Lakota vocabulary question

Wablenica wablenica at mail.ru
Fri Oct 31 05:11:21 UTC 2008


Hi, David,
This word could only be the latest neologism because (as Boas/Deloria,
Buechel, Rood/Taylor, P.Shaw and host of others state) [l] followed by
nasalized vowel turns into [n] obligatorily (except for the forms blA ->
bliN ktA recorded in CULP in 1970s from some speakers).
So Buechel or Riggs don't have the "laN" strings in their lexicons.

We could guess that walansila is the result of multiple OCRs and/or
misspellings, e.g. recognition of L for apostrophe and pronouncing resulting
"lun" in English manner.

Or could it be wala- (begging) + uNs^ila (pitiful)?

Best wishes,
ever thankful Constantine.

----- Original Message -----
From: "ROOD DAVID S" <rood at spot.Colorado.EDU>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 2:01 AM
Subject: Lakota vocabulary question


>
> I have an inquiry about a word which was reported to me as "walansila"
> meaning "compassionate".  I can't find it, but Bruce's dictionary has
> "wa'uNs^ila" for English 'compassionate'.  Can anyone clarify the possible
> differences in the two words, or verify that one is correct and the other
> not, and offer any examples of context in which it might be used?
>
> Thanks.
>
> David
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>



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