Tutelo-Saponi Adoption String

Rankin, Robert L rankin at ku.edu
Thu Aug 4 22:15:33 UTC 2011


Sorry, my original response got erased when my router rebooted.

There's no real way to know what the exact word for orphan would have been in Tutelo, but we can come up with something that speakers would have recognized at least by combining 'mother' and 'to be or have none; not to be'.  In Oliverio the word for 'be none' or 'not to be' is either /yaha/ or /yahą/.  Of the two, I'd select the latter, with the nasal /ą/, since it doesn't take much to miss the nasality of the vowel, whereas it would be very strange to see it added for no reason.

Given the verb form, I'd make up a word /hena-yahą'/ for 'orphan'.  If you said that to a Tutelo, he'd have understood it, even if he might have picked a more colloquial way to say it.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that Tutelo doesn't have a form like /nįke/ or /nįka/ for 'to be none, to have none'.  Both Biloxi and Ofo have it, as do most of the other Siouan languages in one form or another.  Maybe a little deeper search in Oliverio will reveal it hiding away in some word like 'blind' or 'deaf'.

Bob

________________________________________
From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU [owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU] on behalf of Scott Collins [saponi360 at yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 1:48 AM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Subject: RE: Tutelo-Saponi Adoption String

hena is mother
tokax is grandparent
ki-...-ne is the negative mode
no is iha:o or yaha
ki:to is belong
yesa is people

So could the word for orphan be, iha:o ki:to, no belong?

...yaha hena, no mother?
...ki-kito-ne, negative aspect of belong?
...iha:o yesa, no people?







Scott P. Collins

--- On Wed, 8/3/11, Rankin, Robert L <rankin at ku.edu> wrote:

From: Rankin, Robert L <rankin at ku.edu>
Subject: RE: Tutelo-Saponi Adoption String
To: "siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU" <siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Date: Wednesday, August 3, 2011, 5:23 PM

'Orphan' in all the Siouan languages I have dictionaries for is a compound of 'mother' or 'parent' plus the verb 'be none', in otherwords 'no-parents'.  I'd bet that's what it is in Tutelo also.  If you find the term for 'parent' or just 'mother' in Tutelo and follow it with the verb 'be none', you'd have it.

Bob

________________________________________
From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU<http://us.mc835.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=owner-siouan@lists.Colorado.EDU> [owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU<http://us.mc835.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=owner-siouan@lists.Colorado.EDU>] on behalf of Scott Collins [saponi360 at yahoo.com<http://us.mc835.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=saponi360@yahoo.com>]
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 9:54 AM
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU<http://us.mc835.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=siouan@lists.Colorado.EDU>
Subject: Tutelo-Saponi Adoption String

The only thing on adoption I find is the name of the adoption string in the Spirit Adoption ceremony which is kanokwiya, is there a word found for orphan in the Tutelo-Saponi language?



Scott P. Collins



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