cross-linguistic metaphors (fwd)

[Bryan James Gordon]

>
>
>
> But since this is a Siouanist list, what about Siouan and other native
> North American languages?  For Omaha, we have wazhiN-ska listed in the
> Stabler-Swetland dictionary for 'smart/intelligent', along with 'wise',
> 'knowledge', 'clever' and 'sober'.  wazhiN seems to mean something like
> 'disposition', 'will', 'mentality' or 'anger', perhaps like the early
> Germanic meaning of /mood/.  ska means 'white', and is also said to mean
> 'clear' or 'bright', although I've never been able to make that connection.
>  So the term actually seems to mean something like "white-disposition", with
> the main implication of wisdom and sobriety of conduct, not so much what
> we're looking for here as the ability to grasp ideas quickly.  No word is
> listed for 'stupid', and the closest I can get is 'foolish', which merges
> with groNriN, 'crazy', as the opposite of wisdom and sobriety.
>

What if the -ska in wazhíⁿska is not the same as "white"? There are also
other words, like tápuska, iyéska, which confer the impression that it might
be nothing more than an agent-nominaliser, perhaps historically related to
shkoⁿ "active/move/do" (which would go some way towards explaining the
apparent part-cognate-part-loanword set hethúshka iróska ilóⁿska where some
languages have s and others sh). I think I recall hearing some words in Macy
that indicated a productive use of this suffix on verbal predicates that
don't show any signs of taking -ska in either Dorsey or the Swetland-Stabler
lexicon. I've even heard an interpretation of "pahaska" (Pawhuska) as
meaning "person who stands forward" instead of "white head/scalp", although
that might be a creative back-formation.

On the other hand, however, the Báxoje word for translator is "ich^é brédhe"
"speaks clearly", which hints that clarity if not colour may well have
something to do with the semantics of this family of concepts. I think what
we need is either luck in finding a section of discourse documented that
confirms or rejects the hypothesis, or a native speaker who has the relevant
intuition.

- Bryan
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