Winnebago Aspiration

[Koontz John E]

I never know whether to call it haspiration or ahpiration.

I looked in the Say Winnebago vocabulary from the Long Expedition. As far
as date and place:  "The two following Vocabularies were taken down by
Major Long during his tour on the upper Mississippi in the year 1817."

I may not have the superscript numbers Say uses correctly decyphered.  The
second-generation xerox I'm using has its limitations.  I've marked with
asterisk (*) cases where Long differs from Miner.

To sum up the results, Long seems to have been somewhat hit or miss in
hearing h.  He never adds one that isn't there today, but often omits one
that is.  It doesn't seem to matter whether h is epenthetic or organic as
far as when he misses it.  Most of the examples are organic h, however.

It occurs to me to wonder if h was regularly elided in any earlier
American dialects.  In other words, perhaps we are not entirely correct in
assuming that all early American English speakers could hear an h well.
Under the circumstances it seems more likely that Long had trouble hearing
h than that the Winnebago speakers he questioned were omitting it.

 Long               Miner        Gloss (both, or Long = Miner)

 a2r-da2h           a'a(=ra)     'arm' = 'the arm'
*o1ntsh             huN'uNc^     'bear'
*o1ngk-pe1          huN'uNk + piNiN
                                 'chief' = 'chief' + 'good' ?
*a4h-no2            t?e'e=naNaN  'dead' = 'he died + DECL' )

(In the preceding I assume Long failed to perceive the t in t?ee.)

 e1ye1-sho2u3-u2ck  a'is^ak      'elbow'

(The preceding example suggests Say's use of superscripts is not entirely
in accord with Long's actual scheme.  I suspect they were added as Say
thought they should be, and not originally present.)

 a1-pe1-no2         (ee) piNiN(=naNaN)
                                  'good' = 'it was good + DECL'
*o2-a2-ki2sh-ke1    huuwa'gisge'  'garter'
*i2sh-o3k           hiiz^u'k      'gun'
*i2sh-o2-co1-ma3h   hiiz^u'gmaNaN 'lead' = 'bullet'
*o2-ra2h            hu'u=ra       'leg' ='the leg'
 ha1-da2h           he'e=ra       'louse' = 'the louse'
 ha3h-he2h-we1      haNaNhewi     'moon'
 e1                 i'i           'mouth'
 a2h-chi2n-shu1n    ???           'old'

(Not a clue.  The Dakota form is 'old man'.)

?o2k-hu2n-ne1       (hiiz^u'k)uxiNniN'
                                  'gunpowder'
 he1-no2-ko2-ta2h   hinuN'k=ra    'squaw' = 'the woman'
 he1                hi'i          'teeth'
 ha3n-na3jh-pe1     hanaN'aNc^ + piNiN
                                  'Universe' = 'all + good' (?)
*i2-si1c-we1-ke1-ne1-cha3h
                    heezi'k wikiNniNja
                                  'wax = 'bee' + 'wax' ('beeswax' ?)

John E. Koontz
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz