Dakotan T-words and their equivalents in Siouan

[Rory M Larson]

Hi Bruce,

John may have already sent you the OP question words to match your list,
but I haven't otherwise seen a posting for OP.  I've been going through (~
the first 50 pages of) Dorsey's Dhegiha Language texts along with our Omaha
class, and have been pulling out the words and sorting them into
categories.  Here's what I've gotten so far for "Question Words":


a'gudi            where? (location)
a'qtaN            How possible?
a'naska           what size? (probably a'raNska in modern Omaha)
a'ttaN            why?

atHaN'            What time (of day)?

a'wakHE'di        in what place
a'wahnaNkHa'ce    which one of you?
a'waraN           Which/What/Where is (globular object)?
a'watHe'gaN       of what sort?

ea'ttaN           why?
ea'ttaN a'daN     why?  wherefore?
ea'ttaN e'daN     why?  wherefore? (in thought)

e?aN'-qti         what great (person)?          [023:12]

E'be              who?

iNda'daN          what?; something
eda'daN           what

wiN'aNwa          which one?
wiN'aNwatta ?     in which direction?


I also have a subcategory entitled "-soever":


  a'gudi ratHi' e'iNtt(H)e - wherever you may have come from
atHaN'-qti        whenever; when (I next touch ground ...)
da'daN            what, whatever
eda'daN           what; whatever (eda'd ?i'rai - what they speak of)
ede'he            what I say

Ebe'ctE           anybody at all  (Ebe'ctE ua'kkie ma'ji - I wasn't talking
to anyone)
INda'daNctE       whatever
cte'cte           soever
cte'ctewaN'       soever


A few common modern ones haven't shown up yet, at least in the usual form.
These include:

awa'tta           where, in what direction
eaN'              how
awiN'aNwa         which one
a'naN             how many

ede'              What did s/he say?
ede's^e           What did you say?
ede'pHe           What did I say?

a'watHe'gaN       X UmaN'haN ie' tHE a'watHe'gaN?
                  How do you say X in Omaha?


So to match with your Dakotan list:

taku 'what, something"                    iNda'daN, eda'daN
tuwe/a 'who, someone'                     ebe'
tukte 'which'                             awiN'aNwa(N)
tuktel 'where, somewhere'                 a'gudi  (-di postposition)
tokhiya 'where to, somewhere'             awa'tta (-tta postposition)
tohan/l 'when. sometime'                  atHaN'
tona  'how many, some'                    a'naN
tokhel 'how, somehow'                     eaN'
tokha 'what happened, something happened' ?

It looks like 'who', 'when' and 'how many' probably have cognate roots.  I
wonder if Dakotan taku matches the root part of OP a'gu-di, which would
make the OP word for 'where at' mean "at what".

The use of awa- with positionals is interesting.

Hope this helps!
Rory