Omaha fricative set

[Rory M Larson]

> OM  sikka  'chicken'    (but ziziga 'turkey')
> LA   ziNtka  'bird'         (but zic^a 'partridge')
>
> OM  siNga  'squirrel'
> LA   zic^a  'squirrel'

After sending out that last message, I took another look at those sets.
There isn't really any consistent difference between a squirrel and a
largish bird, is there?

By the 'bird' set, we'd have to allow a variably pronounced term
*[s/z]i[N][t/?], followed, perhaps, by an animate classifier *-ka.  The
'squirrel' set fits into the same range.  In Lakhota, 'squirrel' and
'partridge' even seem to be pronounced the same.

I wonder if the semantics, at one time, could have ranged to a disparaging
"small prey animal, obtainable with a bow and arrow in the woods in
winter"?  Even if there were originally separate words that sounded
similar, say, ziNt- 'bird' vs. si 'squirrel', a semantic and phonetic
convergence like that could account for all that scrambling.

Rory
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