Autonym of Mosopeleas-Ouesperies-Ofos

Rankin, Robert L rankin at ku.edu
Tue Feb 27 15:18:22 UTC 2007


It would at least show that the rule was still active then.  But the change has to be after the Biloxi-Ofo split in any event.  
 
I don't actually know what word(s) was passed along before Swanton, but people knew that Ofo had an F sound, so they had assumed it was a Muskogean language.  It was Swanton who identified it as Siouan.  It may have come from the name "Ofo" alone.  
 
Bob

________________________________

From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of Rory M Larson
Sent: Mon 2/26/2007 3:42 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: RE: Autonym of Mosopeleas-Ouesperies-Ofos



> The association of Mosopelea with the Ofo would be entirely speculative if it weren't for two factors:  (1) Swanton's discovery of the several variant forms of the attestation stretching from the upper reaches of the Ohio, downstream to the Mississippi and south to Louisiana, with phonetic changes evident at each stage of migration, and (2) the term refers to the Ofo in two distinct forms, Tunica "Ushpe" and Ofo [ofo], both from the same Swanton ethnonym.  

If this associationa is valid, and /moso/ => /ofo/, doesn't that seem to confirm that the shift from Siouan /s/ to Ofo /f/ took place fairly recently, i.e. roughly 17th to 19th century?

Do we have any definite Ofo vocabulary recorded prior to Swanton?

Rory



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