Osage borrowings

[Carolyn Quintero]

Hello Ivan,
It's nice to hear from someone interested in Osage.  There are only a few
terms that I've identified as borrowings in Osage.  Monkapo 'coat, overcoat'
is one, obviously from French.  Then there's hkawa 'horse' that is probably
from Spanish 'caballo'.  Likewise laaNdhe 'large, great' from Spanish
'grande'.  

c'á htaaN 'devil', literally 'big snake' is probably from English 'Satan'.
[where c represents what may be written also as ts].

There are a couple of borrowings from Omaha-Ponca, and only one or two I've
found from English:

dhuhkiNki 'curly' and probably 'make curly, curl' (accent on second
syllable). The dhu- is the causative 'make' or 'by hand'.

There's the related form hkihkiNniN 'curly; curly or tangled hair, black
(African) hair'.  (accent on first syllable) 

I realize that the nasality seems reversed in the two 'curly' forms, but
I've written them the way I heard them. 

I hope this is helpful.  Welcome to the list.
Carolyn Quintero  

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu] On Behalf Of ivan.ozbolt at ou.edu
Sent: Saturday, August 19, 2006 12:45 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Language contact

Hello everyone,

This is the first message I am sending to the Siouan List. My name is Ivan
Ozbolt, and I am a MA student in Native American Studies at the University
of Oklahoma.

I am currently writing a paper on the Osage language, and I would like to
know if there is documentation available about language contact and the
Dhegiha tribes, particularly from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century
historical period.

For instance, the Osage used the sign language with other tribes, and some
also spoke French. But did they use any trade jargon or pidgin? Did they
also speak Comanche, a Lingua Franca of the southern Plains? Were some
colonial words (from French, English, Spanish) integrated in their language?

Can we find in Osage (and other Dhegiha languages) words borrowed from
non-Siouan languages?

Thank you.

Ivan Ozbolt



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