. Kids don't need dictionaries or picture books. They need fluent > adult speakers who care for them and spend extended time with them, giving > them encouragement, love, and a positive identity in the language. You > can't get that from materials, not matter how interactive they are. > > I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work > with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and > hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at > least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different when you do get to meet > people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That > may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship > as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is > minimized. > > When motives and hopes aren't discused, I fear the continuation of the > colonization and genocide project. No one is doing it intentionally, but if > the sum of many well-funded projects continues to shift focus away from the > real activities of language empowerment (fluent speakers spending lots of > caring time with younger people, most especially), I fear that people with > amazing skills and inspiration like you, Henning, will spend mountains of > effort on endeavors with very low leverage, as far as getting the language > to the next generation, and insuring the language as a source of > life-giving identity for everyone (not just the few kids who excel in > language classes). At the very least when someone promotes a project, I > wish they would say WHY they're doing it, what their feelings about the > situation and propsed project are. Motivation, to me, is always more > important than credentials, because motivation seems a greater determinant > of good work than initials after your name. Though it seems the longer your > CV, the less people feel they should explain themselves. But that is > definitely my stereotype of academics (though not totally unfounded). > > I envision using all resources to get people who are fluent in the language > and culture together with young people in a positive environment where > healthy identities can be nurtured in the language. It is those people who > learn the natural way that will grow up and produce the great literature > appropriate to a healthy literate language. It's great when a few > individuals create strong indentities in their traditional cultures, but a > few people commited to acquiring and documenting the language, even > supported by a whole army of (non-speaking) linguists isn't going to tip > the balances against the forces of hundreds of years of ever more refined > and invisible genocide. (see > http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/ for the original > United Nations definition of genocide, before the big nations who regularly > practice it trimmed the convention down a lot, and see Churchill 1997, A > little matter of genocide, Chapter 7 "The United States and the Genocide > Convention" p.363-398, for an enlightnening discussion of the > matter...actually no, you should just read the whole book.) > > When it comes down to it, I see myself and all other academics, as agents > of the dominant culture. (see Churchill 1997 p.93-94, "The specter of > Hannibal Lecter", for discussion of some unintended (at least consciously) > consequences of academic work) Whether or not we want to admit it, and it's > really better if we DO admit it, we are possbily the ones who will finalize > the genocide (e.g., by focusing everyone's attention away from what would > really make the difference, like dealing with the social problems that lead > to negative identity and hence language loss), or else we finalize the > acculturation of indigenous people into the dominant culture (e.g., by > convincing people of the necessity of being liguists and converting the > language to a corpus of bastardized english-dependent texts; when IS > somebody going to write a real native language dicitonary? an english > dictionary doesn't explain everything in Hocank, so why do native language > dictionaries convert everything to english?). So when intiative (even my > own) comes from outside a native community and works its way into the > community, I fear for what we are all not seeing. > > At least the Hocank nation gets to archive the material at home, and they > already do have strong language efforts underway. Now why didn't Johannes > mention that? Sorry if I've attacked individuals too strongly (or whole > nations). But criticism is a good thing, I think. It's all the talk about > etymolgies and semantics and dictionaries (which I do enjoy) while I know > there's little kids who could be learning the language who are being > forgotten. > > If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally > acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... But why do academics > RALLY do their work? (see Hull 1988, Science as a process, for the best > psychosocial analysis of academia I've ever seen...then you'll see where my > stereotypes come from, personified by real people I know/am.) > > > I'll stop talking now, > Pat Warren > From dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com Sun Oct 26 04:17:32 2003 From: dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com (David Kaufman) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 21:17:32 -0700 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language In-Reply-To: <200310252252.h9PMqoqY004279@fantasy.software.umn.edu> Message-ID: Pat, --I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different when you do get to meet people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is minimized.-- I hope that, in my email, I did just that. Thank you for forwarding it on to other lists by the way. I agree, the more we talk about our motivations and reasons for doing things, the better. Sometimes we ourselves may not know exactly why we're doing something until we try to verbalize it to others! --If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... -- Again, I hope I gave some indication of that on a personal level, since I am currently a language teacher (Spanish) as well as learner (several). I am interested not only in the STUDY of language, but also in the DISSEMINATION of language. I am no where near being able to teach a Native American language, of course, but if I could help those within the tribe to disseminate their language to other members of the tribe, I would be glad to assist in any way I could based on current skills and experience. Thanks for your thoughts and input! Dave warr0120 wrote: Well, Henning, I wish YOU had been the one to inform people in the first place about the project and a Hocank person and scholar's perspective on it. Thank you for addressing some of the issues that were not addressed in Johannes' email. Seeing the project from a Hocank perspective is exactly what I find most important, and almost always missing from linguists' and anthros' work who claim authorship or directorship and leave no space for the voices of the community being studied to come through enedited, as far as how they view the project. (except see Young Bear and Theisz 1994, Standing in the light a Lakota way of seeing, with an introduction written by the primary informant.) My immediate concern is the extreme emphasis on documentation, which to be done well and usefully does require expertise and much attention to detail. But documentation can be a distraction, one of those activities that can let you feel busy and productive while the real problems continue unhindered, and can even exacerbate the problems of identity as reliance on experts from outside the community becomes more acute. I know the powerful roles that documentation can play for self-empowerment and language revitalization in particular. But I wish people's first initiative when big sums of money came around was NOT to manufacture objects: dictionaries, grammars, "children's" books, videotapes, or interactive cdroms, that make you feel proud, but are static. It would seem much more important to spend every penny possible getting all the fluent speakers together with children in the community so the language can be passed on in the most efficient and natural way possible. And probably the only really lasting way of language transmission for a whole culture. I hope the Hocank nation is successful in its current use of natural language learning methods, but I will NOT rest assured. Every step toward strengthening natural language and culture transmission is an amazing and important experience. But it will never be enough. The tide against the language and culture is so very strong. (By the way I'm offering these thought in general, not just as response to you, Henning - you clearly emphasized much of this in your own email.) I see the training of new generations of teachers as essential, people with voracious scholarly appetites (I hope you're hungry Henning, and from the emails you send to the Siouan languages list, I think you fit my stereotype of a healthy native scholar) and acccess to great materials, who can create new materials: but all so that ADULTS who need to learn the language can learn. Kids don't need dictionaries or picture books. They need fluent adult speakers who care for them and spend extended time with them, giving them encouragement, love, and a positive identity in the language. You can't get that from materials, not matter how interactive they are. I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different when you do get to meet people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is minimized. When motives and hopes aren't discused, I fear the continuation of the colonization and genocide project. No one is doing it intentionally, but if the sum of many well-funded projects continues to shift focus away from the real activities of language empowerment (fluent speakers spending lots of caring time with younger people, most especially), I fear that people with amazing skills and inspiration like you, Henning, will spend mountains of effort on endeavors with very low leverage, as far as getting the language to the next generation, and insuring the language as a source of life-giving identity for everyone (not just the few kids who excel in language classes). At the very least when someone promotes a project, I wish they would say WHY they're doing it, what their feelings about the situation and propsed project are. Motivation, to me, is always more important than credentials, because motivation seems a greater determinant of good work than initials after your name. Though it seems the longer your CV, the less people feel they should explain themselves. But that is definitely my stereotype of academics (though not totally unfounded). I envision using all resources to get people who are fluent in the language and culture together with young people in a positive environment where healthy identities can be nurtured in the language. It is those people who learn the natural way that will grow up and produce the great literature appropriate to a healthy literate language. It's great when a few individuals create strong indentities in their traditional cultures, but a few people commited to acquiring and documenting the language, even supported by a whole army of (non-speaking) linguists isn't going to tip the balances against the forces of hundreds of years of ever more refined and invisible genocide. (see http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/ for the original United Nations definition of genocide, before the big nations who regularly practice it trimmed the convention down a lot, and see Churchill 1997, A little matter of genocide, Chapter 7 "The United States and the Genocide Convention" p.363-398, for an enlightnening discussion of the matter...actually no, you should just read the whole book.) When it comes down to it, I see myself and all other academics, as agents of the dominant culture. (see Churchill 1997 p.93-94, "The specter of Hannibal Lecter", for discussion of some unintended (at least consciously) consequences of academic work) Whether or not we want to admit it, and it's really better if we DO admit it, we are possbily the ones who will finalize the genocide (e.g., by focusing everyone's attention away from what would really make the difference, like dealing with the social problems that lead to negative identity and hence language loss), or else we finalize the acculturation of indigenous people into the dominant culture (e.g., by convincing people of the necessity of being liguists and converting the language to a corpus of bastardized english-dependent texts; when IS somebody going to write a real native language dicitonary? an english dictionary doesn't explain everything in Hocank, so why do native language dictionaries convert everything to english?). So when intiative (even my own) comes from outside a native community and works its way into the community, I fear for what we are all not seeing. At least the Hocank nation gets to archive the material at home, and they already do have strong language efforts underway. Now why didn't Johannes mention that? Sorry if I've attacked individuals too strongly (or whole nations). But criticism is a good thing, I think. It's all the talk about etymolgies and semantics and dictionaries (which I do enjoy) while I know there's little kids who could be learning the language who are being forgotten. If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... But why do academics RALLY do their work? (see Hull 1988, Science as a process, for the best psychosocial analysis of academia I've ever seen...then you'll see where my stereotypes come from, personified by real people I know/am.) I'll stop talking now, Pat Warren --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com Sun Oct 26 04:39:52 2003 From: dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com (David Kaufman) Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 21:39:52 -0700 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language In-Reply-To: <000701c39b6a$1bd9c0c0$aa09ed81@9afl3> Message-ID: Kathleen, I want to respond to your email because both you and Pat raised an interesting point: --linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying.-- As I said before, I'm new to all this (the world of linguistics and academia), and at the risk of sounding naive, I intend to learn from this experience. Does the "typical linguist" normally study a language (on paper presumably) but never attempt to speak it? I find this odd, especially for a spoken language. (I could understand it more in the case of Latin or Ancient Greek, for example, where there are no more "native" speakers and just a basic understanding of written genders and cases is all one really needs to "know" the language.) But if a linguist is doing field work and having interaction with native speakers, how could they not "speak" the language to some degree? Especially since an understanding of accent, pitch, or tone may be crucial, one would have to hear the spoken language at some point, and one should be able to communicate in the language (albeit possibly not altogether correctly!) at some level. I guess I would equate "studying" a language with learning to "speak" it. If I'm helping to document a language and taking part in its revitalization efforts, I would naturally want to learn to "speak" it with the native speakers I come into contact with, if for no other reason than to make sure I've got it right before writing about it or committing anything to paper. Plus, again, by learning to speak the language and communicating in it to some degree, I would be gaining better understanding and insight on the culture and people who speak it natively. But, it's sounding like this may not be standard practice among most linguists? Dave Kathleen Shea wrote: I think that we all have our built-in biases and that learning to function within another culture can often be an uncomfortable process, even though it's ultimately worthwhile and rewarding. Often we don't learn without making mistakes and stepping on someone's toes, and it seems that growth doesn't occur without some struggle and overcoming obstacles. I don't know if Pat is Hocank or has ever tried to work within a community on language maintenance, but it can be a humbling experience. Often there are many seemingly more immediate problems to be overcome, hindered in their solution by many political and economic limitations. Every community is different, and a "one-size-fits-all" approach doesn't work. Sure, it would be great if languages could be passed down as they traditionally have been, orally, from parent to child, but what do you do if the speakers are all great-grandparents of not-very-good health, even if a preschool exists? What do you do if a federally funded program that helps parents with young children get their GED's (i.e., Even Start) won't let the parents or children learn their ancestral language as part of the program? And so on.... A grassroots effort is definitely needed, with people in the community aware enough of the need to be behind it, and it takes more than just one person--if that's what the community wants. The logistics can be daunting. I don't think any of us academic "experts" know what works best when it comes to passing on a language, other than the tried-and-true traditional way, but I would think that the more approaches used the better. I do agree with Pat, though, that linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying. (I believe it was Durbin Feeling at a sovereignty conference in Tulsa several years ago who first encouraged me to do this.) Kathy Shea ----- Original Message ----- From: "warr0120" To: ; ; Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 5:52 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language > Well, Henning, I wish YOU had been the one to inform people in the first > place about the project and a Hocank person and scholar's perspective on > it. Thank you for addressing some of the issues that were not addressed in > Johannes' email. Seeing the project from a Hocank perspective is exactly > what I find most important, and almost always missing from linguists' and > anthros' work who claim authorship or directorship and leave no space for > the voices of the community being studied to come through enedited, as far > as how they view the project. (except see Young Bear and Theisz 1994, > Standing in the light a Lakota way of seeing, with an introduction written > by the primary informant.) > > My immediate concern is the extreme emphasis on documentation, which to be > done well and usefully does require expertise and much attention to detail. > But documentation can be a distraction, one of those activities that can > let you feel busy and productive while the real problems continue > unhindered, and can even exacerbate the problems of identity as reliance on > experts from outside the community becomes more acute. > > I know the powerful roles that documentation can play for self-empowerment > and language revitalization in particular. But I wish people's first > initiative when big sums of money came around was NOT to manufacture > objects: dictionaries, grammars, "children's" books, videotapes, or > interactive cdroms, that make you feel proud, but are static. It would seem > much more important to spend every penny possible getting all the fluent > speakers together with children in the community so the language can be > passed on in the most efficient and natural way possible. And probably the > only really lasting way of language transmission for a whole culture. I > hope the Hocank nation is successful in its current use of natural language > learning methods, but I will NOT rest assured. Every step toward > strengthening natural language and culture transmission is an amazing and > important experience. But it will never be enough. The tide against the > language and culture is so very strong. (By the way I'm offering these > thought in general, not just as response to you, Henning - you clearly > emphasized much of this in your own email.) > > I see the training of new generations of teachers as essential, people with > voracious scholarly appetites (I hope you're hungry Henning, and from the > emails you send to the Siouan languages list, I think you fit my stereotype > of a healthy native scholar) and acccess to great materials, who can create > new materials: but all so that ADULTS who need to learn the language can > learn. Kids don't need dictionaries or picture books. They need fluent > adult speakers who care for them and spend extended time with them, giving > them encouragement, love, and a positive identity in the language. You > can't get that from materials, not matter how interactive they are. > > I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work > with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and > hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at > least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different when you do get to meet > people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That > may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship > as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is > minimized. > > When motives and hopes aren't discused, I fear the continuation of the > colonization and genocide project. No one is doing it intentionally, but if > the sum of many well-funded projects continues to shift focus away from the > real activities of language empowerment (fluent speakers spending lots of > caring time with younger people, most especially), I fear that people with > amazing skills and inspiration like you, Henning, will spend mountains of > effort on endeavors with very low leverage, as far as getting the language > to the next generation, and insuring the language as a source of > life-giving identity for everyone (not just the few kids who excel in > language classes). At the very least when someone promotes a project, I > wish they would say WHY they're doing it, what their feelings about the > situation and propsed project are. Motivation, to me, is always more > important than credentials, because motivation seems a greater determinant > of good work than initials after your name. Though it seems the longer your > CV, the less people feel they should explain themselves. But that is > definitely my stereotype of academics (though not totally unfounded). > > I envision using all resources to get people who are fluent in the language > and culture together with young people in a positive environment where > healthy identities can be nurtured in the language. It is those people who > learn the natural way that will grow up and produce the great literature > appropriate to a healthy literate language. It's great when a few > individuals create strong indentities in their traditional cultures, but a > few people commited to acquiring and documenting the language, even > supported by a whole army of (non-speaking) linguists isn't going to tip > the balances against the forces of hundreds of years of ever more refined > and invisible genocide. (see > http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/ for the original > United Nations definition of genocide, before the big nations who regularly > practice it trimmed the convention down a lot, and see Churchill 1997, A > little matter of genocide, Chapter 7 "The United States and the Genocide > Convention" p.363-398, for an enlightnening discussion of the > matter...actually no, you should just read the whole book.) > > When it comes down to it, I see myself and all other academics, as agents > of the dominant culture. (see Churchill 1997 p.93-94, "The specter of > Hannibal Lecter", for discussion of some unintended (at least consciously) > consequences of academic work) Whether or not we want to admit it, and it's > really better if we DO admit it, we are possbily the ones who will finalize > the genocide (e.g., by focusing everyone's attention away from what would > really make the difference, like dealing with the social problems that lead > to negative identity and hence language loss), or else we finalize the > acculturation of indigenous people into the dominant culture (e.g., by > convincing people of the necessity of being liguists and converting the > language to a corpus of bastardized english-dependent texts; when IS > somebody going to write a real native language dicitonary? an english > dictionary doesn't explain everything in Hocank, so why do native language > dictionaries convert everything to english?). So when intiative (even my > own) comes from outside a native community and works its way into the > community, I fear for what we are all not seeing. > > At least the Hocank nation gets to archive the material at home, and they > already do have strong language efforts underway. Now why didn't Johannes > mention that? Sorry if I've attacked individuals too strongly (or whole > nations). But criticism is a good thing, I think. It's all the talk about > etymolgies and semantics and dictionaries (which I do enjoy) while I know > there's little kids who could be learning the language who are being > forgotten. > > If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally > acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... But why do academics > RALLY do their work? (see Hull 1988, Science as a process, for the best > psychosocial analysis of academia I've ever seen...then you'll see where my > stereotypes come from, personified by real people I know/am.) > > > I'll stop talking now, > Pat Warren > --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rankin at ku.edu Sun Oct 26 15:20:47 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 09:20:47 -0600 Subject: Indian perfume set. Message-ID: > Another > remnant of ppi might be seen in ppiduba 'some more' (duba 'more'), as in, > MakkaN sabe ppiduba akkigdhize ttiNkhe, 'I'm going to get myself some more > coffee.' I'm sure there must be some more instances of ppi.... Interesting. This seems to sort of parallel the English use of 'good' in "I walked a good bit before I got tired." or "I drank a good lot of coffee in order to stay awake." Bob From napshawin at hotmail.com Sun Oct 26 16:20:24 2003 From: napshawin at hotmail.com (Violet Catches) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 10:20:24 -0600 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From napshawin at hotmail.com Sun Oct 26 16:27:20 2003 From: napshawin at hotmail.com (Violet Catches) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 10:27:20 -0600 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jkyle at ku.edu Sun Oct 26 17:04:37 2003 From: jkyle at ku.edu (John Kyle) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 11:04:37 -0600 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: David Kaufman asked: Does the "typical linguist" normally study a language (on paper presumably) but never attempt to speak it? If 'typical' means the majority of linguists then I would have to say yes, most linguists don't need to learn a language in order to study it. What I've found over my many years in linguistics is that there are many types of linguists studying a wide range of topics and languages. Even in the realm of the field linguist, it is not necessary to learn the language (the hours of pouring over tapes and writing and rewriting though can give one a good working knowledge of the language...but does this mean we 'know' the language). For many linguists, our work is to 'distill' the order out of language. When my introductory linguistic students asked me if I had to learn all the languages I used for examples, I told them that as linguists we can 'cheat'. To learn and know a language as a speaker requires the memorization of thousands of lexical items and idioms and then putting them together in the accepted manner. As linguists we often don't have to do the memorization. Our joy seems to come from finding those regular patterns that the lexical items fit into. But it all depends on what type of linguistics you are doing. It would be a real hindrance to linguistics if we had to learn all the languages we deal with. John Kyle jkyle at ku.edu ************************************** "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." - Pres. Bush, Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002 ----- Original Message ----- From: David Kaufman To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 10:39 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Kathleen, I want to respond to your email because both you and Pat raised an interesting point: --linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying.-- As I said before, I'm new to all this (the world of linguistics and academia), and at the risk of sounding naive, I intend to learn from this experience. I find this odd, especially for a spoken language. (I could understand it more in the case of Latin or Ancient Greek, for example, where there are no more "native" speakers and just a basic understanding of written genders and cases is all one really needs to "know" the language.) But if a linguist is doing field work and having interaction with native speakers, how could they not "speak" the language to some degree? Especially since an understanding of accent, pitch, or tone may be crucial, one would have to hear the spoken language at some point, and one should be able to communicate in the language (albeit possibly not altogether correctly!) at some level. I guess I would equate "studying" a language with learning to "speak" it. If I'm helping to document a language and taking part in its revitalization efforts, I would naturally want to learn to "speak" it with the native speakers I come into contact with, if for no other reason than to make sure I've got it right before writing about it or committing anything to paper. Plus, again, by learning to speak the language and communicating in it to some degree, I would be gaining better understanding and insight on the culture and people who speak it natively. But, it's sounding like this may not be standard practice among most linguists? Dave Kathleen Shea wrote: I think that we all have our built-in biases and that learning to function within another culture can often be an uncomfortable process, even though it's ultimately worthwhile and rewarding. Often we don't learn without making mistakes and stepping on someone's toes, and it seems that growth doesn't occur without some struggle and overcoming obstacles. I don't know if Pat is Hocank or has ever tried to work within a community on language maintenance, but it can be a humbling experience. Often there are many seemingly more immediate problems to be overcome, hindered in their solution by many political and economic limitations. Every community is different, and a "one-size-fits-all" approach doesn't work. Sure, it would be great if languages could be passed down as they traditionally have been, orally, from parent to child, but what do you do if! the speakers are all great-grandparents of not-very-good health, even if a preschool exists? What do you do if a federally funded program that helps parents with young children get their GED's (i.e., Even Start) won't let the parents or children learn their ancestral language as part of the program? And so on.... A grassroots effort is definitely needed, with people in the community aware enough of the need to be behind it, and it takes more than just one person--if that's what the community wants. The logistics can be daunting. I don't think any of us academic "experts" know what works best when it comes to passing on a language, other than the tried-and-true traditional way, but I would think that the more approaches used the better. I do agree with Pat, though, that linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying. (I believe it was Durbin Feeling at a sovereignty conference in Tu! lsa several years ago who first encouraged me to do this.) Kathy Shea ----- Original Message ----- From: "warr0120" To: ; ; Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 5:52 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language > Well, Henning, I wish YOU had been the one to inform people in the first > place about the project and a Hocank person and scholar's perspective on > it. Thank you for addressing some of the issues that were not addressed in > Johannes' email. Seeing the project from a Hocank perspective is exactly > what I find most important, and almost always missing from linguists' and > anthros' work who claim authorship or directorship and leave no space for > the voices of the community being studied to come through enedited, as far > as how they view the project. (except see! Young Bear and Theisz 1994, > Standing in the light a Lakota way of seeing, with an introduction written > by the primary informant.) > > My immediate concern is the extreme emphasis on documentation, which to be > done well and usefully does require expertise and much attention to detail. > But documentation can be a distraction, one of those activities that can > let you feel busy and productive while the real problems continue > unhindered, and can even exacerbate the problems of identity as reliance on > experts from outside the community becomes more acute. > > I know the powerful roles that documentation can play for self-empowerment > and language revitalization in particular. But I wish people's first > initiative when big sums of money came around was NOT to manufacture > objects: dictionaries, grammars, "children's" books, videotapes, or > interactive cdroms, that make you fe! el proud, but are static. It would seem > much more important to spend every penny possible getting all the fluent > speakers together with children in the community so the language can be > passed on in the most efficient and natural way possible. And probably the > only really lasting way of language transmission for a whole culture. I > hope the Hocank nation is successful in its current use of natural language > learning methods, but I will NOT rest assured. Every step toward > strengthening natural language and culture transmission is an amazing and > important experience. But it will never be enough. The tide against the > language and culture is so very strong. (By the way I'm offering these > thought in general, not just as response to you, Henning - you clearly > emphasized much of this in your own email.) > > I see the training of new generations of teachers as essential, people with &! gt; voracious scholarly appetites (I hope you're hungry Henning, and from the > emails you send to the Siouan languages list, I think you fit my stereotype > of a healthy native scholar) and acccess to great materials, who can create > new materials: but all so that ADULTS who need to learn the language can > learn. Kids don't need dictionaries or picture books. They need fluent > adult speakers who care for them and spend extended time with them, giving > them encouragement, love, and a positive identity in the language. You > can't get that from materials, not matter how interactive they are. > > I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work > with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and > hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at > least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different when you do get to meet &! gt; people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That > may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship > as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is > minimized. > > When motives and hopes aren't discused, I fear the continuation of the > colonization and genocide project. No one is doing it intentionally, but if > the sum of many well-funded projects continues to shift focus away from the > real activities of language empowerment (fluent speakers spending lots of > caring time with younger people, most especially), I fear that people with > amazing skills and inspiration like you, Henning, will spend mountains of > effort on endeavors with very low leverage, as far as getting the language > to the next generation, and insuring the language as a source of > life-giving identity for everyone (not just the fe! w kids who excel in > language classes). At the very least when someone promotes a project, I > wish they would say WHY they're doing it, what their feelings about the > situation and propsed project are. Motivation, to me, is always more > important than credentials, because motivation seems a greater determinant > of good work than initials after your name. Though it seems the longer your > CV, the less people feel they should explain themselves. But that is > definitely my stereotype of academics (though not totally unfounded). > > I envision using all resources to get people who are fluent in the language > and culture together with young people in a positive environment where > healthy identities can be nurtured in the language. It is those people who > learn the natural way that will grow up and produce the great literature > appropriate to a healthy literate language. It's great when a few> individuals create strong indentities in their traditional cultures, but a > few people commited to acquiring and documenting the language, even > supported by a whole army of (non-speaking) linguists isn't going to tip > the balances against the forces of hundreds of years of ever more refined > and invisible genocide. (see > http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/ for the original > United Nations definition of genocide, before the big nations who regularly > practice it trimmed the convention down a lot, and see Churchill 1997, A > little matter of genocide, Chapter 7 "The United States and the Genocide > Convention" p.363-398, for an enlightnening discussion of the > matter...actually no, you should just read the whole book.) > > When it comes down to it, I see myself and all other academics, as agents > of the dominant culture. (see Churchill 1997 p.93-94, "The specter of ! > Hannibal Lecter", for discussion of some unintended (at least consciously) > consequences of academic work) Whether or not we want to admit it, and it's > really better if we DO admit it, we are possbily the ones who will finalize > the genocide (e.g., by focusing everyone's attention away from what would > really make the difference, like dealing with the social problems that lead > to negative identity and hence language loss), or else we finalize the > acculturation of indigenous people into the dominant culture (e.g., by > convincing people of the necessity of being liguists and converting the > language to a corpus of bastardized english-dependent texts; when IS > somebody going to write a real native language dicitonary? an english > dictionary doesn't explain everything in Hocank, so why do native language > dictionaries convert everything to english?). So when intiative (even my > own) ! comes from outside a native community and works its way into the > community, I fear for what we are all not seeing. > > At least the Hocank nation gets to archive the material at home, and they > already do have strong language efforts underway. Now why didn't Johannes > mention that? Sorry if I've attacked individuals too strongly (or whole > nations). But criticism is a good thing, I think. It's all the talk about > etymolgies and semantics and dictionaries (which I do enjoy) while I know > there's little kids who could be learning the language who are being > forgotten. > > If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally > acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... But why do academics > RALLY do their work? (see Hull 1988, Science as a process, for the best > psychosocial analysis of academia I've ever seen...then you'll see where my > stereotypes come fro! m, personified by real people I know/am.) > > > I'll stop talking now, > Pat Warren > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com Sun Oct 26 17:27:49 2003 From: dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com (David Kaufman) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 09:27:49 -0800 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language In-Reply-To: <004401c39be3$4faac920$3fcbed81@D8LZRG21> Message-ID: Thanks for your input, John. I guess as an avid language learner myself, I would really want to be able to speak the language(s) to some degree that I work on. Maybe that means I'll just work on fewer languages, but hopefully those will be more in depth! Dave John Kyle wrote: David Kaufman asked: Does the "typical linguist" normally study a language (on paper presumably) but never attempt to speak it? If 'typical' means the majority of linguists then I would have to say yes, most linguists don't need to learn a language in order to study it. What I've found over my many years in linguistics is that there are many types of linguists studying a wide range of topics and languages. Even in the realm of the field linguist, it is not necessary to learn the language (the hours of pouring over tapes and writing and rewriting though can give one a good working knowledge of the language...but does this mean we 'know' the language). For many linguists, our work is to 'distill' the order out of language. When my introductory linguistic students asked me if I had to learn all the languages I used for examples, I told them that as linguists we can 'cheat'. To learn and know a language as a speaker requires the memorization of thousands of lexical items and idioms and then putting them together in the accepted manner. As linguists we often don't have to do the memorization. Our ! joy seems to come from finding those regular patterns that the lexical items fit into. But it all depends on what type of linguistics you are doing. It would be a real hindrance to linguistics if we had to learn all the languages we deal with. John Kyle jkyle at ku.edu ************************************** "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." ? Pres. Bush, Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002 ----- Original Message ----- From: David Kaufman To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 10:39 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Kathleen, I want to respond to your email because both you and Pat raised an interesting point: --linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying.-- As I said before, I'm new to all this (the world of linguistics and academia), and at the risk of sounding naive, I intend to learn from this experience. I find this odd, especially for a spoken language. (I could understand it more in the case of Latin or Ancient Greek, for example, where there are no more "native" speakers and just a basic understanding of written genders and cases is all one really needs to "know" the language.) But if a linguist is doing field work and having interaction with native speakers, how could they not "speak" the language to some degree? Especially since an understanding of accent, pitch, or tone may be crucial, one would have to hear the spoken language at some point, and one should be able to communicate in the language (albeit possibly not altogether correctly!) at some level. I guess I would equate "studying" a language with learning to "speak" it. If I'm helping to document a language and taking part in its revitalization efforts, I would naturally want to learn to "speak" it with the native speakers I come into contact with, if for no other reason than to make sure I've got it right before writing about it or committing anything to paper. Plus, again, by learning to speak the language and communicating in it to some degree, I would be gaining better understanding and insight on the culture and people who speak it natively. But, it's sounding like this may not be standard practice among most linguists? Dave Kathleen Shea wrote: I think that we all have our built-in biases and that learning to function within another culture can often be an uncomfortable process, even though it's ultimately worthwhile and rewarding. Often we don't learn without making mistakes and stepping on someone's toes, and it seems that growth doesn't occur without some struggle and overcoming obstacles. I don't know if Pat is Hocank or has ever tried to work within a community on language maintenance, but it can be a humbling experience. Often there are many seemingly more immediate problems to be overcome, hindered in their solution by many political and economic limitations. Every community is different, and a "one-size-fits-all" approach doesn't work. Sure, it would be great if languages could be passed down as they traditionally have been, orally, from parent to child, but what do you do if! the speakers are all great-grandparents of not-very-good health, even if a preschool exists? What do you do if a federally funded program that helps parents with young children get their GED's (i.e., Even Start) won't let the parents or children learn their ancestral language as part of the program? And so on.... A grassroots effort is definitely needed, with people in the community aware enough of the need to be behind it, and it takes more than just one person--if that's what the community wants. The logistics can be daunting. I don't think any of us academic "experts" know what works best when it comes to passing on a language, other than the tried-and-true traditional way, but I would think that the more approaches used the better. I do agree with Pat, though, that linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying. (I believe it was Durbin Feeling at a sovereignty conference in Tu! lsa several years ago who first encouraged me to do this.) Kathy Shea ----- Original Message ----- From: "warr0120" To: ; ; Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 5:52 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language > Well, Henning, I wish YOU had been the one to inform people in the first > place about the project and a Hocank person and scholar's perspective on > it. Thank you for addressing some of the issues that were not addressed in > Johannes' email. Seeing the project from a Hocank perspective is exactly > what I find most important, and almost always missing from linguists' and > anthros' work who claim authorship or directorship and leave no space for > the voices of the community being studied to come through enedited, as far > as how they view the project. (except see! Young Bear and Theisz 1994, > Standing in the light a Lakota way of seeing, with an introduction written > by the primary informant.) > > My immediate concern is the extreme emphasis on documentation, which to be > done well and usefully does require expertise and much attention to detail. > But documentation can be a distraction, one of those activities that can > let you feel busy and productive while the real problems continue > unhindered, and can even exacerbate the problems of identity as reliance on > experts from outside the community becomes more acute. > > I know the powerful roles that documentation can play for self-empowerment > and language revitalization in particular. But I wish people's first > initiative when big sums of money came around was NOT to manufacture > objects: dictionaries, grammars, "children's" books, videotapes, or > interactive cdroms, that make you fe! el proud, but are static. It would seem > much more important to spend every penny possible getting all the fluent > speakers together with children in the community so the language can be > passed on in the most efficient and natural way possible. And probably the > only really lasting way of language transmission for a whole culture. I > hope the Hocank nation is successful in its current use of natural language > learning methods, but I will NOT rest assured. Every step toward > strengthening natural language and culture transmission is an amazing and > important experience. But it will never be enough. The tide against the > language and culture is so very strong. (By the way I'm offering these > thought in general, not just as response to you, Henning - you clearly > emphasized much of this in your own email.) > > I see the training of new generations of teachers as essential, people with &! gt; voracious scholarly appetites (I hope you're hungry Henning, and from the > emails you send to the Siouan languages list, I think you fit my stereotype > of a healthy native scholar) and acccess to great materials, who can create > new materials: but all so that ADULTS who need to learn the language can > learn. Kids don't need dictionaries or picture books. They need fluent > adult speakers who care for them and spend extended time with them, giving > them encouragement, love, and a positive identity in the language. You > can't get that from materials, not matter how interactive they are. > > I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work > with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and > hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at > least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different when you do get to meet &! gt; people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That > may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship > as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is > minimized. > > When motives and hopes aren't discused, I fear the continuation of the > colonization and genocide project. No one is doing it intentionally, but if > the sum of many well-funded projects continues to shift focus away from the > real activities of language empowerment (fluent speakers spending lots of > caring time with younger people, most especially), I fear that people with > amazing skills and inspiration like you, Henning, will spend mountains of > effort on endeavors with very low leverage, as far as getting the language > to the next generation, and insuring the language as a source of > life-giving identity for everyone (not just the fe! w kids who excel in > language classes). At the very least when someone promotes a project, I > wish they would say WHY they're doing it, what their feelings about the > situation and propsed project are. Motivation, to me, is always more > important than credentials, because motivation seems a greater determinant > of good work than initials after your name. Though it seems the longer your > CV, the less people feel they should explain themselves. But that is > definitely my stereotype of academics (though not totally unfounded). > > I envision using all resources to get people who are fluent in the language > and culture together with young people in a positive environment where > healthy identities can be nurtured in the language. It is those people who > learn the natural way that will grow up and produce the great literature > appropriate to a healthy literate language. It's great when a few> individuals create strong indentities in their traditional cultures, but a > few people commited to acquiring and documenting the language, even > supported by a whole army of (non-speaking) linguists isn't going to tip > the balances against the forces of hundreds of years of ever more refined > and invisible genocide. (see > http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/ for the original > United Nations definition of genocide, before the big nations who regularly > practice it trimmed the convention down a lot, and see Churchill 1997, A > little matter of genocide, Chapter 7 "The United States and the Genocide > Convention" p.363-398, for an enlightnening discussion of the > matter...actually no, you should just read the whole book.) > > When it comes down to it, I see myself and all other academics, as agents > of the dominant culture. (see Churchill 1997 p.93-94, "The specter of ! > Hannibal Lecter", for discussion of some unintended (at least consciously) > consequences of academic work) Whether or not we want to admit it, and it's > really better if we DO admit it, we are possbily the ones who will finalize > the genocide (e.g., by focusing everyone's attention away from what would > really make the difference, like dealing with the social problems that lead > to negative identity and hence language loss), or else we finalize the > acculturation of indigenous people into the dominant culture (e.g., by > convincing people of the necessity of being liguists and converting the > language to a corpus of bastardized english-dependent texts; when IS > somebody going to write a real native language dicitonary? an english > dictionary doesn't explain everything in Hocank, so why do native language > dictionaries convert everything to english?). So when intiative (even my > own) ! comes from outside a native community and works its way into the > community, I fear for what we are all not seeing. > > At least the Hocank nation gets to archive the material at home, and they > already do have strong language efforts underway. Now why didn't Johannes > mention that? Sorry if I've attacked individuals too strongly (or whole > nations). But criticism is a good thing, I think. It's all the talk about > etymolgies and semantics and dictionaries (which I do enjoy) while I know > there's little kids who could be learning the language who are being > forgotten. > > If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally > acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... But why do academics > RALLY do their work? (see Hull 1988, Science as a process, for the best > psychosocial analysis of academia I've ever seen...then you'll see where my > stereotypes come fro! m, personified by real people I know/am.) > > > I'll stop talking now, > Pat Warren > --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From warr0120 at umn.edu Sun Oct 26 20:15:27 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (Pat Warren) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 14:15:27 CST Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: Violet, I'm anxious to hear your ideas on some of the ideas raised in this discussion. Unfortunately, there was nothing in your message. Maybe hotmail's not friendly to other email servers, but I know I've read email from you before. Maybe try sending it again or just send it to one of us on the list and we can forward it to the list. Thanks, Pat From warr0120 at umn.edu Sun Oct 26 22:19:52 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (Pat Warren) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 16:19:52 CST Subject: All the empathy of a well-trained mortician. Message-ID: Academics, at least those who are commited to their work and somewhat successful in their own eyes, are in it for themselves. Academics publish for other academics to read, so they can get a mix of approval and drama from their colleagues. The real draw of participating in academia is the quest for credit. When you get citations, you are approved of in academia. Academic work hinges on the spread of an identity - people get to know you as a figure in the field, which feels good - and the citations that start to accumulate and hopefully you save up enough points to get the fancy faculty position and research grants, complete with underlings (students) who can do work for you and help you accomplish your personal academic goals. This process is less applicable to those who aren't as successful at the academic game, but this process is what holds the whole thing together. You don't become a decision maker like chair of a department, unless you've done decently well in the publication and citation-harvesting business (unles the department is amazingly underfunded and desperate, and then your position will probably be classified as "interim" until someone with more points is found). As John Kyle just wrote: >"For many linguists, our work is to 'distill' the order out of language. ...Our joy seems to come from finding those regular patterns that the lexical items fit into. ...It would be a real hindrance to linguistics if we had to learn all the languages we deal with." This is my stereotype of a linguist. Essentially the joy of the linguist is to take diversity, boil it down to very consistent patterns, translate it into english, and publish. This is very intellectually satisfying work. I know. I do it. It's fun, without a doubt. What a sad image of your language being squeezed through a complex series of test tubes and such. But what kind of work can be done, and what the consequences are of this approach to language, is what I'm trying to get at in this discussion. A linguist who does not learn the language he studies is never going to be able to do anything more than transpose that language into english. Your subject is the language, but to work with it at all you have to first convert it to english. All you are ever able to do is take things out of their context of meaning (though you'll develop ever more sophisticated methods of surgical removal). And this then limits the kinds of materials you can produce. All the materials produced by linguists who study native american languages are, according to studies in second language acquisition research and the experiences of the majority of students in any language class I've ever been in, nearly useless for most learners. You don't learn another language through translation, you learn it in spite of translation. No one can produce material (without just using the hard work of a native speaker) that contributes to language acquisition, without actually being part of the speech community. But this is the conflict of interest: a linguist's audience and primary concern is other linguists. Linguists, usually without admitting it, are in it for the intellectual enjoyment of translating a language to english and finding and arguing about patters they find, and in building an ever stronger academic reputation by astonishing their colleagues with their great skill in finding patterns in a language they couldn't carry on a conversation in, or would choose not to even if they could muster up the passive knowledge they unavoidably gain over several decades of study. Linguists aren't usually language learners in my experience. Some are, most aren't. This isn't true for the study of languages that are themselves dominant languages, like spanish, french, etc. As a non-native speaker, to even get your foot in the door in the linguistics of those languages you have to speak the language. They have large populations of native speakers with plenty of their own linguists and a long tradition of study of their languages. But this isn't the case with indigenous languages almost anywhere in the world. I think linguists now like the idea of helping with revitalization efforts. But I think it's also ethically obligatory now. It's hard to ignore anymore the sociocultural reality of language and culture loss when you want to go take someone's language, so I don't give much credit for being ethically in style. And it seems to that now linguists are building up their own self-images as emergency-room surgeons by pretending that their work is going to have anything to do with determining whether these ailing languages disappear. The day that a linguist can produce any materials without english (or french or spanish, etc.) doing all the work of carrying the meaning, then maybe this image of "preserving indigenous languages" will mean something more than just polishing another indian's skeleton to put on your bookshelf. Keep in mind that for linguists, these are the predominant patterns. But a lot of people play other roles than just linguist, and do accomplish great, empathetic work in empowering native people when they play these roles. But if you primarily think of yourself as a linguist (rather than also as a Dakota person, a teacher, etc.) this probably applies to a great extent. I just want to know how much this applies, if anyone is actually open to this much soul-searching. It's frightening to me to open up a book entitled "Making dictionaries: preserving indigenous languages of the americas" and the first line creates the image of linguists as being at war: "Lexicographic war stories are a special genre of tales of impossibility and thanklessness." I'm not a native person. I imagine that if I were, and someone came to me with that self-image, of being at war, of being heroic, and doing the impossible without being thanked, I'd think "bueno, los conquistadores han vuelto." It sound like the same old great european explorer attitude to me. I mean, couldn't you guys have thought of a better metaphor than "war stories?" And I can't wait to be told by a linguist that I'm reading too much into this. That would be funny. It's a sad state of affairs when the vast majority of linguists studying native languages are themselves monolingual. Why would someone who loves language so much avoid the wonderful experience of communicating in another language? It's not the languages they love. It's the knife. The languages are incidental. Thankfully there are now people who are actually realizing that when you do know the language you study, and you use it, there's a lot more linguistics you can do, and what you produce will be of exponentially better quality, and will have great applicability beyond the cubicle of the linguist next door. These are the people who can empathise with speakers and communities, who see these people as ends in themselves and not the means to another publication. And the languages too can then be given the respect they deserve, and the irresponsible and probably invalid methodology of analyzing the language as if it were really english in disguise can be left behind. I have great respect for my Dakota language teacher, Neil McKay. Neil is himself Dakota. He didn't grow up speaking the language, though he certainly did hear some words and lots of cultural knowledge. Neil first studied the language at the University of Minnesota. And now he is the Dakota language teacher there, and is getting better at what he does all the time. He has benfited greatly from his several identities: he is Dakota, he is a linguist, he is a teacher, he is a speaker, he is a father (of two boys who are learning Dakota as a first language) he is a husband, a star wars fan, and much more. Neil has worked hard to learn the language, to make himself fluent through classes, books, elders, teaching, and practice. And he's done it. Neil is a great speaker. He always works to increase his knowledge, to be a better speaker, to create better materials, and to pass on the language to his students at the university, at the language tables he hosts, at home to his children, and in more ways than I probably know. Nina tanyan onspeic'iye ka tanyan waonspewicakiye do. He's my idea of a language scholar who contributes very positively to the language he studies. I am very hopeful for people like Henning Garvin, or nonnative people like David K. who feel it very important to be able to empathise with speakers of the language they study by being speakers themselves. Heced ibdukcan do. Hecetu yedo. Hepi miye do. Pat Warren From rankin at ku.edu Sun Oct 26 23:58:38 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 17:58:38 -0600 Subject: Volkswagen and politicizing documentation, teaching & maintenance. Message-ID: It is hard to know exactly where to start with all of the assertions, counter-assertions and word-eating that has gone on around this topic, but please let me re-emphasize one or two points that I strongly agree with and add one or two that haven't been mentioned or have been covered only obliquely. Maybe a couple of caveats too. First, I strongly agree with Pat that, if the situation permits, monies first be funneled into putting older, fluent speakers in close and prolonged contact with children, preferably under the age of puberty, i.e., within the language- learning "window" that allows acquisition of easy fluency. This may be possible with at least three Siouan languages: Dakotan, Hochunk and Crow. Realistically, it will probably not be possible with the majority of Siouan languages. Second, it is also a great idea for the linguist to try to learn to speak the language s/he is studying, especially if there is a significant body of speakers. This has been the philosophy of the best field linguists among us, including Ken Hale and Bob Dixon. But there are plenty of exceptions. Some linguists are good polyglots, but others are not. This doesn't mean they are not good analysts or lexicographers. And there is the additional factor some of us have encountered. If we are documenting languages with only a handful of elderly speakers remaining, we may encounter resentment if we show off our speaking ability among younger people who didn't learn the language of their grandparents. I've seen this happen more than once. It is generally not their fault if the language wasn't propagated to them in childhood, and it's not our place to rub their nose in it. Pure documentation *is* very important. (a) you can't teach what you don't know, and, (b) in the case of most Siouan languages, we are providing for the future of the language, whether or not it remains fluently spoken. Even if the language becomes extinct (as at least 5 Siouan languages have just in the span of my academic lifetime), there will be future generations who will want to learn all they can of it or about it. Either goal is laudable. This brings me to a point many have missed. In places like Oklahoma, where I do most of my work, the vast majority of Indian People are not only *not* speakers, they are not very conservative or traditional either. And, like it or not, acculturation is only going to become more prevalent. Yet it is our job to provide for that audience too -- and I reiterate, *they are the majority*. And they are Indians. Linguists, (like Indian People), come in all shapes, sizes and personality types. Some are shy, inarticulate and analytical; others glory in being down-to-earth, "touchy-feely". Personally, I think each linguist should do what s/he does best. Some of each group are successes and some are failures. There are plenty of grammars and dictionaries out there that were assembled by incompetent Ivory Tower linguists. And Lord only knows, the number of "language maintenance" (not even to mention "revival") programs that have been crashing failures over the past 3 decades must approach 99% with all the empathy in the world behind them. The success record certainly doesn't justify much name-calling. But whining about opposite personality types only exacerbates the situation. There is clearly room for everyone who wants to make the effort and who has the talent to do the work. When I explain this in class, I liken it to building a skyscraper. You can't do it without architects and engineers in addition to a lot of bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers and electricians, iron workers and all the rest. You don't ask the architect to do the plumbing -- he'd screw it up. Nor do you ask the stone mason to draw the blueprints or select the material for the building's support structure for the same reason. And, yes, the architect will probably spend a lot of time in his Ivory Tower -- so what? That's his job. And, as if these real problems weren't enough, there is a lot of BS in the air on all sides of these questions. There's the notion, oft-repeated at language maintenance workshops, that we can accomplish ANYthing we want if we "just have the faith." Or the idea that "the language 'embodies' the culture". Or the idea that Native American languages don't have all that "grammar stuff" like English -- "You just form a picture in your head and 'talk' it." But I'll leave those conceptions and misconceptions for another time. Bob From jkyle at ku.edu Mon Oct 27 01:55:03 2003 From: jkyle at ku.edu (John Kyle) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 19:55:03 -0600 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: I hope my last post didn't imply that linguists shouldn't learn other languages in depth. I merely wanted to point out that it is not a necessity for a linguist to learn to speak every language that he/she works with. If the opportunity is there to learn the language, then I think most linguists will attempt to do so. I've sat down with many grammars of languages that are no longer spoken or that I don't have the opportunity to hear spoken and (being a linguist) gotten insight from them. As I mentioned and Bob reiterated, there are all sorts of linguists out there working in many different areas of linguistics. Do what you do best and do it well! John Kyle jkyle at ku.edu ************************************** "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." - Pres. Bush, Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002 ----- Original Message ----- From: David Kaufman To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2003 11:27 AM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Thanks for your input, John. I guess as an avid language learner myself, I would really want to be able to speak the language(s) to some degree that I work on. Maybe that means I'll just work on fewer languages, but hopefully those will be more in depth! Dave John Kyle wrote: David Kaufman asked: Does the "typical linguist" normally study a language (on paper presumably) but never attempt to speak it? If 'typical' means the majority of linguists then I would have to say yes, most linguists don't need to learn a language in order to study it. What I've found over my many years in linguistics is that there are many types of linguists studying a wide range of topics and languages. Even in the realm of the field linguist, it is not necessary to learn the language (the hours of pouring over tapes and writing and rewriting though can give one a good working knowledge of the language...but does this mean we 'know' the language). For many linguists, our work is to 'distill' the order out of language. When my introductory linguistic students asked me if I had to learn all the languages I used for examples, I told them that as linguists we can 'cheat'. To learn and know a language as a speaker requires the memorization of thousands of lexical items and idioms and then putting them together in the accepted manner. ! ; As linguists we often don't have to do the memorization. Our joy seems to come from finding those regular patterns that the lexical items fit into. But it all depends on what type of linguistics you are doing. It would be a real hindrance to linguistics if we had to learn all the languages we deal with. John Kyle jkyle at ku.edu ************************************** "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." - Pres. Bush, Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002 ----- Original Message ----- From: David Kaufman To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 10:39 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Kathleen, I want to respond to your email because both you and Pat raised an interesting point: --linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying.-- As I said before, I'm new to all this (the world of linguistics and academia), and at the risk of sounding naive, I intend to learn from this experience. I find this odd, especially for a spoken language. (I could understand it more in the case of Latin or Ancient Greek, for example, where there are no more "native" speakers and just a basic understanding of written genders and cases is all one really needs to "know" the language.) But if a linguist is doing field work and having interaction with native speakers, how could they not "speak" the language to some degree? Especially since an understanding of accent, pitch, or tone may be crucial, one would have to hear the spoken language at some point, and one should be able to communicate in the language (albeit possibly not altogether correctly!) at some level. I guess I would equate "studying" a language with learning to "speak" it. If I'm helping to document a language and taking part in its revitalization efforts, I would naturally want to learn to "speak" it with the native speakers I come into contact with, if for no other reason than to make sure I've got it right before writing about it or committing anything to paper. Plus, again, by learning to speak the language and communicating in it to some degree, I would be gaining better understanding and insight on the culture and people who speak it natively. But, it's sounding like this may not be standard practice among most linguists? Dave Kathleen Shea wrote: I think that we all have our built-in biases and that learning to function within another culture can often be an uncomfortable process, even though it's ultimately worthwhile and rewarding. Often we don't learn without making mistakes and stepping on someone's toes, and it seems that growth doesn't occur without some struggle and overcoming obstacles. I don't know if Pat is Hocank or has ever tried to work within a community on language maintenance, but it can be a humbling experience. Often there are many seemingly more immediate problems to be overcome, hindered in their solution by many political and economic limitations. Every community is different, and a "one-size-fits-all" approach doesn't work. Sure, it would be great if languages could be passed down as they traditionally have been, orally, from parent to child, but what do you do if! ! the speakers are all great-grandparents of not-very-good health, even if a preschool exists? What do you do if a federally funded program that helps parents with young children get their GED's (i.e., Even Start) won't let the parents or children learn their ancestral language as part of the program? And so on.... A grassroots effort is definitely needed, with people in the community aware enough of the need to be behind it, and it takes more than just one person--if that's what the community wants. The logistics can be daunting. I don't think any of us academic "experts" know what works best when it comes to passing on a language, other than the tried-and-true traditional way, but I would think that the more approaches used the better. I do agree with Pat, though, that linguists would do well to inspire by example and at least aspire to speak the language they are studying. (I believe it was Durbin Feeling at a sovereignty conference in Tu! ! lsa several years ago who first encouraged me to do this.) Kathy Shea ----- Original Message ----- From: "warr0120" To: ; ; Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 5:52 PM Subject: Re: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language > Well, Henning, I wish YOU had been the one to inform people in the first > place about the project and a Hocank person and scholar's perspective on > it. Thank you for addressing some of the issues that were not addressed in > Johannes' email. Seeing the project from a Hocank perspective is exactly > what I find most important, and almost always missing from linguists' and > anthros' work who claim authorship or directorship and leave no space for > the voices of the community being studied to come through enedited, as far > as how they view the project. (except see! ! Young Bear and Theisz 1994, > Standing in the light a Lakota way of seeing, with an introduction written > by the primary informant.) > > My immediate concern is the extreme emphasis on documentation, which to be > done well and usefully does require expertise and much attention to detail. > But documentation can be a distraction, one of those activities that can > let you feel busy and productive while the real problems continue > unhindered, and can even exacerbate the problems of identity as reliance on > experts from outside the community becomes more acute. > > I know the powerful roles that documentation can play for self-empowerment > and language revitalization in particular. But I wish people's first > initiative when big sums of money came around was NOT to manufacture > objects: dictionaries, grammars, "children's" books, videotapes, or > interactive cdroms, that make you fe! ! el proud, but are static. It would seem > much more important to spend every penny possible getting all the fluent > speakers together with children in the community so the language can be > passed on in the most efficient and natural way possible. And probably the > only really lasting way of language transmission for a whole culture. I > hope the Hocank nation is successful in its current use of natural language > learning methods, but I will NOT rest assured. Every step toward > strengthening natural language and culture transmission is an amazing and > important experience. But it will never be enough. The tide against the > language and culture is so very strong. (By the way I'm offering these > thought in general, not just as response to you, Henning - you clearly > emphasized much of this in your own email.) > > I see the training of new generations of teachers as essential, people with &! gt; voracious scholarly appetites (I hope you're hungry Henning, and from the > emails you send to the Siouan languages list, I think you fit my stereotype > of a healthy native scholar) and acccess to great materials, who can create > new materials: but all so that ADULTS who need to learn the language can > learn. Kids don't need dictionaries or picture books. They need fluent > adult speakers who care for them and spend extended time with them, giving > them encouragement, love, and a positive identity in the language. You > can't get that from materials, not matter how interactive they are. > > I don't intend to criticize the Hocank nation's choices of whom to work > with. I mean to arouse some discussion as to individual motivations and > hopes. People always discuss their Grand Projects in objectified terms (at > least in writing, I'm sure it's sometimes different wh! en you do get to meet &! gt; people in person) and never tell what their feelings are on the issue. That > may scare off the academic in many of you, but I see a healthy relationship > as one in which feelings are expressed openly and intellectualization is > minimized. > > When motives and hopes aren't discused, I fear the continuation of the > colonization and genocide project. No one is doing it intentionally, but if > the sum of many well-funded projects continues to shift focus away from the > real activities of language empowerment (fluent speakers spending lots of > caring time with younger people, most especially), I fear that people with > amazing skills and inspiration like you, Henning, will spend mountains of > effort on endeavors with very low leverage, as far as getting the language > to the next generation, and insuring the language as a source of > life-giving identity ! for everyone (not just the fe! w kids who excel in > language classes). At the very least when someone promotes a project, I > wish they would say WHY they're doing it, what their feelings about the > situation and propsed project are. Motivation, to me, is always more > important than credentials, because motivation seems a greater determinant > of good work than initials after your name. Though it seems the longer your > CV, the less people feel they should explain themselves. But that is > definitely my stereotype of academics (though not totally unfounded). > > I envision using all resources to get people who are fluent in the language > and culture together with young people in a positive environment where > healthy identities can be nurtured in the language. It is those people who > learn the natural way that will grow up and produce the great literature > appropriate to a healthy literate language. It's great when a few> individuals create strong indentities in their traditional cultures, but a > few people commited to acquiring and documenting the language, even > supported by a whole army of (non-speaking) linguists isn't going to tip > the balances against the forces of hundreds of years of ever more refined > and invisible genocide. (see > http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/drafts/ for the original > United Nations definition of genocide, before the big nations who regularly > practice it trimmed the convention down a lot, and see Churchill 1997, A > little matter of genocide, Chapter 7 "The United States and the Genocide > Convention" p.363-398, for an enlightnening discussion of the > matter...actually no, you should just read the whole book.) > > When it comes down to it, I see myself and all other academics, as agents > of the dominant culture. (see C! hurchill 1997 p.93-94, "The specter of ! > Hannibal Lecter", for discussion of some unintended (at least consciously) > consequences of academic work) Whether or not we want to admit it, and it's > really better if we DO admit it, we are possbily the ones who will finalize > the genocide (e.g., by focusing everyone's attention away from what would > really make the difference, like dealing with the social problems that lead > to negative identity and hence language loss), or else we finalize the > acculturation of indigenous people into the dominant culture (e.g., by > convincing people of the necessity of being liguists and converting the > language to a corpus of bastardized english-dependent texts; when IS > somebody going to write a real native language dicitonary? an english > dictionary doesn't explain everything in Hocank, so why do native language > dictionaries convert everything to english?). ! So when intiative (even my > own) ! comes from outside a native community and works its way into the > community, I fear for what we are all not seeing. > > At least the Hocank nation gets to archive the material at home, and they > already do have strong language efforts underway. Now why didn't Johannes > mention that? Sorry if I've attacked individuals too strongly (or whole > nations). But criticism is a good thing, I think. It's all the talk about > etymolgies and semantics and dictionaries (which I do enjoy) while I know > there's little kids who could be learning the language who are being > forgotten. > > If only at the heart of linguistics was the commitment to personally > acquire and transmit the language(s) you study... But why do academics > RALLY do their work? (see Hull 1988, Science as a process, for the best > psychosocial analysis of academia I've ever seen...then you'll see where my > stereotypes come fro! m, personified by real people I know/am.) > > > I'll stop talking now, > Pat Warren > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rwd0002 at unt.edu Mon Oct 27 05:07:10 2003 From: rwd0002 at unt.edu (rwd0002 at unt.edu) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 23:07:10 -0600 Subject: All the empathy of a well-trained mortician. In-Reply-To: <200310262219.h9QMJqC7003146@trojan.software.umn.edu> Message-ID: > It's a sad state of affairs when the vast majority of linguists studying > native languages are themselves monolingual. Why would someone who loves > language so much avoid the wonderful experience of communicating in another > language? It's not the languages they love. It's the knife. The languages > are incidental. > I read with interest the initial Volkswagen comment by Pat Warren, and the very good responses, particularly those by Henning Garvin and Bob Rankin. However, I am not sure that the vast majority of linguists studying native languages are monolingual. It is true that the U.S. is unusual in having large quantities of highly educated people, doctors, lawyers, psychologists, etc., who are monolingual in English and seem to be happy with that. But that is unusual in the world context. Even bilingualism is unusual in a larger context. For example, European linguists will usually speak not one, but at least two or three languages in addition to their native one. U.S. schools seem to believe that bilingualism is hard, and multilingualism an impossible task. And on the reservation schools where I work it is the same thing, kids have the choice between taking the Native Language and Spanish, as though their brains cannot handle more than one other language. And many take Spanish... The funny thing is of course that in pre-contact and pre-Anglo times many Native people were multilingual, and it wasn't a problem. My feeling is that in the U.S. context we would all relate to each other better if we went beyond the monolingual/bilingual dichotomy, and if both linguists and Native people were MULTIlingual to a greater extent. (Just a thought, I hope it is not too far off-topic.) Willem de Reuse From FurbeeL at missouri.edu Mon Oct 27 15:13:33 2003 From: FurbeeL at missouri.edu (Louanna Furbee) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 09:13:33 -0600 Subject: Publish/Perish Message-ID: Colleagues, I'm moved to respond to the cynical view Pat Warren expresses regarding the limits on the altruism of academic linguists. I have found academics almost to a person full of generosity toward the languages they study and peoples for whom those languages are heritage. I suppose there are successful linguists who only care to publish, only care to obtain the citations, but I have yet to meet one. Instead, I have found enormous concern and generosity among linguists - department chairs, named chair holders, distinguished colleagues and beginning students. They very often have taken extra time from their own academic obligations to help speakers in ways that range from getting someone to a doctor (too many examples to list), to editing grant proposals, to nurturing the education of speakers so they themselves can take up the linguistic effort (e.g., since the 1970s with speakers of Guatemalan indigenous languages, in recent decades the various development institutes in the U.S.), obtaining grants collaboratively with the speakers for projects they wish to do, establishing archives, establishing funds to award grants (ELF, FEL), starting special programs to prepare scholars, indeed just training the cadre of new scholars itself. These are not "non-publishing" academics who have been leaders: They are people like Ken Hale, Bob Dixon, Nora England, Bob Rankin, Akira Yamamoto, Colette Grinevald, Doug Whalen, Stephen Anderson, Leanne Hinton - in fact, as I say, just about everyone I can think of. Maybe I should mention here Noam Chomsky who divides his time, and speaking engagements, pretty much equally between linguistics and political opinion, the latter his version of "service". It IS true, that in the very early stages of an academic career, it is necessary for the assistant professor, who is only just learning how to be an independent scholar who can put together also collaborative research efforts, to run very hard to publish enough in the 5-6 yrs before the tenure decision and to demonstrate that s/he can get research up and going. In such a period and situation, just the hours in the day limit a person's capacity to help, but even at that, I have found many young scholars expending lots more of their time and energies than one might think they could or should. Most of us in research universities (presumably those of us most likely to fit the stereotype sketched) work under appointments that are something like 40% Teaching - 40% Research - 20% Service. Most of the folks I know more than fulfill that 20% service requirement, often by working hours that are more like 60/week rather than 40/week. Finally, a career is a long time - 30 years or more. Maybe some of the young cannot afford to expend as much time as they'd like to serve the communities that give them their research careers, but later when they are secure, they give back. It is a kind of pattern of life. Louanna Furbee -- Prof. N. Louanna Furbee Department of Anthropology 107 Swallow Hall University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211 USA Telephones: 573/882-9408 (office) 573/882-4731 (department) 573/446-0932 (home) 573/884-5450 (fax) E-mail: FurbeeL at missouri.edu From jkyle at ku.edu Mon Oct 27 15:18:08 2003 From: jkyle at ku.edu (John Kyle) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 09:18:08 -0600 Subject: polyglottism Message-ID: Some of you may have seen this on the Linguist List. It seems appropriate to the weekends discussions on polyglottism: http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-2923.html John Kyle jkyle at ku.edu From warr0120 at umn.edu Mon Oct 27 19:14:00 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (Pat Warren) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 13:14:00 CST Subject: honor the language, honor the people Message-ID: It's been wonderful to hear personal perspectives on so many different ideas. I really wish people would share more often like this. It would certainly help to change how linguistics is done if people kept these kinds of public discussions going regularly. There's such a massive amount of insight, intelligence, and experience floating around I wish someone would publish a series on the people and motivations and visions behind the work being done with native languages. I'm not sure if I'm having trouble expressing myself because I'm upset, or if the point I'm making is subtle, or just one that people either flat-out agree or disagree with. I feel bad because some people haven't noticed my distinction between "linguist" as a role and you as a person, and have gotten personally defensive it seems. It's wonderful to hear more about a lot of the caring things that people have done for/with the people that serve as their informants/subjects when doing linguistics. I'm not criticizng linguists as people. I'm criticizing (or trying to anyway) the inhumanity of linguistics and the roles of linguists. My emphasized criticism of the study of languages as an end in itself it essential. I know very well from my own experiences that it's very intellectually satisfying to learn about languages, to do linguistics. But I think that the study of languages that is not accompanied, or preceded by the ACQUISITION of these languages and active participation in the speech community leads to unintentional, hard-to-see, and often irreversible damage to the speech communities studied and to the individuals in those communities. And probably the effects trickle out to other communtities as well through the work of other linguists. The work of linguistics, and I'm focusing primarily in the linguistics of north american native languages, is inherently dehumanizing, objectifying, and of little use to the health of the language and community. As people, we all have much to offer, and many people do a lot, to help people in the communities whose languages are studied. But as linguists, I think little can be offered because of the theoretical structure and traditions of linguistics, and the roles that linguists play in the relationships they create while doing their work. I bet this is a tough distinction to see, cause even I'm struggling to get it into words. I think the near-total demise of native languages can't be helped with linguistics as it is done, and how people construct their self-images as linguists. I agree wholeheartedly that working with documentation, especially when my ideal of getting fluent speakers together with children is impossible, is THE primary activity. But I think the documentation that is done by people who do not speak the language not only doesn't help, it generally makes the situation worse as it acts as a placebo. While there are a some incredibly dedicated individuals who can utilize linguistic and missionary language materials in enhancing their acquistion of the language, I think this is not due to the quality of the materials, but happens in spite of them, due to the unshakable motivation of the learner, which is unfortunately a rarity, or at least not universal enough to keep these languages healthfully alive. Unless you learn the language and use it, I don't think you can produce materials that facilitate acqusition, as opposed to leanring ABOUT the language. The linguistics done with native languages that converts it to english makes people feel like important work is being done to save the language. Sometimes learners manage to overcome the obstacles and incorporate some of the language documented by linguists into their acquisition. But this is due to extraordinary learners with powerful motivation, not to good materials. I think linguists are fooling themselves to think that they're helping, but I think they're serving a passifying function, making people think "things are being done" to keep the languages alive. No community is going to see a reversal of the process of language death due to the production of language materials, unless those materials are produced by speakers of the language. You can churn out all the linguistic work you want, and enjoy it, but it will not contribute to the reversal of language death, unless it is informed by your subjective knowledge of the language and not dependent on another language for comprehension. No you don't need to acquire a language to study it. But you are limited in what you can study and the quality of your work. If you do not choose to learn the language you study, to honor it and the people whose language it is, I believe you are contributing, if unintentionally, to the death of the language. Thanks again for sharing, Pat From hhgarvin at hotmail.com Mon Oct 27 19:36:28 2003 From: hhgarvin at hotmail.com (Henning Garvin) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 13:36:28 -0600 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language Message-ID: Well, well, well. Seems a hornet's nest has been stirred up. I feel a need to add to this discussion but I have to say one thing first. My initial email in this discussion was written in the morning. I am a person who gets 4-5 hours of sleep on a normal night, but my daughter and I have been nursing wicked colds and the night before I emailed was particularly horrendous. Add to that the fact that I am very...surly, before I have a big cup of black coffee and it could explain why my message may have seemed a bit combative or defensive (which it was). If I offended anybody I would like to apologize. I will never do email again until after coffee time:) Alot of issues have been raised and I wanted to share my perspective. On the issue of speaking a language that is being studied. I agree with the fact that Linguists can do work without learning the target language. However, I also agree that work of any import will be done by those that have learned the language. I don't think anyone is arguing to the contrary. Our field methods course, and the professor who remains my mentor in all things Linguistic, stressed this fact. Languages deserve to be described on their own terms, from the inside out rather than from the outside in. A study or description of true value will try to capture the language as it is, not its relation to linguistic theory. The last thing you need to know about a language on the verge of extinction is how it is the same as a host of other languages. We need to know what makes Hocank unique, how is it different. I agree that it would take several lifetimes to really get a good handle on a language (linguistically speaking). I whole heartedly agree with Michael Krauss's statement that 100 linguists could work on a single language for 100 years and never get to the bottom of it. There is simply too much there to only devote part time, or a half hearted effort. SO of course there needs to be a significant effort and desire on the part of the researcher to provide anything of real value. Part of that effort needs to be learning the language so the material produced will be as good as it can possibly be. It has to become a lifelong endeavor, which will never truly end. Given this enormous effort I feel needs to be put forth, I do want to say the following. I don't believe Linguistics will ever save a language from extinction. I don't believe a Linguist will ever be able to accomplish such a feat. I doubt there is anyone who does believe such an absurd thing. If a tribe asked my advice about starting a language program, the last thing I would recommend would be to hire a linguist(in certain situations). The speakers and the children of a community will ensure the continuity of a language. Not linguists. I agree there need to be more initiatives working at bringing speakers and children together so the learning will take place in a smooth natural manner. (If anyone knows of such grants, by all means please let us know because we are searching for a funding opportunity for just such a program. If not, will anyone march to Washington with me and lobby the BIA and the ANA to create such a funding program?) I agree at the very least tribal headstart programs and preschool programs should be conducted in the language of the community. Anything that can be done to get the language to the youngest generation should be a top priority. And this obviously does not need the work of a linguist. So I think I established that I don't believe a Linguist is necessary to save a language. But can a Linguist and the work he/she does help? Absolutely. Will it hurt? Most likely not. So why would we turn down an opportunity, or lift our noses, at the possiblity of strengthening ONE area of our revitalization efforts. If we can more effectively teach our adults who can then more effectively transmit the language to our youth, then I am all for it. As to the motivations of academics? I have met academics that would use Hocank as a trophy to place next to their PhD. But the vast majority that I have encountered are men and women who come to their office in the morning with bags under their eyes, holding a cup of strong coffee because they stay up late working on their projects. I have seen them sacrifice time with their families, friends, and it seems sometimes their sanity for what they are doing because they truly believe they will make a difference. These people I am referencing are fully tenured, so they are not subject to the vicious rigors of that track. One was actually the chair of our department. I respect them, because they respect the people they work with. As a matter of fact, they consider themselves working for people rather than with. Yet they are Linguists, they are passionate about language, and of course they will couch what they discover in linguistic terms and theory. If you work with a linguist what else would you expect? The difference is whether or not what they produce is of value to the community. And that is up to the community itself to decide, no one else. Our tribe has less than 250 native speakers of our language. Recently, in the course three days, we lost three of them. All of them were devoted to their people, and were working in some way to pass on their language and the culture they knew. It was a devastating loss, first because they were our relatives, but also because of all that they took with them. This is MY reality. Everyday I live and work under a shadow that we as a people are going to completely lose ourselves. That the only thing left identifying us as HoChunk will be our looks and our CDIB identification cards. We don't have alot of time to mess around. THe Volkswagen Grant is not providing money to bring our children and speakers together. That is a shame. But it is providing an opportunity in another area, and we are going to exploit this opportunity for all that it is worth. Our community has already decided that. If other opportunities come along, then we will do the same. If they don't, we are resourceful enough to create our own opportunities. We survived this long by being able to fend off the genocidal tendencies of the dominant culture around us, albeit with many losses. Hopefully we will be able to continue. Henning Garvin Linguistic research Ho-Chunk Nation Language Division _________________________________________________________________ Never get a busy signal because you are always connected with high-speed Internet access. Click here to comparison-shop providers. https://broadband.msn.com From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Oct 27 20:30:10 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 13:30:10 -0700 Subject: SPAM Posted on List Message-ID: In case no one noticed, it appears that some SPAM generation activity has managed to get in through one of the subscriber accounts. I've removed the offending account and will probably institute more stringent validation procedures for subscriptions, though, in this case, the person involved was a real Siouanist. John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Oct 27 20:37:43 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 13:37:43 -0700 Subject: Procedural Matter In-Reply-To: <20031026172749.43074.qmail@web41709.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: It would be a nice idea if folks would do some editing of the text they are responding to. In particular, it's an inefficient use of email to keep prepending your response to the an unedited copy of what you are responding to. This produces a tendency for letters to grow without end, since the material at the very end never gets removed. If you go over the material you are replying to and consider whether any of it could be deleted, then you get an opportunity to delete the material it was replying to, and the material that was replying to, and so on. From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de Mon Oct 27 21:10:13 2003 From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 22:10:13 +0100 Subject: Volkswagen acquires the Hochank language In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 13:36 27.10.03 -0600, Henning Garvin wrote: >Languages deserve to be described on their own terms, from the inside out >rather than from the outside in. Sounds good, but is hard to achieve, and it's a bit like reinventing the wheel, too. Nevertheless, a paper like Sasse's "Der irokesische Sprachtyp." (ZS 7/2, 1988, 173-213) fascinated, because he speculated about what a description of Cayuga might have looked like, had it been written by a Cayugan Dionysos Thrax. Still, when I started being more concerned about people than language(s), I more often ended up with thinking the more interesting question would have been: "Why was there no Cayugan Dionysos Thrax?"... One should bear in mind that there are indigenous grammar writing traditions which aren't as good as Arabic, Tamil or Sanskrit grammars, but even are sad caricatures of these, like Tibetan mimicks Sanskrit grammatical tradition, and, still worse, Mongolian both. This is just as bad as to even worse than anglocentric writing. >A study or description of true value will try to capture the language as >it is, not its relation to linguistic theory. Even though I frankly admit to having gone through phases of theory-tiredness, there is no theory-free description. But surely e.g. a treatment like (a hypothetical) "On the typological position of Hocank" would clearly be targeted at a typologist audience, and hopefully be of "true value" to typology, just not for didactic purposes. >The last thing you need to know about a language on the verge of >extinction is how it is the same as a host of other languages. Nevertheless, this might be one of the interests a typologist could have in preserving an endagered language. I also wouldn't underestimate the insights typology or also historical-comparative linguistics can offer to descriptive work (which should underlie teaching). All the best, Heike "Um . . . whether the banana leaf touches the thorn or the thorn hits the banana leaf, it's always the banana leaf that gets hurt!" (Jayakanthan, Trial by Fire) From rankin at ku.edu Mon Oct 27 21:45:06 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 15:45:06 -0600 Subject: honor the language, honor the people, honor the scholar too Message-ID: > I wish someone would publish a series on the people and motivations and visions behind the work being done with native languages. That might be revealing (I can certainly recite horror stories of how little some administrators value "field work" that doesn't produce immediate results. Telling them your grammar may take a lifetime to produce doesn't cut the mustard), but, even in the case of the most jaded and selfish field investigators, there's always "The Law of Unintended Consequences." Take John P. Harrington for example. We would look upon some of his expressed, early 20th century attitudes as ante-diluvian today -- he was the product of another time. BUT, where would the Mission Indian groups of California be without the work he did? For all his obsessiveness about "wringing the last few words" from dying speakers, he churned out a MILLION pages of data in his (very non-lucrative) career. Remember . . . our clientele includes Indian People who are already monolingual English or Spanish speakers. > I feel bad because some people haven't noticed my distinction between "linguist" as a role and you as a person, and have gotten personally defensive it seems. I don't see the responses we've gotten as defensive at all. I think there are those among us who may feel that you've stereotyped an entire profession and wonder what got you to this point. But, to extend my skyscraper analogy from earlier, I don't feel the least bit guilty, in my role as an "architect", that I am not also a plumber or a skilled carpenter. It's expecting too much to ask me to produce materials for 4th graders -- I can't do that; I lack the talent, or at least the training. It would also be unfair to ask Native teachers to figure out the best way to present the active/stative split in Dakota or possessor raising or K-palatalization. Everybody has his or her job, and all are essential if language has to be presented in school instead of in the home. And, like it or not, that's the most common situation. I guess I also feel that it seems at least a little elitist to assume that White, unfeeling, uncaring, Ivory Tower scientists are just bamboozling those poor, ignorant Native Americans in order to make a buck off their language, and they aren't smart enough to see through it. Actually, I've found that, after 200+ years of bad experiences with Whites, Indians have become pretty good judges of character. The fellow who descends on the Rez to find out whether the 25 outlandish sentences of Dakota he has constructed from his Theory are "grammatical" or not isn't going to make a lot of friends. Even if such people exist, it won't do to damn the profession of linguist up and down and then say "But . . . I didn't mean YOU guys." Who ARE we talking about, then? It's Hallowe'en and I'd like to meet some of these monsters. Yeah, I confess, I didn't learn to speak fluent Kaw or Quapaw. But there wasn't anybody left to talk with at that point. Plus, I'd already learned French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Provencal, Catalan, Russian and a few others AND MY BRAIN WAS FULL!! But I wholeheartedly recommend learning to speak the language plus absorbing as much of the rich North American cultures as possible (without turning into an obsessed Wannabee). > I'm criticizing (or trying to anyway) the inhumanity of linguistics and the roles of linguists. My emphasized criticism of the study of languages as an end in itself it essential. Why? Isn't language a reasonable object of scientific curiosity? Even if languages are dying all around us? Where would medicine ever have gotten if it were restricted to treating sick people and cultivating a pleasant bedside manner? Pasteur, Jenner and Salk would probably have died of whooping cough. And besides, as Henning points out, no linguist is ever going to "save" a language, single-handedly or otherwise -- that's up to the speech community. But we can produce some very helpful reference materials and help with literacy and codification if that is desired. And in many of our cases, that's all that's left. > But I think that the study of languages that is not accompanied, or preceded by the ACQUISITION of these languages and active participation in the speech community leads to unintentional, hard-to-see, and often irreversible damage to the speech communities studied and to the individuals in those communities. I can't imagine how. I can see that inexperience may lead to mistakes in analysis but "irreversible damage"? Isn't that just a bit extreme? At worst the linguist is just a harmless drudge. > And probably the effects trickle out to other communtities as well through the work of other linguists. It's true that an incompetent analysis is often projected through several generations of other linguists, but let's not take the incompetent as the norm. And let's not assume that such errors really affect speech communities. > The work of linguistics, . . . is inherently dehumanizing, objectifying, and of little use to the health of the language and community. This is the sort of sterotyping that I find so strange in someone who says he enjoys the study of language(s). What are you thinking of that would justify those feelings? What is it about, say, Boas and Deloria's Dakota Grammar that is "dehumanizing (and) objectifying"? I just don't get it. And since when is the health of the language and community the responsibility of the linguist? That's not to say we can't volunteer our services, such as they are, but is that the sole goal of the profession? > I think the near-total demise of native languages can't be helped with linguistics as it is done, and how people construct their self-images as linguists. I'd go even farther and say that linguists as such cannot "save" languages, but I think it follows that's it's silly then to hold them somehow accountable for much of anything having to do with language obsolescence. No amount of touchy-feely maundering is going to accomplish the kind of salvation you have in mind. Only 3 and 4 year olds making the (largely unconscious) decision to adopt their parents or grandparents language and use it will do that. What we CAN be responsible for is providing useful references for a future when the language may no longer be spoken. I should add that we can also sometimes affect the political process with expert testimony aimed at those who control the purse strings of government. > I think the documentation that is done by people who do not speak the language not only doesn't help, it generally makes the situation worse as it acts as a placebo. But again you seem to be assuming an incompetent product. What works are you thinking of? > While there are a some incredibly dedicated individuals who can utilize linguistic and missionary language materials in enhancing their acquistion of the language, I think this is not due to the quality of the materials, but happens in spite of them, I'd have to say that the Defense Language Institute and Foreign Service Institute belie this generalization. They use careful structural analyses (done by linguists)to prepare graded instructional materials to teach points of grammar that are important in the target language. And they manage to turn out a fairly good product, especially given the education level of the enlistees they often have to work with. I learned my Romanian with one of these courses and it works quite well. I'd love to see this tried more thoroughly in Native communities. Adults CAN learn other languages -- it just takes a lot of time and effort. Unhappily, soldiers and diplomats have the time to spend on the task, whereas most of us ordinary folks have to use that time to feed our families. > Unless you learn the language and use it, I don't think you can produce materials that facilitate acqusition, as opposed to leanring ABOUT the language. As I've said, I don't think this is remotely the case. But I'd add that learning ABOUT the language is a worthy goal for Indian People too -- and perhaps the only option for those who don't have the time to put in learning it. > The linguistics done with native languages that converts it to english makes people feel like important work is being done to save the language. Ah, yes. That can be a problem. Mary Haas warned linguists about "translating languages into English and they analyzing the English." That's simply bad linguistics. But we all know that already, and I think that the false promises of language maintenance and retention are being made, not by descriptivists, but by those who go around the country holding "workshops" for Native People that promise a linguistic salvation that they cannot deliver, and that, in most cases, will not be forthcoming. I must say I have a real problem with such workshops, "institutes" and revival meetings. > If you do not choose to learn the language you study, to honor it and the people whose language it is, I believe you are contributing, if unintentionally, to the death of the language. I think most linguists do their very best in this direction, so why do assume they don't/won't? However, fluency is just as hard for us as for any other adult learner and we have to operate with this in mind. Linguists simply do not "contribute ... to the death of the language." They are at best helpful and at worst harmless. And, of course, their goals may legitimately include things far-removed from language maintenance. Perhaps John should invoke cloture to this not-terribly-informative exchange after another round or two. Bob From FurbeeL at missouri.edu Mon Oct 27 21:56:11 2003 From: FurbeeL at missouri.edu (Louanna Furbee) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 15:56:11 -0600 Subject: honor the language, honor the people In-Reply-To: <200310271914.h9RJE0vC012243@fantasy.software.umn.edu> Message-ID: >Pat, Sorry to have upset you. I just didn't recognize the linguists >or linguistics that I know in your characterization, so probably >reacted defensively. I apologize if I misrepresented your >point-of-view. Louanna >It's been wonderful to hear personal perspectives on so many different >ideas. I really wish people would share more often like this. It would >certainly help to change how linguistics is done if people kept these kinds >of public discussions going regularly. There's such a massive amount of >insight, intelligence, and experience floating around I wish someone would >publish a series on the people and motivations and visions behind the work >being done with native languages. > >I'm not sure if I'm having trouble expressing myself because I'm upset, or >if the point I'm making is subtle, or just one that people either flat-out >agree or disagree with. > >I feel bad because some people haven't noticed my distinction between >"linguist" as a role and you as a person, and have gotten personally >defensive it seems. It's wonderful to hear more about a lot of the caring >things that people have done for/with the people that serve as their >informants/subjects when doing linguistics. I'm not criticizng linguists as >people. I'm criticizing (or trying to anyway) the inhumanity of linguistics >and the roles of linguists. My emphasized criticism of the study of >languages as an end in itself it essential. I know very well from my own >experiences that it's very intellectually satisfying to learn about >languages, to do linguistics. But I think that the study of languages that >is not accompanied, or preceded by the ACQUISITION of these languages and >active participation in the speech community leads to unintentional, >hard-to-see, and often irreversible damage to the speech communities >studied and to the individuals in those communities. And probably the >effects trickle out to other communtities as well through the work of other >linguists. > >The work of linguistics, and I'm focusing primarily in the linguistics of >north american native languages, is inherently dehumanizing, objectifying, >and of little use to the health of the language and community. As people, >we all have much to offer, and many people do a lot, to help people in the >communities whose languages are studied. But as linguists, I think little >can be offered because of the theoretical structure and traditions of >linguistics, and the roles that linguists play in the relationships they >create while doing their work. I bet this is a tough distinction to see, >cause even I'm struggling to get it into words. > >I think the near-total demise of native languages can't be helped with >linguistics as it is done, and how people construct their self-images as >linguists. I agree wholeheartedly that working with documentation, >especially when my ideal of getting fluent speakers together with children >is impossible, is THE primary activity. But I think the documentation that >is done by people who do not speak the language not only doesn't help, it >generally makes the situation worse as it acts as a placebo. While there >are a some incredibly dedicated individuals who can utilize linguistic and >missionary language materials in enhancing their acquistion of the >language, I think this is not due to the quality of the materials, but >happens in spite of them, due to the unshakable motivation of the learner, >which is unfortunately a rarity, or at least not universal enough to keep >these languages healthfully alive. Unless you learn the language and use >it, I don't think you can produce materials that facilitate acqusition, as >opposed to leanring ABOUT the language. > >The linguistics done with native languages that converts it to english >makes people feel like important work is being done to save the language. >Sometimes learners manage to overcome the obstacles and incorporate some of >the language documented by linguists into their acquisition. But this is >due to extraordinary learners with powerful motivation, not to good >materials. I think linguists are fooling themselves to think that they're >helping, but I think they're serving a passifying function, making people >think "things are being done" to keep the languages alive. No community is >going to see a reversal of the process of language death due to the >production of language materials, unless those materials are produced by >speakers of the language. You can churn out all the linguistic work you >want, and enjoy it, but it will not contribute to the reversal of language >death, unless it is informed by your subjective knowledge of the language >and not dependent on another language for comprehension. No you don't need >to acquire a language to study it. But you are limited in what you can >study and the quality of your work. If you do not choose to learn the >language you study, to honor it and the people whose language it is, I >believe you are contributing, if unintentionally, to the death of the >language. > >Thanks again for sharing, >Pat -- Prof. N. Louanna Furbee Department of Anthropology 107 Swallow Hall University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211 USA Telephones: 573/882-9408 (office) 573/882-4731 (department) 573/446-0932 (home) 573/884-5450 (fax) E-mail: FurbeeL at missouri.edu From jkyle at ku.edu Mon Oct 27 23:14:53 2003 From: jkyle at ku.edu (John Kyle) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 17:14:53 -0600 Subject: honor the language, honor the people, honor the scholar too Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 3:45 PM Subject: RE: honor the language, honor the people, honor the scholar too > > Perhaps John should invoke cloture to this not-terribly-informative > exchange after another round or two. > > Bob > > Thank you Dr. Rankin, and I second the motion. John Kyle jkyle at ku.edu ************************************** "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." - Pres. Bush, Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002 From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 28 03:31:01 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 20:31:01 -0700 Subject: Not Spam After All Message-ID: My sincere apologies for deleting one of the members recently on the pannicked assumption that their system was sending spam to the list. It turns out (thanks to Pat Warren for recognizing this) that somehow the body of the messages was being deleted, leaving only a commercial postscript from the mail service being used. John E. Koontz From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Oct 28 05:27:42 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 22:27:42 -0700 Subject: honor the language, honor the people, honor the scholar too In-Reply-To: <004401c39ce0$3361a330$3fcbed81@D8LZRG21> Message-ID: On Mon, 27 Oct 2003, John Kyle wrote: > > Perhaps John should invoke cloture to this not-terribly-informative > > exchange after another round or two. > > Thank you Dr. Rankin, and I second the motion. I have to admit that I have been thinking about that, though not sure how to do it reasonably. I have been astounded at the furor produced by what I consider to be a completely welcome and innocently phrased announcement that a respected Siouanist and several colleagues have undertaken an intensive investigation of Hochank in modern terms. This seems to me sadly overdue, and more a cause of rejoicing than anguish. Naturally, this is not likely in any direct way to save Hochank. What saves languages is use. It also won't harm Hochank, either, as far as I can see, but it will be of immense use to anyone preparing lesson materials or any other scheme of active preservation, and it will help to ensure that Hochank is never reduced to the sad state of being just a name, a fate that has befallen far too many languages. To return to the point, I receive a certain amount of side correspondence from members about what they like and don't like in this list or other lists, sometimes citing specific examples. I also have a certain amount of experience over the years in what kills lists - linguistic lists, anyway. Three things seem to annoy people rapidly. The first is an excessive number of what we might call naive contributions. On the Siouanist list this might be someone who went on and on about the obvious merits of the Welsh-Mandan hypothesis and always had several wide-ranging and not entirely on target responses to any criticism offered. The second is a large number of contributions on irrelevant or even merely peripheral issues, e.g., for irrelevance, discussions of the antics of pet dogs. As for peripherality, some members might feel that the discussion of pet etymologies is in that vein. Me, I'm a bit of an etymology-lover myself. The third killer is what I might call the introduction of external, judgemental issues - a turning from the discussion of linguistic matters (or their periphery) to the question of whether linguistics or even something else is an appropriate exercise, or to moral assessments of how that exercise might best be conducted. A certain amount of such meta-topical consideration is certainly appropriate, even if peripheral, especially if it can somehow be put in such terms that those of opposed views are simply in error and not also morally bankrupt. But too much of it, especially in moralistic terms, is not really conducive to the discussion of Siouan linguistics and belongs on some other list. JEK From warr0120 at umn.edu Tue Oct 28 06:11:14 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (Pat Warren) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 00:11:14 CST Subject: the brief context of my ideas, and then Ill be quiet Message-ID: Since I am now being attacked personally I'll share a few fundamental views I have that will put the rest of what I've tried to say into context. I brought this on myself. Normally I keep quiet. If the info about the Hocank project had come from the community saying "look what we're doing" (which they probably woudln't, since it's for themselves, not for linguists' aproval), and if it had been said that the material will be archived at the community too and not just in the netherlands, I would have been very happy for them. For the rest, I brought in more ideas than I wish I would have. I have different basic assumptions than many people on this list, which makes constructive critical discussion very difficult. Most people in the dominant culture don't see themselves as agents of domination, but that's what I see, myself included. It's no longer explicit as it was even recently (you don't call "them" heathen anymore). And I don't see personal choice such as practicing linguistics as being a personal choice alone. I see it within the larger framework of a culture still committed to the destruction or acculturation of pretty much every culture in the world. When the errors of the past are made too obvious too ignore, I see dominant cultural institutions adapting, but not making systemic change to a non-dominating existence. I see the linguistics that is done of languages other than your own as an act of domination. It's not just an objective, worthy scientific pursuit, it's part of the larger process of our culture to contain and eventually eliminate diversity from the world. And that's my problem. How can you make a statement like that and expect constructive talk with people who think very differently? I forgot that difficulty. To me it's basic. But to others...well there's certainly diversity of opinion there. I see myself as an agent and subject of the dominant culture in which I was raised and live. And so I know that I'm a dangerous person to much of the world. I don't have the respect for the rest of creation that I would like to. I work on myself and try to change that, but I know it's there, and I see it in the people around me. But we are not encouraged by our ideology, roles, or experiences to be aware of how fundamentally different we are from most people who have lived throughout history, though I don't pretend there are perfect societies, just that most people haven't been at war with life. I am not fully responsible for the precarious state of the world around me, nor the violence of my culture towards the world and itself, but I try to stay aware of it, and creatively subvert it. Oddly, I don't see this as at all cynical. I'm critical, but I have much hope. But it requires rethinking structures I see as dominant, and trying to find ways to reverse the trend. And that's what I work on. My first step is in doing linguistics is acquiring the languages I'm interested in. Next is finding theories that empower the meanings and structures native to the language. There's plenty out there, like Bill Croft's radical construction grammar and Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard's natural semantic metalanguage lexicographical approach. Tools that respect the language on its own terms of meaning like these two approaches can make a huge difference. This versus the lexicographical tradition of leaning on english glossing, or assuming essentialist universal grammatical categories. Another essential concept is making sure that work done is available to the community, economically, physically, etc. I don't think the rights to works should be sold by linguists to publishers. This HAS changed somewhat recently, and that's very good. The language must remain free of outisde control. I hope some of my differing views are a bit clearer. But it's so very hard, I think, when people in a discussion have such opposing viewpoints. It's hard to remember this sometimes. Last week I made someone extremely upset when I suggested that nonhuman animals have essentially the same emotional potenital as humans. But that's basic to me that all the nonhuman animals I've known are feeling, intentional, autonomous beings - which means they're people. But different assumptions, and it's hard to understand each other. Thanks for you time, Pat From dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com Tue Oct 28 07:04:36 2003 From: dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com (David Kaufman) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 23:04:36 -0800 Subject: the brief context of my ideas, and then Ill be quiet In-Reply-To: <200310280611.h9S6BED6014065@fantasy.software.umn.edu> Message-ID: Hello again: I just thought I?d add a couple more thoughts before the closing of this discussion. Perhaps we are discussing two different things: linguistics and revitalization. It seems to me the purpose of the linguist is to research and publish mainly for other linguists, for the further development and growth of the science of linguistics and a deeper understanding of languages in general?their differences and similarities, their genealogies, origins, etc. But, while looking at the ?overall picture? of language appeals to us as linguists, this really does little to serve individual language communities and cultures involved in revitalization efforts. As I think Henning pointed out, the Hocaks will probably care little about what ?family? their language belongs to and what similarities and differences their language shares with Dakota or Hidatsa. Their only goal will be to revitalize their own language and culture, and how to go about that the best way, and how to receive funding! for that purpose. While linguists may certainly be able to help out in some way or other on these endeavors, I would imagine revitalization efforts would require more assistance from educators/teachers who are more acquainted with second language acquisition and language teaching and who may be able to assist more in curriculum development, lesson planning, etc. That being said, what may be more helpful to a tribe?s revitalization efforts (and what might make this discussion more substantive) would be a tribe?s interaction and communication with people involved in other revitalization projects which have shown a good deal of success. I may have mentioned that I?m currently taking a Hawaiian language class taught by a teacher who graduated from U of Hawai?i in Hilo (the center of Hawaiian?s revitalization project) and who now teaches part-time at Stanford University, which apparently just graduated its first two grad students in Hawaiian language and studies. (I don?t go to Stanford. She comes to Sacramento once a week to teach a private class here!) Thus, not only are Hawaiians learning their language in Hawai?i, but now degrees are also offered at universities in other states. It seems a big boost to any revitalization program is to be recognized by some major schools and universities which will hopefully develop a curriculum ! and even degree programs for those who would like to actually get a degree in the language and culture. I can give anyone who is interested the email address of our Hawaiian kumu (teacher), but rather than post it here for anyone and everyone, I?d rather give it only to those who are interested (especially those who are members of tribes involved in or wanting to start revitalization work) and who would like to contact me individually. I?m sure she?d be willing to give whatever info she can on the Hawaiian program, or at least can give you more leads of whom to contact involved in Hawaiian?s quite successful project. I?m sure if anyone knows about funding for things like this, they would! Lastly, I think linguists do serve a positive role at least as far as exploring the nature of language and its origins. And I agree to have linguists involved in revitalization programs probably can't hurt and can only ultimately be helpful. Also, we hear a lot in the media about environmental crises and the mass extinction of flora and fauna, but I think few people out there (nonlinguists) really know the extent of the language and cultural extinctions that are occurring. I don't know if this would ultimately make a difference, but more publicity and awareness of the general public of the situation probably couldn't hurt either! I myself often encounter reactions of surprise when I tell people that a majority of the world's current languages, including ones like Hawaiian, Hidatsa, and (I'm sad to learn) Hocak have 200 native speakers or less left on the earth. Dave Kaufman dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com Pat Warren wrote:Since I am now being attacked personally I'll share a few fundamental views I have that will put the rest of what I've tried to say into context. I brought this on myself. Normally I keep quiet. If the info about the Hocank project had come from the community saying "look what we're doing" (which they probably woudln't, since it's for themselves, not for linguists' aproval), and if it had been said that the material will be archived at the community too and not just in the netherlands, I would have been very happy for them. For the rest, I brought in more ideas than I wish I would have. I have different basic assumptions than many people on this list, which makes constructive critical discussion very difficult. Most people in the dominant culture don't see themselves as agents of domination, but that's what I see, myself included. It's no longer explicit as it was even recently (you don't call "them" heathen anymore). And I don't see personal choice such as practicing linguistics as being a personal choice alone. I see it within the larger framework of a culture still committed to the destruction or acculturation of pretty much every culture in the world. When the errors of the past are made too obvious too ignore, I see dominant cultural institutions adapting, but not making systemic change to a non-dominating existence. I see the linguistics that is done of languages other than your own as an act of domination. It's not just an objective, worthy scientific pursuit, it's part of the larger process of our culture to contain and eventually eliminate diversity from the world. And that's my problem. How can you make a statement like that and expect constructive talk with people who think very differently? I forgot that difficulty. To me it's basic. But to others...well there's certainly diversity of opinion there. I see myself as an agent and subject of the dominant culture in which I was raised and live. And so I know that I'm a dangerous person to much of the world. I don't have the respect for the rest of creation that I would like to. I work on myself and try to change that, but I know it's there, and I see it in the people around me. But we are not encouraged by our ideology, roles, or experiences to be aware of how fundamentally different we are from most people who have lived throughout history, though I don't pretend there are perfect societies, just that most people haven't been at war with life. I am not fully responsible for the precarious state of the world around me, nor the violence of my culture towards the world and itself, but I try to stay aware of it, and creatively subvert it. Oddly, I don't see this as at all cynical. I'm critical, but I have much hope. But it requires rethinking structures I see as dominant, and trying to find ways to reverse the trend. And that's what I work on. My first step is in doing linguistics is acquiring the languages I'm interested in. Next is finding theories that empower the meanings and structures native to the language. There's plenty out there, like Bill Croft's radical construction grammar and Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard's natural semantic metalanguage lexicographical approach. Tools that respect the language on its own terms of meaning like these two approaches can make a huge difference. This versus the lexicographical tradition of leaning on english glossing, or assuming essentialist universal grammatical categories. Another essential concept is making sure that work done is available to the community, economically, physically, etc. I don't think the rights to works should be sold by linguists to publishers. This HAS changed somewhat recently, and that's very good. The language must remain free of outisde control. I hope some of my differing views are a bit clearer. But it's so very hard, I think, when people in a discussion have such opposing viewpoints. It's hard to remember this sometimes. Last week I made someone extremely upset when I suggested that nonhuman animals have essentially the same emotional potenital as humans. But that's basic to me that all the nonhuman animals I've known are feeling, intentional, autonomous beings - which means they're people. But different assumptions, and it's hard to understand each other. Thanks for you time, Pat --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From CaRudin1 at wsc.edu Tue Oct 28 15:06:04 2003 From: CaRudin1 at wsc.edu (Catherine Rudin/HU/AC/WSC) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 09:06:04 -0600 Subject: honor the language, honor the people, honor the scholar too Message-ID: I hereby "third" the cloture motion. From rankin at ku.edu Tue Oct 28 15:07:19 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 09:07:19 -0600 Subject: Not Spam After All Message-ID: Ah, yes, Violet. I wrote her back off-list to tell her it hadn't come through and that she ought to resubmit her remarks. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Koontz John E" To: "Siouan List" Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 9:31 PM Subject: Not Spam After All > My sincere apologies for deleting one of the members recently on the > pannicked assumption that their system was sending spam to the list. > > It turns out (thanks to Pat Warren for recognizing this) that somehow the > body of the messages was being deleted, leaving only a commercial > postscript from the mail service being used. > > John E. Koontz > From alber033 at tc.umn.edu Tue Oct 28 16:41:48 2003 From: alber033 at tc.umn.edu (Patricia Albers) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 10:41:48 -0600 Subject: honor the language, honor the people, honor the scholar too In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >As chair of the department in which Pat Warren has taken some >classes in our Ojibwe and Dakota language programs, I feel it is >necessary to indicate that while I respect his opinion, it should >not be construed as reflecting the position of the teaching staff in >our department. As a department, we are actively engaged in >supporting native language preservation on many different fronts >from more "ivory-tower" documentation work to active community >outreach, including the co-sponsorship of the recent Minnesota >Indigenous Language Conference. We believe that a number different >strategies need to be deployed to preserve native languages, and we >recognize these will differ from one language and community >situation to another. We oppose using the scholarship and pedagogy >on native languages as a sword to settle conflicts whose origins >typically reside elsewhere. > >Patricia C. Albers, Chair and Professor >Department of American Indian Studies >University of Minnesota > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From chafe at linguistics.ucsb.edu Tue Oct 28 18:16:56 2003 From: chafe at linguistics.ucsb.edu (Wallace Chafe) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 10:16:56 -0800 Subject: Cloture In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Please, John, shut this off. This has been such an excellent list up until now. We all have better things to do than to read endlessly about some individual's psychological problems. Enough already! Wally From rankin at ku.edu Tue Oct 28 19:38:00 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (rankin at ku.edu) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 13:38:00 -0600 Subject: ...then Ill be quiet Message-ID: > Since I am now being attacked personally . . . . I do apologize if you feel you've been attacked personally, but I stand by my considered, professional opinion that modern, descriptive Linguistics, judiciously practiced, is absolutely indispensible to any program of adult language instruction. It's the basis of all the successful language programs that have evolved worldwide in the past 50 years. To maintain otherwise is to damage the potential of such programs to help communities with their language instruction. Let's just leave it at that. Bob From hhgarvin at hotmail.com Tue Oct 28 21:45:40 2003 From: hhgarvin at hotmail.com (Henning Garvin) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 15:45:40 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: I believe my email messed up this post the first time I sent it. If not, sorry for the repeat. No, this has nothing to do with the Volkswagen Grant:) I was recently asked an interesting question. THe Hocank word for butterfly is : miNmiNke I was told the Menominee word for butterfly is exactly the same. I was asked if this is a good example of a borrowing. Given the close proximity and relations the Hocank had with the Menominee, I would hazard a guess that it is indeed a borrowing. But they also asked from which direction the borrowing would have occured. So what are the other Siouan, or Alguonquian if you know, words for butterfly. I know the Ojibwe word is: memengwaa The words are similar enough that I am leaning toward the Alguonquian side for origin, but I wanted more input before I could answer this question. THanks Henning Garvin Linguistic research Ho-Chunk Nation Language Division _________________________________________________________________ Surf and talk on the phone at the same time with broadband Internet access. Get high-speed for as low as $29.95/month (depending on the local service providers in your area). https://broadband.msn.com From boris at terracom.net Tue Oct 28 22:53:38 2003 From: boris at terracom.net (Al Knutson) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 16:53:38 -0600 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Bloomfield's lexicon has: mi:mi:kw3:w 'butterfly' 14.122 (ref to grammar -----Original Message----- From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Henning Garvin Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 3:46 PM To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Subject: butterfly I believe my email messed up this post the first time I sent it. If not, sorry for the repeat. No, this has nothing to do with the Volkswagen Grant:) I was recently asked an interesting question. THe Hocank word for butterfly is : miNmiNke I was told the Menominee word for butterfly is exactly the same. I was asked if this is a good example of a borrowing. Given the close proximity and relations the Hocank had with the Menominee, I would hazard a guess that it is indeed a borrowing. But they also asked from which direction the borrowing would have occured. So what are the other Siouan, or Alguonquian if you know, words for butterfly. I know the Ojibwe word is: memengwaa The words are similar enough that I am leaning toward the Alguonquian side for origin, but I wanted more input before I could answer this question. THanks Henning Garvin Linguistic research Ho-Chunk Nation Language Division _________________________________________________________________ Surf and talk on the phone at the same time with broadband Internet access. Get high-speed for as low as $29.95/month (depending on the local service providers in your area). https://broadband.msn.com From rankin at ku.edu Wed Oct 29 00:08:27 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 18:08:27 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: > I was recently asked an interesting question. THe Hocank word for butterfly > is : > > miNmiNke > I know the Ojibwe word is: > memengwaa > The words are similar enough that I am leaning toward the Alguonquian side > for origin, but I wanted more input before I could answer this question. Bet you're right, and for the reason you state. Quapaw is /tina/ and Osage (LaFlesche) /tsiaN/. Kaw has taken the Proto-Dhegiha *tiraN and remodeled it on the word for 'to fly', /giyaN/. Ofo is /naN:phitka/, Biloxi is /apadenska/. That's all I've got at present. I sure folks can give you Dakotan and some others, but, as you can see, there's no uniformity across Siouan at present and certainly no evidence for something like the HC form in earlier stages of Siouan. Bob From kdshea at ku.edu Wed Oct 29 01:14:23 2003 From: kdshea at ku.edu (Kathleen Shea) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 19:14:23 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: A couple of summers ago at the Linguistic Institute at UCSB in Santa Barbara, I sat in on the Friends of Uto-Aztecan meeting, which took place at the Natural History Museum in Santa Barbara. There was an interactive exhibit going on at the time of live butterflies from all over, and one of the presenters at the Friends of U-A conference was a curator at the museum. (I forget his name, without looking it up.) He had us all put the word for 'butterfly' in various languages (Uto-Aztecan and others) on the blackboard and took a picture of it. Most of the words had reduplication, as might be expected, and there might have been other similarities across the languages represented. Anyway, the Ponca word for 'butterfly' is wac^c^i'ninikka (' representing accent of the preceding syllable), and the word for 'hummingbird' is wac^c^i'ninikka wazhiN'ga (lit., 'butterfly bird'), by the way. This gives me a chance to correct myself since I remember that I got confused at the time and put the wrong spelling on the board at the museum, leaving out a geminate or two. Pardon such a wordy answer for such a small question! Kathy From kdshea at ku.edu Wed Oct 29 02:21:55 2003 From: kdshea at ku.edu (Kathleen Shea) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 20:21:55 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Oops! I'm still mixing Net Siouan with the practical Ponca orthography. 'Hummingbird' is /wac^c^i'ninikka waz^iN'ga/. I know that no one thinks there's an aspirated voiced dental fricative in Ponca! However, the word for 'butterfly,' /wac^c^i'ninikka/, compared to /wac^hi'gaag^e/ 'to dance,' does exemplify the phonemic contrast between /c^c^/ and /c^h/ in Ponca. Kathy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kathleen Shea" To: Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 7:14 PM Subject: Re: butterfly >Anyway, the Ponca word for 'butterfly' is wac^c^i'ninikka (' > representing accent of the preceding syllable), and the word for > 'hummingbird' is wac^c^i'ninikka wazhiN'ga (lit., 'butterfly bird'), by the > way. This gives me a chance to correct myself since I remember that I got > confused at the time and put the wrong spelling on the board at the museum, > leaving out a geminate or two. From munro at ucla.edu Wed Oct 29 02:42:34 2003 From: munro at ucla.edu (Pamela Munro) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 18:42:34 -0800 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: <008c01c39db9$fdca25a0$5409ed81@9afl3> Message-ID: The person Kathy refers to here is John Johnson, the director of Anthroplogy for the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. The exhibit was fabulous, as was the list. Pam Kathleen Shea wrote: >A couple of summers ago at the Linguistic Institute at UCSB in Santa >Barbara, I sat in on the Friends of Uto-Aztecan meeting, which took place at >the Natural History Museum in Santa Barbara. There was an interactive >exhibit going on at the time of live butterflies from all over, and one of >the presenters at the Friends of U-A conference was a curator at the museum. >(I forget his name, without looking it up.) He had us all put the word for >'butterfly' in various languages (Uto-Aztecan and others) on the blackboard >and took a picture of it. Most of the words had reduplication, as might be >expected, and there might have been other similarities across the languages >represented. Anyway, the Ponca word for 'butterfly' is wac^c^i'ninikka (' >representing accent of the preceding syllable), and the word for >'hummingbird' is wac^c^i'ninikka wazhiN'ga (lit., 'butterfly bird'), by the >way. This gives me a chance to correct myself since I remember that I got >confused at the time and put the wrong spelling on the board at the museum, >leaving out a geminate or two. Pardon such a wordy answer for such a small >question! > >Kathy > > > > > -- ---- Pamela Munro Professor, Department of Linguistics, UCLA UCLA Box 951543 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543 USA http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/linguistics/people/munro/munro.htm From dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com Wed Oct 29 04:20:18 2003 From: dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com (David Kaufman) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 20:20:18 -0800 Subject: polyglottism In-Reply-To: <002701c39c9d$99cc7de0$3fcbed81@D8LZRG21> Message-ID: Thanks John for this info. I just communicated with Dick to get the email address of a Mezzofante descendant who wrote to the Linguist List. (For those of you who don't know, Mezzofante was a cardinal who holds the current polyglot record of speaking about 70 languages (from the 1800s). Apparently, several of his heirs (including the writer) have also been polyglots leading to a hypothesis about a "polyglot gene". Interestingly, Cardinale Mezzofante had apparently learned to speak a few Native American languages just by meeting some young members of the tribes, and then held classes to teach them about the grammars of their own languages! Dave John Kyle wrote: Some of you may have seen this on the Linguist List. It seems appropriate to the weekends discussions on polyglottism: http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-2923.html John Kyle jkyle at ku.edu --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 07:10:23 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 00:10:23 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: <000601c39dc3$6d02f600$c709ed81@9afl3> Message-ID: I definitely agree with Bob Rankin and Henning Garvin's notion that Winnebago miNmiNke looks like an Algonquian loan. Miner gives it as miN'iNmiN'iNke. On Tue, 28 Oct 2003, Kathleen Shea wrote: > Oops! I'm still mixing Net Siouan with the practical Ponca orthography. > 'Hummingbird' is /wac^c^i'ninikka waz^iN'ga/. I know that no one thinks > there's an aspirated voiced dental fricative in Ponca! However, the word > for 'butterfly,' /wac^c^i'ninikka/, compared to /wac^hi'gaag^e/ 'to dance,' > does exemplify the phonemic contrast between /c^c^/ and /c^h/ in Ponca. Swetland lists wati'ninika (1991:30), i.e., wattininikka, without the diminutive affrication. I think the source here is Fletcher & LaFlesche (1972:106) wati'nini ka, a rendition that confirms kk. There's a tendency to hear geminates as word boundaries that appears in both the Dorsey texts and in Swetland's own dictionary work. I think explains why the future is always written a separate word, thoug this might also be the influence of Riggs's usage on Dorsey. Dorsey's ms grammar began as an adaptation of the Riggs grammar and often follows it word for word, with OP morphemes substituted for Santee ones. The LaFlesche Osage dictionary lists "dsi-oN' dsi-oN" 'butterfly' (1932:239b) and dsiN-tha t.oN-ga 'butterfly (large)' (idem), along with dsi-oN'-dsi-oN wa-p.o-ga 'owl butterfly' (idem). These forms are given again (but with a dash between the two repetitions inthe first) in the Osage side. I would summarize these in something more like Osage phonetics (revising LaFlesche's use of OP-based spelling) as tsiaNtsiaN (maybe spelled ciaNciaN) as Bob almost does. He omits the reduplication - fairly, I think - in comparing this with Quapaw ti'na, but I've mentioned the precise forms in case somebody notices and wonders what happened. I suspect that ciaN(ciaN) is already one step from ciNdha toward Kaw giaN. That's just the Kaw spelling of Dhegiha forms *kiaN 'to fly', but in the context of 'butterfly' it represents a degree of folk etymologically based revision of presumed earlier *tiNdha (or *tiNra, depending on the point at which we introduce PMV *r > Dh dh ~ ...). I suspect it's nasalized, because "dsiNtha" ciNdha in Osage is, and because Quapaw has ti'na, and not ti'da. The question is, of course, whether the Omaha-Ponca form is in any way connected. The -tti- part isn't, of course, because tt < *ht, not *t. However, *R merges with *t in Osage, Kaw, and Quapaw, and *R becomes n in OP. So the PDh form might be *RiNdha, potentially yielding *nidha in OP. In this context, the ...ninikka part might be relevant. -nikka is 'person, man' in compounds. I don't think it occurs alone in OP. The closest thing to watti... is a nonce form watti'dha 'rank of warriors' in Dorsey. I can't make anything of all this except that the ...ninikka part looks a lot like Winnebago miNiNmiNiNke form. The -kka matches -ke regularly, but the reduplicated part has ni(N)ni(N) instead of miNmiN. I still can't explain watti... If it were wati... it might be some sort of compound *tiNdha (not *RiNdha) and niNinNkka, with the latter perhaps reformulated from *miNiNkka. I looked at Ioway-Otoe to see if it might be helpful, but it's rupa'n~i ~ ropa'n~i, i.e., something like ropa'niN (n is enye before i). This seems to be a compound involving 'Pawnee', but if ro- (or ru-) is ro 'body', it seems to be in the wrong place for 'Pawnee body'. I looked for *miNmiNhka or *RiNdha like forms without any luck (might expect *j^iNna for the latter) and also checked 'moth' and 'owl', the two likely places for such forms to wander off to. 'Owl' is maNkoke, makoge, which looks like maN + 'box'. MaN looks helpful (see below), but it's probably 'earth', since the owl in question is the burrowing owl. If the Winnebago form is an Algonquian loan, we have to wonder about the Dakotan forms, too. Williamson gives Santee ki'mama, kimimana and Teton kimimala. Riggs has Santee ki'mama and ki'mamana, with Teton kimimela and gmimela. Among Teton sources Buechel has kimi'mila, and so in this case does not follow Riggs; Ingham agrees, giving kimi'mila. The -na and -la are, of course, diminutive, and we expect -na in Santee after a nasal vowel, and we expect -A > e before =la in Teton, so presumably the underlying form is something like original *kimima with considerable local revision, though original kimimi or kimama seem about as likely! In any event, the core part seems to be mVNmVN. JEK From mawakuni-swetland2 at unl.edu Wed Oct 29 13:56:22 2003 From: mawakuni-swetland2 at unl.edu (Mark-Awakuni Swetland) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 07:56:22 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: aloha all, currently my two speakers working with the UNL Omaha language class go back and forth between wati'ninika and wachi'ninika As Elder Brother John surmised, the first form is in the Swetland dictionary and derives from Fletcher and La Flesche. The second form is new to me since working with these particular speakers. Uthixide Mark Awakuni-Swetland University of Nebraska Anthropology/Native American Studies Bessey Hall 132 Lincoln, NE 68588-0368 402-472-3455 FAX 402-472-9642 mawakuni-swetland2 at unl.edu ----- Original Message ----- From: "Henning Garvin" To: Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 3:45 PM Subject: butterfly > > I believe my email messed up this post the first time I sent it. If not, > sorry for the repeat. > > No, this has nothing to do with the Volkswagen Grant:) > > I was recently asked an interesting question. THe Hocank word for butterfly > is : > > miNmiNke > > I was told the Menominee word for butterfly is exactly the same. I was > asked if this is a good example of a borrowing. Given the close proximity > and relations the Hocank had with the Menominee, I would hazard a guess that > it is indeed a borrowing. But they also asked from which direction the > borrowing would have occured. So what are the other Siouan, or Alguonquian > if you know, words for butterfly. I know the Ojibwe word is: > > memengwaa > > The words are similar enough that I am leaning toward the Alguonquian side > for origin, but I wanted more input before I could answer this question. > THanks > > > Henning Garvin > Linguistic research > Ho-Chunk Nation Language Division > > _________________________________________________________________ > Surf and talk on the phone at the same time with broadband Internet access. > Get high-speed for as low as $29.95/month (depending on the local service > providers in your area). https://broadband.msn.com From rankin at ku.edu Wed Oct 29 15:18:38 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 09:18:38 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: > The question is, of course, whether the Omaha-Ponca form is in any way > connected. The -tti- part isn't, of course, because tt < *ht, not *t. > However, *R merges with *t in Osage, Kaw, and Quapaw, and *R becomes n in > OP. So the PDh form might be *RiNdha, potentially yielding *nidha in OP. > In this context, the ...ninikka part might be relevant. -nikka is > 'person, man' in compounds. I don't think it occurs alone in OP. Seeing /nikka/ as 'man' can be misleading. One has to account for such oddities as Quapaw /ppiza nikka/ 'lizard' (possibly 'dry fellow', but that's a stretch), /ttitta nikka/ 'blue jay', and /z^aNnikka/ 'gnat'. Then there's Kansa /hazu nikka/ 'black [long stemmed] grape', /nikkaphe/ 'comb', /wakkuje nikka/ 'kind of lark'. Dakotan looks like it might be at least partly borrowed from Algonquian too, then. Bob From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Wed Oct 29 15:40:02 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 09:40:02 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: John wrote: > The question is, of course, whether the Omaha-Ponca > form is in any way connected. [...] > I can't make anything of all this except that the > ...ninikka part looks a lot like Winnebago > miNiNmiNiNke form. The -kka matches -ke regularly, but > the reduplicated part has ni(N)ni(N) instead of miNmiN. We do have a precedent of Proto-Dhegiha *miN > OP ni(N) in the case of 'moon', don't we? Isn't OP ni'oNba derived from PDh *miN'-aNpa, meaning something like 'moonlight'? Could this be regular under certain conditions, like when the *miNiN is long, or when there is a following syllable beginning with a nasal? (This second rule would cover the first syllable in reduplication-- *miNmiN => *niNmiN, and the second would follow in recognition that it was a replication of the first: hence *miNmiN => *niNniN.) Rory From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Wed Oct 29 15:53:24 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 09:53:24 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Bob wrote: > Kansa ... /nikkaphe/ 'comb' ... And OP /mikka'he/ 'comb' So here we have a case of PDh *ni => OP mi ! But OP preserves *ni in other words that use /nikka/, as in /nikkashiNga/ and /nikkagahi/. Is this all the same *nikka ? Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 17:47:42 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 10:47:42 -0700 Subject: Affrication Diminutive Marker (Re: butterfly) In-Reply-To: <000b01c39e24$7060f700$86335d81@unl.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Mark-Awakuni Swetland wrote: > currently my two speakers working with the UNL Omaha language class go > back and forth between wati'ninika and wachi'ninika ... The second form > is new to me since working with these particular speakers. It's really pretty intertesting the number of variants for various things available among the now fairly small set of Omaha and Ponca speakers. It shows the weakness of working with single speakers instead of communities in trying to draw a picture of something as big as a language. Anyway, as has been mentioned before, Omaha-Ponca seems to have a form of diminutive marking that involves changing dentals to affricates: d tt th t? to j^ c^c^ c^h c^?. In the new Popular Orthography, this would be d t tH t' to j ch chH ch', I think, with capitals here for raised letters. For some words both variants are available, at least within the community as a whole, whereas for others only one form is attested. What I've sometimes referred to as grandmother speech shows up in some Dorsey texts and seems to involve very heavy use of this process. Other examples of the process include du'ba ~ j^uba 'some', iNthaN ~ iNc^haN 'now ~ right now', wathis^ka ~ wac^his^ka 'creek', c^c^eska 'small', iNc^haNga 'mouse', maNc^hu 'grizzley', maNs^tiNge ~ maNs^c^iNge 'rabbit', wac^higaghe 'to dance', (historically unrelated to former) c^hi 'to have sex with', t?e ~ c^?e 'die' (only in grandmother speech example, if I recall) and so on. Speakers encountering a variant unfamiliar to them tend to reject it out of hand as wrong, so this is probably not a productive process today. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 18:03:41 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:03:41 -0700 Subject: Dh nikka 'man, person' (Re: butterfly) In-Reply-To: <002f01c39e30$002e29b0$d1b5ed81@Rankin> Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > > -nikka is 'person, man' in compounds. I don't think it > > occurs alone in OP. > > Seeing /nikka/ as 'man' can be misleading. One > has to account for such oddities as Quapaw /ppiza > nikka/ 'lizard' (possibly 'dry fellow', but that's > a stretch), /ttitta nikka/ 'blue jay', and > /z^aNnikka/ 'gnat'. Then there's Kansa /hazu > nikka/ 'black [long stemmed] grape', /nikkaphe/ > 'comb', /wakkuje nikka/ 'kind of lark'. I suppose these could all be *niNh 'to live' + ka. I don't recall if we think 'to live, be alive' has *-h. I was thinking of OP compounds like nikkashiNga 'person' or nikkagahi (cf. gahige) 'chief'. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 18:10:34 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:10:34 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > John wrote: > > I can't make anything of all this except that the > > ...ninikka part looks a lot like Winnebago > > miNiNmiNiNke form. The -kka matches -ke regularly, but > > the reduplicated part has ni(N)ni(N) instead of miNmiN. > > We do have a precedent of Proto-Dhegiha *miN > OP ni(N) > in the case of 'moon', don't we? Isn't OP ni'oNba > derived from PDh *miN'-aNpa, meaning something like > 'moonlight'? Could this be regular under certain > conditions, ... Right! I was actually thinking of this case under my breath, so to speak, but I think it's probably not a regular change, but some sort of more sporadic adjustment. I was trying to thionk of something like this in English, or some other familiar source of examples, but I couldn't come up with anything. Of course, 'moon' is pretty clearly connected, but I'm not sure I've offered any kind of convincing case for a connection here with 'butterfly'. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 18:16:44 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:16:44 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > Bob wrote: > > Kansa ... /nikkaphe/ 'comb' ... > And OP /mikka'he/ 'comb' > > So here we have a case of PDh *ni => OP mi ! Sharp eyes, Rory! We'd have to check other cases to be sure which way the shift went. Perhaps mi(N)- here is (or is intended for) 'woman'. Another example that I seem to recall, with apologies to everyone, is Quapaw mikka sabe (not sure I have the proper Quapaw forms) 'black person', literally 'black raccoon', recalling racist English usage. I think in this case the opportunity to pun with nikka ~ mikka was a factor. From napshawin at msn.com Wed Oct 29 18:28:34 2003 From: napshawin at msn.com (CATCHES VIOLET) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 12:28:34 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Henning, As I told you before, I attempt to teach five native languages here at Pierre Indian Learning Center, I have five words for butterfly to share; Arikara-saawiitakaa (final a should be accented) Chippewa-mimaengwaen (Turtle Mountain written version, I am sure pronunciation is the same) Hochunk-mimike (NE version, I am sure the i's are nasalized) Omaha-watininika (Ed Wolfe version, he has passed on) Lakxota-kimimela (unaspirated k, so its like a soft g) Dakoda have a different version, cause I heard it before, forgot it, sorry! have fun! Violet Catches napshawin le miye ye! "The Buddha was joined by his own son, Rahula, a young boy. He advised him: 'Cultivate, Rahula, a meditation on loving kindness, for by cultivating loving kindness, ill will is banished forever. Cultivate, too, a meditation on compassion, for by cultivating compassion, you will find harm and cruelty disappear.' " Majjhima Nikaya >From: "Henning Garvin" >Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu >To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu >Subject: butterfly >Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 15:45:40 -0600 > > >I believe my email messed up this post the first time I sent it. If not, >sorry for the repeat. > >No, this has nothing to do with the Volkswagen Grant:) > >I was recently asked an interesting question. THe Hocank word for >butterfly is : > >miNmiNke > >I was told the Menominee word for butterfly is exactly the same. I was >asked if this is a good example of a borrowing. Given the close proximity >and relations the Hocank had with the Menominee, I would hazard a guess >that it is indeed a borrowing. But they also asked from which direction >the borrowing would have occured. So what are the other Siouan, or >Alguonquian if you know, words for butterfly. I know the Ojibwe word is: > >memengwaa > >The words are similar enough that I am leaning toward the Alguonquian side >for origin, but I wanted more input before I could answer this question. >THanks > > >Henning Garvin >Linguistic research >Ho-Chunk Nation Language Division > >_________________________________________________________________ >Surf and talk on the phone at the same time with broadband Internet access. >Get high-speed for as low as $29.95/month (depending on the local service >providers in your area). https://broadband.msn.com > _________________________________________________________________ Cheer a special someone with a fun Halloween eCard from American Greetings! Go to http://www.msn.americangreetings.com/index_msn.pd?source=msne134 From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Wed Oct 29 19:15:13 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 13:15:13 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: John wrote: >On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: >> Bob wrote: >> > Kansa ... /nikkaphe/ 'comb' ... >> And OP /mikka'he/ 'comb' >> >> So here we have a case of PDh *ni => OP mi ! > > Sharp eyes, Rory! We'd have to check other cases > to be sure which way the shift went. Perhaps > mi(N)- here is (or is intended for) 'woman'. Yes, you're probably right. Actually, the verb 'to comb' in OP is /gahe/ (or /kkahe/ ??). So the first syllable is a separate element, and that breaks the supposed /nikka/ morpheme. So whichever way the shift went, the Kansa word /nikkaphe/ is apparently not based on /nikka/. Rory From jmcbride at kayserv.net Wed Oct 29 19:23:21 2003 From: jmcbride at kayserv.net (Justin McBride) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 13:23:21 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: > Another example that I seem to recall, with apologies to everyone, is > Quapaw mikka sabe (not sure I have the proper Quapaw forms) 'black > person', literally 'black raccoon', recalling racist English usage. I > think in this case the opportunity to pun with nikka ~ mikka was a factor. This happens in Osage, too, although with some degree of variation. I have heard both n?hka sape and something begining with an m. Curiously, the m form of (n~m)i(hk)a sa(pe) comes out sounding like "mi? sa" by just about everyone that uses it. I have been told that it is in fact the same pun that you mentioned above. And I also apologize for this, as it is definitely not my intention of offending anyone. From lcumberl at indiana.edu Wed Oct 29 19:30:22 2003 From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (lcumberl at indiana.edu) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 14:30:22 -0500 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Now John's gone and mentioned 'raccoon' - the Lakota is wic^a or wic^iteglega, which I recall Ella Deloria saying somewhere refers to the human-like appearance of the raccoon's face, something like 'spotted man face'. BTW - Asb for butterfly is kimaNmaNna, but other than the diminutive/nominalizing -na, I won't venture an analysis. Linda Quoting Koontz John E : > On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > > Bob wrote: > > > Kansa ... /nikkaphe/ 'comb' ... > > And OP /mikka'he/ 'comb' > > > > So here we have a case of PDh *ni => OP mi ! > > Sharp eyes, Rory! We'd have to check other cases to be sure which way the > shift went. Perhaps mi(N)- here is (or is intended for) 'woman'. > > Another example that I seem to recall, with apologies to everyone, is > Quapaw mikka sabe (not sure I have the proper Quapaw forms) 'black > person', literally 'black raccoon', recalling racist English usage. I > think in this case the opportunity to pun with nikka ~ mikka was a factor. > > > From rankin at ku.edu Wed Oct 29 19:43:54 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 13:43:54 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: > > > Kansa ... /nikkaphe/ 'comb' ... > > And OP /mikka'he/ 'comb' > > So here we have a case of PDh *ni => OP mi ! > > Sharp eyes, Rory! We'd have to check other cases to be sure which way the > shift went. Perhaps mi(N)- here is (or is intended for) 'woman'. Segmentation is properly -ka-phe, where ka- may well be the instrumental. Shown by Quapaw ikaphe 'comb', where i- is the "locative" (instrument) prefix. As for the n(i)/m(i), your guess is as good as mine. Bob From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Wed Oct 29 21:41:35 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:41:35 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: >> Another example that I seem to recall, with apologies to everyone, is >> Quapaw mikka sabe (not sure I have the proper Quapaw forms) 'black >> person', literally 'black raccoon', recalling racist English usage. I >> think in this case the opportunity to pun with nikka ~ mikka was a factor. > > This happens in Osage, too, although with some degree of variation. I have > heard both n?hka sape and something begining with an m. Curiously, the m > form of (n~m)i(hk)a sa(pe) comes out sounding like "mi? sa" by just about > everyone that uses it. I have been told that it is in fact the same pun > that you mentioned above. And I also apologize for this, as it is > definitely not my intention of offending anyone. I'd like to know which way the borrowing went. If it's a natural pun in Dhegihan, could southern U.S. English slang have borrowed the meaning from bilingual Quapaw or Osage speakers? Rory From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Wed Oct 29 22:03:46 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 16:03:46 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: >> > > Kansa ... /nikkaphe/ 'comb' ... >> > And OP /mikka'he/ 'comb' >> > So here we have a case of PDh *ni => OP mi ! >> >> Sharp eyes, Rory! We'd have to check other >> cases to be sure which way the >> shift went. Perhaps mi(N)- here is (or is >> intended for) 'woman'. > > Segmentation is properly -ka-phe, where ka- may > well be the instrumental. Shown by Quapaw ikaphe > 'comb', where i- is the "locative" (instrument) > prefix. As for the n(i)/m(i), your guess is as > good as mine. I'm seeing a problem with the Omaha. I just checked with Alberta Canby, and the verb 'to comb' seems indeed to be /gahe'/, not /kkahe/. That would agree with Bob's instrumental prefix explanation for the initial *ka-, but makes the shift to /kka-/ in the /mikka'he/, 'comb' (n), a little problematical. Perhaps this would require that the prefix ended in /h/ or a stop? Thus, PDh *m/nih-ka-phe or *m/nik-ka-phe perhaps? How about: PDh *miN-i'-ki-ka'-phe 'something used by a woman to comb herself' => *miik.ka'phe => OP mikka'he Ks nikka'phe Would that work? Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 22:13:46 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:13:46 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, CATCHES VIOLET wrote: > Lakxota-kimimela (unaspirated k, so its like a soft g) Dakoda have a > different version, cause I heard it before, forgot it, sorry! have fun! Just as I was wondering where some of those alternatives to kimimila in Riggs and in Williamson came from ... From goodtracks at gbronline.com Wed Oct 29 17:13:32 2003 From: goodtracks at gbronline.com (Jimm GoodTracks) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:13:32 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Ioway-Otoe is: rup??i (rupa' n~i). This would not appear to be similar to Hochank. Potawatomi (from Kansas) also have the word: mem?ki (memi'ki). [From Jim McKinney's Bwaka Project]. ----- Original Message ----- From: "R. Rankin" To: Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 9:18 AM Subject: Re: butterfly > > The question is, of course, whether the > Omaha-Ponca form is in any way > > connected. The -tti- part isn't, of course, > because tt < *ht, not *t. > > However, *R merges with *t in Osage, Kaw, and > Quapaw, and *R becomes n in > > OP. So the PDh form might be *RiNdha, > potentially yielding *nidha in OP. > > In this context, the ...ninikka part might be > relevant. -nikka is > > 'person, man' in compounds. I don't think it > occurs alone in OP. > > Seeing /nikka/ as 'man' can be misleading. One > has to account for such oddities as Quapaw /ppiza > nikka/ 'lizard' (possibly 'dry fellow', but that's > a stretch), /ttitta nikka/ 'blue jay', and > /z^aNnikka/ 'gnat'. Then there's Kansa /hazu > nikka/ 'black [long stemmed] grape', /nikkaphe/ > 'comb', /wakkuje nikka/ 'kind of lark'. > > Dakotan looks like it might be at least partly > borrowed from Algonquian too, then. > > Bob > > > > From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 22:23:28 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:23:28 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: <1067455822.3fa0154e819cd@webmail.iu.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 lcumberl at indiana.edu wrote: > Now John's gone and mentioned 'raccoon' - the Lakota is wic^a or > wic^iteglega, which I recall Ella Deloria saying somewhere refers to the > human-like appearance of the raccoon's face, something like 'spotted man > face'. Wouldn't 'striped' make more sense? This might violate the normal translational sense of glega, but we've seen examples of that sort of thing recently. > BTW - Asb for butterfly is kimaNmaNna, but other than the > diminutive/nominalizing -na, I won't venture an analysis. It's within the range of variation exhibited so far for Dakotan, I think. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 22:38:02 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:38:02 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: <004201c39e52$24da50a0$4e02a8c0@Language> Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Justin McBride wrote: > This happens in Osage, too, although with some degree of variation. I > have heard both n?hka sape and something begining with an m. > Curiously, the m form of (n~m)i(hk)a sa(pe) comes out sounding like "mi? > sa" by just about everyone that uses it. I have been told that it is in > fact the same pun that you mentioned above. And I also apologize for > this, as it is definitely not my intention of offending anyone. Reduction of medial lax stops is pretty standard in Osage, Kaw, and, I think, Quapaw, especially in compounds. I think the progression is sape > sae > sa. I think this is old, since some of the earliest known forms probably of Osage origin are ethnonyms like Paniassa, possibly ppadhiN (w)asa 'Black (Painted?) Pawnee' = 'Wichita'. I've heard medial -d- reduced in OP, though I don't recall the example. OP - and I think the rest of Dhegiha, too - also reduce dh to 0, so e'gidhe 'and then, of course, ...' is egie or ege in fast speech. OP also reduces things like CVCe to CV in first elements of compounds, as do the others, but I think this is an outgrowth of old CVC- combining forms, examples are things like s^aNttaNga 'wolf' and waz^iNttu 'blue bird'. Finally, there is an alternation between nikkas^iNga and nias^iNga for 'person'. This actually has some sort of semantic distinction associated with it. I think the latter form refers to 'one of our people' vs. 'a person generally', but this is just a hunch. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 22:43:37 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:43:37 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > I'd like to know which way the borrowing went. If it's a natural pun in > Dhegihan, could southern U.S. English slang have borrowed the meaning > from bilingual Quapaw or Osage speakers? I think it's clear it comes from English. The similarity of Dhegiha nikka 'person' and mikka 'raccoon' is made humorous by the existence of the English epithet coon. I don't know if the latter really comes from raccoon, but it's an obvious assumption. The whole things grows out of the tendency to refer to African Americans as 'black whitemen', whatever the local term for 'whiteman' is. That term, of course, is seldom color-based. Color categorization seems to be imported from European patterns. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 22:49:43 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:49:43 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > I'm seeing a problem with the Omaha. I just checked with Alberta Canby, > and the verb 'to comb' seems indeed to be /gahe'/, not /kkahe/. That > would agree with Bob's instrumental prefix explanation for the initial > *ka-, but makes the shift to /kka-/ in the /mikka'he/, 'comb' (n), a > little problematical. Perhaps this would require that the prefix ended > in /h/ or a stop? Thus, PDh *m/nih-ka-phe or *m/nik-ka-phe perhaps? 'Woman' is probably historically *wiNh-, but the first question is whether and how mikkahe inflects. My recollection is that gahe alone behaves like a ga-instrumental form - aahe, dhaahe, gaha=i, aNgaha=i. With the instrumental locative it should yield i'dhagahe, idha'gahe, i'gaha=i, aNdhaNgaha=i. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Oct 29 22:57:51 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:57:51 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Koontz John E wrote: > 'Woman' is probably historically *wiNh-, but the first question is whether > and how mikkahe inflects. My recollection is that gahe alone behaves like > a ga-instrumental form - aahe, dhaahe, gaha=i, aNgaha=i. With the > instrumental locative it should yield i'dhagahe, idha'gahe, i'gaha=i, > aNdhaNgaha=i. Sorry - these are first, second, third, and inclusive forms. I got the accentuation of igahe reversed in the first and second person. It should be idha'gahe 'I combed with it', i'dhagahe 'you combed with it', ... If we regard initial accent as conditioned by length, I suppose that works out to idha'gahe, ii'dhagahe, ... or possibly iidha'gahe, ii'dhagahe, ... From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Thu Oct 30 00:49:17 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 18:49:17 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: John wrote: > On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: >> I'd like to know which way the borrowing went. If it's a natural pun in >> Dhegihan, could southern U.S. English slang have borrowed the meaning >> from bilingual Quapaw or Osage speakers? > > I think it's clear it comes from English. The similarity of Dhegiha nikka > 'person' and mikka 'raccoon' is made humorous by the existence of the > English epithet coon. I don't know if the latter really comes from > raccoon, but it's an obvious assumption. [...] If it's clear that it comes from English, then there ought to be a known derivation for it, or else the contrary hypothesis has to be ruled out by something else, like place or time of origin. If the term is attested from east of the Appalachians in the 1700's, then it's probably not Dhegihan. Or if 'coon' is known to be a corruption of 'Cameroun', then again it's coming through other channels. But if it's from the 1800's, and we don't even know whether it relates to 'raccoon' or not, then it certainly isn't clear to me that it comes from English. Why would English speakers derisively refer to blacks as "raccoons", rather than, say, "skunks", "muskrats", "possums", or whatever? Although we can certainly imagine the Quapaw and Osage terms as a very clever pun on a prior English term 'coon', it seems much easier to me to explain the whole relationship as originating in these languages around the time of first contact. The Dhegihans would generally refer to blacks as /nikka sabe/, "black man". But in these languages, it would be very easy to maliciously convert that to /mikka sabe/, "black raccoon", and that may have happened now and then. A white frontiersman dealing with Dhegihans learns about the pun, and gleefully shares it with his fellows. In their dialect, raccoons are called "coons", and this term spreads among frontier and lower-class southern whites as a derogatory term for blacks. So do we know anything about the term 'coon' that shoots down the above hypothesis? Rory From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Thu Oct 30 01:22:39 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 19:22:39 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: >On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Koontz John E wrote: >> 'Woman' is probably historically *wiNh-, but the first question is whether >> and how mikkahe inflects. My recollection is that gahe alone behaves like >> a ga-instrumental form - aahe, dhaahe, gaha=i, aNgaha=i. With the >> instrumental locative it should yield i'dhagahe, idha'gahe, i'gaha=i, >> aNdhaNgaha=i. > > Sorry - these are first, second, third, and inclusive forms. I got the > accentuation of igahe reversed in the first and second person. It should > be idha'gahe 'I combed with it', i'dhagahe 'you combed with it', ... > > If we regard initial accent as conditioned by length, I suppose that works > out to idha'gahe, ii'dhagahe, ... or possibly iidha'gahe, ii'dhagahe, ... Alright, but the name of an instrument should be coming from the third person form of the verb it's derived from, so that leaves us with i'gaha=i. But I don't think the =i particle will normally be used in this case, so that gets us i'gahe. If we want to add 'self' to the implication of what is being combed, will that give us i'kigdhahe ? I believe Alberta said that 'I comb myself' is aki'gdhahe. (I think that's right-- my notes were co-opted by a girl who had dared me to draw her portrait during class today: they were on the same sheet.) A form like PDh *miNh-ka-phe would work, except that we would expect that instrumental i-: *miNh-i-ka-phe. What if the h and i switched places: PDh *miNhi'kaphe => *miNi'hkaphe => *mii'kkaphe => OP mii'kkahe Ks nii'kkaphe This is nice, except that the accent seems to end up on the first syllable, which ought to be long. Rory From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Thu Oct 30 02:15:43 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 20:15:43 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Casting out the 'comb' word, Bob has offered an interesting list of wildlife terms that use /nikka/: Quapaw: /ppiza nikka/ 'lizard' /ttitta nikka/ 'blue jay' /z^aNnikka/ 'gnat' Kansa: /hazu nikka/ 'black [long stemmed] grape' /wakkuje nikka/ 'kind of lark' OP: /wattininikka/ 'butterfly' In all of these cases, the term ends in /nikka/. If Quapaw /ppiza/ < PDh *puza 'dry', we seem to have a problem: the stative verb should come after the noun, not before it. The parsing /ppiza nikka/ 'dry fellow' seems plain ungrammatical. /z^aN nikka/ as 'wood fellow' and /hazu nikka/ as 'grape fellow' work, however, because a modifying noun precedes the noun it modifies. Does anyone know what Quapaw /ttitta/ and Kansa /wakkuje/ mean? Are they nouns or stative verbs? One way out of the problem with /ppiza nikka/ might be to deconstruct the apparent noun /nikka/. John has suggested that this is composed of the verb *niNh 'live' with the generalizer/nominalizer -*ka appended: *niNhka => nikka. That could give us three elements: *puza + *niNh + *ka, or 'dry' + 'live' + KA. In that case, the first two could be grouped together first to make a single verb, 'dry-live', which could then be turned into a noun by the addition of -*ka: *puzaniNh-ka => Qw ppizanikka. In this view, an active verb could be modified by either a noun or a stative verb in front of it, and the construction would reduce to an active verb. An active verb could be turned into a noun or a stative verb by appending -*ka to the end. Does this seem reasonable? If so, then all of the --nikka terms above might be understood as nouns derived from the verb *niNh, 'live', which has been modified by a noun or stative verb that tells something about the condition or context of how the animal (or plant) lives. Hope I didn't get carried away on a misunderstanding of Qw /ppiza/! Rory From rankin at ku.edu Thu Oct 30 15:04:27 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 09:04:27 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: > Reduction of medial lax stops is pretty standard in Osage, Kaw, and, I > think, Quapaw, especially in compounds. I think the progression is sape > > sae > sa. I think this is old, since some of the earliest known forms > probably of Osage origin are ethnonyms like Paniassa, possibly ppadhiN > (w)asa 'Black (Painted?) Pawnee' = 'Wichita'. Medial lax stops in Osage seem to do this, at least with the last generation of speakers, but I'm not so sure what you're describing here is an example of that. I don't find it in Kaw or Quapaw. There is a small set of stative stems that have no "root extension" when used as the second member of compounds. These typically include ttaN augmentative (rather than 'big') z^iN diminutive (rather than 'little'), and colors like tto blue sa black s^a dark zi yellow I think this phenomenon may be morphological rather than phonological, with the Osage VCV > VV a separate, and much more recent, occurrence. In OS, the two vowels are preserved as distinct from one another if they are different vowels. You fnd the truncated form of these verbs in languages like Tutelo, Ofo, etc. also, suggesting that these particular items have participated in the only-part-time relationship with their respective root extensions pretty much all along. I tend to look upon the languages that show only the forms with the RE's as having undergone analogical leveling. My view on this sort of solidified while working through a number of Carolyn's Osage examples recently. But it's hard to be certain . . . . Bob From rankin at ku.edu Thu Oct 30 15:14:18 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 09:14:18 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: No, Quapaw /piza/ "appears" to be 'dry'. Just as /nikka/ "appears" to be 'man, person'. But this appearance is just what I'm questioning. We may be over-analyzing some of this. And I don't care for the idea of turning Quapaw into New Guinea Pidgin with 'fella' attached to everything. :-) You're quite right that the syntax is often funny in these forms. I think it's just as likely that this/these is/are a different /nikka/. Seems to me I also have one of the spider terms with /nikka/ too, but I can't find it right now. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rory M Larson" To: Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 8:15 PM Subject: Re: butterfly > > Casting out the 'comb' word, Bob has offered an > interesting list of wildlife terms that use /nikka/: > > Quapaw: /ppiza nikka/ 'lizard' > /ttitta nikka/ 'blue jay' > /z^aNnikka/ 'gnat' > > Kansa: /hazu nikka/ 'black [long stemmed] grape' > /wakkuje nikka/ 'kind of lark' > > OP: /wattininikka/ 'butterfly' > > In all of these cases, the term ends in /nikka/. > If Quapaw /ppiza/ < PDh *puza 'dry', we seem to > have a problem: the stative verb should come after > the noun, not before it. The parsing /ppiza nikka/ > 'dry fellow' seems plain ungrammatical. > > /z^aN nikka/ as 'wood fellow' and /hazu nikka/ > as 'grape fellow' work, however, because a > modifying noun precedes the noun it modifies. > Does anyone know what Quapaw /ttitta/ and Kansa > /wakkuje/ mean? Are they nouns or stative verbs? > > One way out of the problem with /ppiza nikka/ > might be to deconstruct the apparent noun /nikka/. > John has suggested that this is composed of the > verb *niNh 'live' with the generalizer/nominalizer > -*ka appended: *niNhka => nikka. That could give > us three elements: *puza + *niNh + *ka, or > 'dry' + 'live' + KA. In that case, the first > two could be grouped together first to make a > single verb, 'dry-live', which could then be > turned into a noun by the addition of -*ka: > *puzaniNh-ka => Qw ppizanikka. > > In this view, an active verb could be modified > by either a noun or a stative verb in front of > it, and the construction would reduce to an > active verb. An active verb could be turned > into a noun or a stative verb by appending -*ka > to the end. Does this seem reasonable? > > If so, then all of the --nikka terms above might > be understood as nouns derived from the verb > *niNh, 'live', which has been modified by a > noun or stative verb that tells something about > the condition or context of how the animal (or > plant) lives. > > Hope I didn't get carried away on a misunderstanding > of Qw /ppiza/! > > Rory > > > From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Thu Oct 30 19:35:26 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 13:35:26 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Bob wrote: > No, Quapaw /piza/ "appears" to be 'dry'. So the /ppiza/ in the original was a typo? Or do *p and *pp come out the same in Quapaw? > Just as > /nikka/ "appears" to be 'man, person'. But this > appearance is just what I'm questioning. We may > be over-analyzing some of this. And I don't care > for the idea of turning Quapaw into New Guinea > Pidgin with 'fella' attached to everything. :-) Nor I! > You're quite right that the syntax is often funny > in these forms. I think it's just as likely that > this/these is/are a different /nikka/. But is the syntax really funny, or are we just misinterpreting it? I can't think of any single morpheme class that makes grammatical sense following a stative verb, in which the whole construction reduces to a noun. Well, possibly an adverb... sv + N !=> N [piza] + [nikka] !=> N But if we assume that /nikka/ is itself a compound, perhaps of the form I think John was suggesting, V + [*ka] => N [*niNh] + [*ka] => [*niNhka] > [nikka] 'live' + [*ka] => 'living one', 'person', 'man' then we might have an avenue to a solution: If sv + V => V [*puza] + [*niNh] => [*puzaniNh] 'dry' + 'live' => 'live dryly' and n + V => V [*z^aN] + [*niNh] => [*z^aNniNh] 'wood' + 'live' => 'live around wood' then V + [*ka] => N [*puzaniNh] + [*ka] => [*puzaniNhka] > Qw [pizanikka] 'live dryly' + [*ka] => 'one that lives dryly' [*z^aNniNh] + [*ka] => [*z^aNniNhka] > Qw [z^aNnikka] 'live around wood' + [*ka] => 'one that lives around wood' This way, we would still have the same /nikka/, but the order of evaluation of the morphemes would be different. Not (sv)(nikka), but (sv nik)(ka). > Seems to > me I also have one of the spider terms with > /nikka/ too, but I can't find it right now. Hope you can locate it! It sounds like it would fit right in. Rory From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU Thu Oct 30 19:43:03 2003 From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 12:43:03 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The "Dictionary of American Regional English" cites attestations beginning with 1832 for "coon" meaning just 'a person, a fellow' and especially a 'sly, knowing person' and sometimes 'a rascal'. The use as an (offensive) term for a Black is first cited from an 1848 source. David David S. Rood Dept. of Linguistics Univ. of Colorado 295 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0295 USA rood at colorado.edu On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > > >On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Koontz John E wrote: > >> 'Woman' is probably historically *wiNh-, but the first question is > whether > >> and how mikkahe inflects. My recollection is that gahe alone behaves > like > >> a ga-instrumental form - aahe, dhaahe, gaha=i, aNgaha=i. With the > >> instrumental locative it should yield i'dhagahe, idha'gahe, i'gaha=i, > >> aNdhaNgaha=i. > > > > Sorry - these are first, second, third, and inclusive forms. I got the > > accentuation of igahe reversed in the first and second person. It should > > be idha'gahe 'I combed with it', i'dhagahe 'you combed with it', ... > > > > If we regard initial accent as conditioned by length, I suppose that > works > > out to idha'gahe, ii'dhagahe, ... or possibly iidha'gahe, ii'dhagahe, ... > > Alright, but the name of an instrument should be > coming from the third person form of the verb it's > derived from, so that leaves us with i'gaha=i. > But I don't think the =i particle will normally > be used in this case, so that gets us i'gahe. > If we want to add 'self' to the implication of > what is being combed, will that give us i'kigdhahe ? > I believe Alberta said that 'I comb myself' is > aki'gdhahe. (I think that's right-- my notes were > co-opted by a girl who had dared me to draw her > portrait during class today: they were on the same > sheet.) > > A form like PDh *miNh-ka-phe would work, except that > we would expect that instrumental i-: *miNh-i-ka-phe. > What if the h and i switched places: > > PDh *miNhi'kaphe > > => *miNi'hkaphe > > => *mii'kkaphe > > => OP mii'kkahe > Ks nii'kkaphe > > This is nice, except that the accent seems to > end up on the first syllable, which ought to > be long. > > Rory > > > From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Oct 30 19:56:47 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 12:56:47 -0700 Subject: Cases of -kka from *...h+ka (Re: butterfly) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > But if we assume that /nikka/ is itself a compound, > perhaps of the form I think John was suggesting, > > V + [*ka] => N > [*niNh] + [*ka] => [*niNhka] > [nikka] > 'live' + [*ka] => 'living one', 'person', 'man' I should probably clarify that this source of -kka from *...h-ka was presumably a factor in Proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan, but is not being suggested as a recently productive process. Thus I was offering it as a possible etymology for nikka that led to an originally more general sense of nikka - 'being, living thing'. I doubt that would help with the morphosyntax of compounds in which nikka was a element. Also, I'm not sure if ni-living would be a concept that applied to plants, something that I overlooked before. From ahartley at d.umn.edu Thu Oct 30 20:03:45 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan Hartley) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 14:03:45 -0600 Subject: coon (was butterfly) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The OED's compilation is not (yet) as recent as DARE's, but here's what it has to say for derivative senses of COON: 2. Applied to persons: a. A nickname for a member of the old Whig party of the United States, which at one time had the racoon as an emblem. (The nickname came up in 1839.) 1848 Lowell Biglow P. ser. i. ix, A gethrin' public sentiment, 'mongst Demmercrats and Coons. a1860 Boston Post in Bartlett Dict. Amer. s.v., Democrats..rout the coons, beat them, overwhelm them. b. A sly, knowing fellow; a ?fellow?. 1832 Polit. Examiner (Shelbyville, Ky.) 8 Dec. 4/1, I was always reckoned a pretty slick koon for a trade. 1839 Marryat Dairy Amer. Ser. i. II. 232 In the Western States, where the racoon is plentiful, they use the abbreviation 'coon when speaking of people. 1843 Simms Guy Rivers 155 To be robbed of our findings by a parcel of blasted 'coons. 1860 Punch XXXIX. 227 (Farmer) Then baby kicked up such a row As terrified that reverend coon. 1870 M. Bridgman R. Lynne II. xiv. 296 Dicky Blake's a 'cute little coon. 1881 J. Hawthorne Fort. Fool i. xxxiii, Jack they called him?a sort of half-wild little coon, that nobody knowd much about. c. A Negro. slang. (Derog.) 1862 Songs for the Times 3 Play up, Pomp, you yaller coon. 1892 Congress. Rec. 4 Feb. 856/1 Instead of seating one colored Representative, they seated two,?two coons in place of the elected Representatives of the people. 1903 Westm. Gaz. 18 May 3/2 The former represented a lively..jovial coon?possibly ?coon? is not the right word, which, however, is accepted here as modern slang for a nigger. 1948 Chicago Defender 23 Oct. 7/2 A lot of us are referred to as ?nigger?, ?coon?, ?darky?, etc., right to our faces. 1969 Oz Apr. 46/3 You might+deplore the way that the publicity was angled?poor old coon, he'll thank us in the end. d. S. Afr. A Coloured reveller at Cape Town; esp. a member of various groups which parade in carnival fashion through the streets From rankin at ku.edu Thu Oct 30 20:19:24 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 14:19:24 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: > So the /ppiza/ in the original was a typo? Or do *p and *pp come out the same in Quapaw? Hmm, dunno. I'll have to check. They don't come out the same, so, IF it's 'dry' then the QU should come out with a simple /p/. And 'dry' should also end in an /-e/, not an /a/. Sorry if I screwed that up. In my old age I've got to start confirming things by checking the dictionary and not trusting my memory. OK, I have doublets, /pize'/ and /bize'/ 'dry' in QU. What I rashly thought was 'dry' was actually /ppi'za/ 'SAND'. That makes better sense, doesn't it. Don't ask me of /pize/ and /ppiza/ are derivationally related. They're not by any process I can see, but who knows? Personally, I resist the idea of ever being able to analyze the morpheme /-ka/ that ends so many forms, especially stative verbs, as having any sort of productive, identifiable meaning. This is the sort of thing I worry about when I talk about "overanalysis" of words. Still can't find my 'spider' term. Maybe I'm dreaming it. Bob From rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu Thu Oct 30 22:18:01 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 16:18:01 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Bob wrote: >> So the /ppiza/ in the original was a typo? >> Or do *p and *pp come out the same in Quapaw? > > Hmm, dunno. I'll have to check. They don't come out the same, so, IF > it's 'dry' then the QU should come out with a simple /p/. And 'dry' > should also end in an /-e/, not an /a/. Sorry if I screwed that up. In > my old age I've got to start confirming things by checking the > dictionary and not trusting my memory. > > OK, I have doublets, /pize'/ and /bize'/ 'dry' in QU. What I rashly > thought was 'dry' was actually /ppi'za/ 'SAND'. That makes better > sense, doesn't it. Yes, that makes much better sense! Sorry, I screwed up too-- I should have remembered that /ppiza/ was 'sand'. So that makes it a noun, and not a stative verb. So everyone please ignore the elaborate analysis I was promoting in my last two missives on this subject; it isn't needed! Meanwhile, I don't suppose you've run across the meaning of /ttitta/ or /wakkuje/, have you? Rory (shamefaced) From rankin at ku.edu Fri Oct 31 01:37:39 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 19:37:39 -0600 Subject: butterfly Message-ID: > Meanwhile, I don't suppose you've run across the > meaning of /ttitta/ or /wakkuje/, have you? Quapaw ttitta is 'living' according to Alice Gilmore, the very lively lady I recorded some Quapaw with in 1972. As in the term /maNzettitta/ 'clock' < "living iron". Kansa wakkuje is 'shooting'. FWIW, Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Oct 31 06:55:27 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 23:55:27 -0700 Subject: comb (was Re: butterfly) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > Alright, but the name of an instrument should be coming from the third > person form of the verb it's derived from, so that leaves us with > i'gaha=i. One might expect that, but there's no real trace of it here. I've found in the Dorsey texts: mikka'he 'comb' (only as noun) gahe 'to comb' giahe 'to comb for someone' i'gigahe 'to comb for someone with' i'kkigdhahe 'to comb oneself with' These are mostly attested in somewhat more elaborate form than here given, e.g., gahe is in gaha=b=a=z^i 'uncombed (proximate/plural)', and i'gigahe is in iNdhiNgaha=ga 'comb for me (with it)!'. It appears that the ga- instrumental is favored for combing, since there are also gas^nude 'to pull out with a comb' (ga + s^nude 'pluck, pull out, bare') gias^nap[h?]e 'to comb smooth for one' (gi + ga + s^na 'smooth' + phe) -p[h?]e in the last might be the *phe 'comb' root that shows up as -he in gahe et al. There's also xdhaz^e 'umcombed, disheveled' > But I don't think the =i particle will normally be used in > this case, so that gets us i'gahe. I usually give in providing a third person, since the proximate form is less marked. > If we want to add 'self' to the implication of what is being combed, > will that give us i'kigdhahe ? I believe Alberta said that 'I comb > myself' is aki'gdhahe. That agrees with the forms attested in Dorsey. The stem kkigdha'he would underlie i'kkigdhahe, and it's nice to have it confirmed! > A form like PDh *miNh-ka-phe would work, except that we would expect > that instrumental i-: *miNh-i-ka-phe. I suppose, if miN- here is 'woman', that we'd have to take in the capacity of a either an object or a 'kind of' modifier. That is, perhaps there were 'man-combs' and 'woman-combs', but only 'woman-combs' remain as a term. I guess the 'kind of' element amounts to a sort of subject here. I might expect an instrumental locative i- here, too, but if it doesn't seem to appear, my inclination is to leave it at that. I guess it would be nice to have some parallel examples of deverbative instrumental nouns without i-, but at the moment I don't have any in mind. As far as why there is a kk here and not just g, when the connection with gahe seems fairly obvious, the only explanation that occurs to me is the probability that miN 'woman' is an h-final stem, historically speaking, i.e., from PMS *wiNh-. The final -h is suggested by Crow bia, Hidatsa wia, Mandan miNiNh(e), Tutelo mi(i)he. The h-final forms seems to be the ones that condition Va (ia, ua) finally in Crow-Hidatsa. Note that Dhegiha does have mi(N)ga 'female animal' where one might expect mi(N)'kka if the wiNh-ka rule worked with complete regularity. The complete absence otherwise of any trace of final-h in Mississippi Valley, unless perhaps final-h explains the failure of Dakotan wiN(yaN) 'woman' to be *miNyaN, suggests we should be a bit careful in assuming that final-h explains the kk in 'comb' in some Dhegiha forms. I rather like the possibility myself, but it is rather going out on a limb. I don't think there's a trace of such forms outside of Dhegiha, and they would have to be very conservative. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Oct 31 08:11:06 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 01:11:06 -0700 Subject: butterfly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote: > Casting out the 'comb' word, Bob has offered an > interesting list of wildlife terms that use /nikka/: > > Quapaw: /ppiza nikka/ 'lizard' > /ttitta nikka/ 'blue jay' > /z^aNnikka/ 'gnat' ... > Does anyone know what Quapaw /ttitta/ and Kansa > /wakkuje/ mean? Are they nouns or stative verbs? Well, 'bluejay'! It's been a while since I thought about that. I wrote a paper on bird terms in 1988, actually. Santee has tete'nic^a 'bluejay', actually, in Riggs. Miner gives j^eej^ec(?e) 'bluejay'. These, and one assumes Quapaw ttittanikka fits in, reflect the bluejay's "jay" call, "A raucous call that has many variations and that can be given at various intensities ... At lower intensities, used as an assembly call that attracts other Jays, as in courtship flocking; at higher intensities, used as an alarm or mobbing call." (Stokes 1979:141) What's of special interest, of course, in the present contect, is that element nic^a in the Santee form. I'm pretty sure that's nic^a, not nic^ha, and I suspect it's a contextual variant of *yiNka 'little'. I think that's regularly c^hiNc^a' 'child' in Dakotan. I suspect that in contexts that allow *y to be intervocalic, it can be rhoticized and the resulting *riNka would appear as ni(N)c^a in Dakotan. This element could also be nic^a < *riNke 'to lack', but I don't see how that would work. Winnebago, which merges *r and *y regularly, has niNk as a diminutive, as in wake'(niNk) 'raccoon', s^uNuNgniNk 'puppy', and so on. Of course, whether or not nic^a is 'little', it's clearly a good match for the Quapaw nikka. It would be a regular match if Quapaw had nika. What I'm wondering, is if it actually does have nika. As I recall Dorsey's very phonetic scheme of recording stops results in a series of Dhegiha orthographies very different in approach from LaFlesche's. LaFlesche uses the same set of symbols for both Omaha-Ponca and Osage (allowing for errors and the mutilation of the system in The Omaha Tribe): bdg for lax stops, p. t. k. (underdots - omitted in the published material of The Omaha Tribe) for the tense stops, and ptk for aspirates. His only concession to Osage phonetic reality is to write psh and ksh for ph and kh (his p and k) before e and i. One has to assume that he actually heard the system as it exists logically. Perhaps the mechanics of this was that he understood the Omaha-Ponca system of contrasts and perceived the working of the system in Osage based on his perception of the cognacy of forms there with forms in his native Omaha-Ponca. In recording Osage he considered any but the most egregious differences in pronuciation to be trivial. Dorsey, on the other hand, tends to write ptk for anything voiceless aspirated, p. t. k. (turned letters in print or under-x in ms) for anything voiceless unaspirated, bdg for anything voiced, and so on. LaFlesche is systematic, but Dorsey is phonetic. He would never record anything but a lax stop as voiced, but his treatment of voicless lax, tense, and aspirated stops is rather variable, though it is fairly consistent within a given language. The problem is that within a particular language he sometimes merges two series. In his Omaha-Ponca materials he tends to merge the tense and aspirate series. Since Quapaw mostly has lax and tense stops as voiceless, it is the lax and tense series that tend to be merged. In editing Dorsey's forms, when faced with a ptk Bob Rankin has to regularize on ptk or pp tt kk, and the regularization rules may well produce occasional glitches. Maybe nikka in some cases should be nika? I know that in working with OP I tend to assume pp tt kk for ptk, but sometimes ph th kh is intended. Presumably something like this explains ppiza, too. I'm simplifying of course. Dorsey never had any problem hearing the voicing of lax stops in Omaha-Ponca and Kaw. Sometimes he heard voicing in Quapaw, too. In OP Dorsey came to realize that pp tt kk contrast with ph th kh and started marking the former with subposed x (turned letters in print). He missed quite a few, but what he marked is a big help. In Osage he sometimes hears and marks preaspiration with a turned h before the stop. Aspiration is mostly clear in his Osage because he writes px tx kx or pc - kc to indicate the velarization of the aspiration. And, of course, as anyone who has to deal regularly with Dakotan materials knows, you can frequently predict where aspiration will occur from a consideration of part of speech, location of the stop in the word and root, and recognition of particular grammatical and derivational morphemes. It almost works ... JEK From Rgraczyk at aol.com Fri Oct 31 17:48:42 2003 From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Randolph Graczyk) Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 12:48:42 EST Subject: butterfly Message-ID: Some items from the Crow dictionary: bachee' 'man' xusshi' 'fast' bacheexusshi' 'handsome man' bacheexusshi' raccoon' What is interesting is the connection of 'raccoon' and 'man' in several different Siouan languages. Is this a matter of (partial) loan translations? Randy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: