Is this a Lakota sentence?

["Alfred W. Tüting"]

>> With all due respect for Mr. W-H's competence, this translation seems to 
be in need of linguistical elucidation, isn't it?.<<<<

 > I was a little surprised at this comment at first reading.  I don't 
think Mr. White Hat's linguistic (speech) competence has ever been 
faulted by anyone I know, though some have grumbled about his linguistic 
(technical) practice (in orthography, as I recall), if folks will 
forgive me using the word linguistic in two different senses in one 
sentence.  I think, however, that Alfred meant only that the rendition 
above needed "linguistic elucidation," to explain how such a variant 
translation had come about. <<


Oh, my apologize if my comment was causing any misunderstanding. Thanks, 
John, for clearing things: I just wanted to express it the way you 
explained above. (People might know my deep appreciation for Mr. White 
Hat's work and I share most of his views on "how" to speak and 
understand the language in our modern days, and I like the way he 
personally does.)


 > (...) I'm still not clear if the sentence is idiomatic, though 
idiomaticity must be a variable and moving target in a language as
widely distributed and lively as Lakota.  Maybe some places oglu was^te 
is the usual expression for 'fortun(ate)'? <<


At a second thought, I also asked myself wether or not this sentence 
could be an idiomatism or at least a standing phrase (without explicite 
need of a verb/predicate, e.g. in Hungarian 'Jó reggelt (kivánok)!" - 
(wish [you])[a] good morning! or in German "Hut ab!"- compliments! etc. etc.

Yet, for me it is totally clear now: Mr. White Hat - being 'at home' in 
his language - obviously didn't hesitate one second to rule out **oglu 
waste, although hearing a sentence like this, because he knew that this 
wasn't part of the Lakota vocabulary, and replacing the expression by 
_ungluwaste_ [uNglu'was^te] which is grammatical - because providing the 
predicate needed - and also makes a lot of sense!
yuwaste [yuwa's^te] (= waste with the hand/action prefix): to make smth. 
good/better -> gluwaste [gluwa's^te] (the dative/ki form): to make smth. 
good/better for one.
Hence: Misun, ungluwaste maka sitomni yelo! - Younger brother, let us 
make it better [for us] all around/throughout [the] earth! (Maybe: ... 
let's make this our world better to live in, etc.)

Only context can tell why it is not _ungluwaste pi_ (as Bruce refers to).
As for _maka sitomni_ (instead of _maka sitomniyan_), I'd assume that it 
is meant adverbially here. Other than verbs (or nouns), adverbs 
obviously do not seem to be restricted with regard to their position 
within the Lakota syntax.



Toksa ake


Alfred