Word for 'prairie'?

[Rankin, Robert L]

I've had one of those layman's questions that is hard to answer.  We
have an agricultural experimental station in Central Kansas called the
"Konza Prairie" where they work on varieties of grasses.  They want to
know how to say 'prairie' in Kaw.  I don't have much I can tell them.
Does any of your work with Omaha, Ponca or Osage (or other languages)
yield any insight.

I made the point that if you were born, raised and lived all your life
on the prairie, you might not actually have a name for it.  It's just
"home".  Similarly, if the world were covered with water, we wouldn't
have a word for 'ocean'.  

I also mentioned that there is a word in Quapaw and Kaw that refers
generally to a flat land without trees, but that it is generally thought
of as referring to 'flood plain' along a watercourse.  The word is
/tteghe'/ in Quapaw and /cceghe'/ in Kansa.  I think La Flesche's Osage
has the latter form with /c/ representing [ts] instead of [c^] in that
language.  Has anyone else encountered a good term describing the broad
expanse of grasslands we find in the prairie/plains?  

Bob

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