Siouan 'bird'

"Alfred W. Tu"ting" ti at fa-kuan.muc.de
Sun Nov 21 10:55:45 UTC 2004


> am trying to resolve whether the Taneks (Biloxi) and Ofo words for
'bird', kudeska and teska, respectively, are cognate with other Siouan
words for the same. The only other Siouan languages I have data on right
now are Hiraca cakaka and Hocak waniNk. I don't currently know what the
Dakota/Lakhota or other Siouan language words are. Anyone care to
enlighten me? [...]<<

Dakota/Lakota bird is _zitkala_/'zintkala' [ziNtka'la] - apparently a
diminutive form so maybe formerly used for 'small birds'? (Cf. Chinese
'birds' (BIG5) 鳥雀 niao3que4 lit.: bird-sparrow (with niao having the
ancient meaning of bigger/long-tailed bird whereas the character 雀 is
composed by 小 xiao3 small and 隹 zhui1 'short-tailed bird'.)

Alfred



More information about the Siouan mailing list