WHICH IS IT?

[Rankin, Robert L]

There is no real "TH" sound (as in "thin") actually attested in either Osage or Omaha/Ponca.  The people who described this were likely hearing a version of S pronounced with the tip of the tongue against the back of the lower teeth -- in linguistic terms, a dental S.  So Mark is right, as was Dorsey.  Note that Dorsey's field work was done either earlier than Laflesche's.  Since Osage and Omaha had S in Dorsey's time and S after Laflesche's time, it is entirely unlikely that they had TH for a few years in between.
 
But there is a major problem with the use of c-cedilla.  It represents not only S but also Z !!  You just have to known which words have S and which have Z.  Laflesche wrote si 'foot' and zi 'yellow' alike, but they are. of course, different.
 
Bob

________________________________

From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of goodtracks at peoplepc.com
Sent: Thu 5/4/2006 11:15 AM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.ed
Subject: WHICH IS IT?


In LaFleche's Osage Dicionary and Mark S's Omaha Lexicon, both use Dorsey "c" with a cedilla.
LaFleche's phonetic key has reads:  "C (+ cedilla)  as in thin" 
Mark's pronunciation guide has:  "C (+ cedilla) sounds like s in the word say." 
 
Which way is it? Are they both correct?