OK and the OED.

R. Rankin rankin at ku.edu
Wed Dec 1 22:42:59 UTC 2004


> With Pam's permission, I'll send Oxford her Choctaw ho:ke:. Pam, is it,
> as OED says, a suffix? Can it be, as OED has it, h-less?

I'll defer to Pam on this.  The H may or may not be etymologically a part of
oke.  It is a final consonant on many verb forms but there are other instances
where it has been reanalysed as the initial consonant of a following enclitic.
For example, the question particle, oN or aN has been reanalysed as -hoN or -haN
by some speakers.  Synchronically, I'd guess that you could argue for either
[hoke] or [oke].  The final vowel is definitely not [i] or [ii] in the Choctaw
I've heard.  I'm remaining neutral on the phonemic value of it, since it doesn't
matter to a potential English borrowing anyway (English speakers would hear it
as [ey]).

It might be worth combing literature from the deep South around the 1830's to
see if maybe it crops up.  I have to admit I've never liked the "Oll Korrect"
explanation.  It incorporates two non-characteristics of American English
pronunciation and spelling.

Bob



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