Terms for "white man"

Bruce Ingham bi1 at soas.ac.uk
Tue Mar 16 12:45:04 UTC 2004


On 12/3/04 1:38 am, "Koontz John E" <John.Koontz at colorado.edu> wrote:

> On Thu, 11 Mar 2004, Bruce Ingham wrote:
>> Could S^ahiya not also be 'red speaker' (meaning possibly non-Siouan) or is
>> there another known origin for it.
>
> I believe the h is extra if the form is s^a + iye.  The syntax is also
> different from iyeska, for example, though perhaps either order would be
> acceptable.  It makes more sense to me to see s^ahi'ya as s^ahi' + (y)a,
> where -(y)a is the "independent stem"  forming suffix (absolute marker)
> that occurs in some Dakotan stems ending in high vowels, e.g., heya,
> wiNyaN, maxpiya, and so on.  The same formant occurs with such stems in
> some cases before some of the short or enclitic postpositions, like -ta
> (e.g., with thiyata).  The s^ahi' form for 'Cree' is also pretty well
> attested in various other languages, though not, apparently, in Santee or
> Teton.  This -ya is -ye in e-grade contexts so when =la follows you get
> s^ahi'yela, cf. sa'pa, sa'pela, and so on.
>
> Does it however still refer to 'speaking red' or is it unanalyzable?
Bruce



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