Omaha fricative set

[Rankin, Robert L]

I noticed that similarity between 'bird' and 'squirrel' as I was typing the post, but I don't know of any folk taxonomy in Siouan that commonly joins mammals with birds in this way.  Small birds are "tree fleas" in Dakotan and lizards are "bugs" in Kaw, but I have to admit that "small prey critter" doesn't do it for me at the moment.  Bob

________________________________

From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of Rory M Larson
Sent: Thu 9/28/2006 9:29 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: RE: Omaha fricative set



> 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