Miyoglasin

[David Kaufman]

I have toyed with the idea that Choctaw-Chickasaw and Mobilian Jargon
tamaha 'town' and Creek talwa 'town' could have been borrowed from Totonac
tamawan, which literally means 'place of buying' and 'plaza' in Totonacan.
Totonac is the central coastal Mexican language that may have been spoken
in and around El Tajin on the Gulf coast of Mexico, perhaps after migrating
from Teotihuacan ca. 800 CE.  This would assume of course that the Totonacs
were doing maritime trading across the Gulf over into Mobile Bay where the
word could have entered Muskogean then possibly was copied into Siouan and
some Algonquian languages from there.  Maybe a long shot, but given certain
other lexical resemblances between Totonac, Mayan, and Muskogean not
necessarily out of the question.

Dave

David Kaufman, Ph.C. Linguistic Anthropology
University of Kansas
Director, Kaw Nation Language Program


On Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 10:20 AM, shokooh Ingham <shokoohbanou at yahoo.co.uk>wrote:

> Cree Otenaw 'town' an Lakota Othunwahe is also an interesting resemblance.
> Bruce
>
>   ------------------------------
>  *From:* "Rankin, Robert L." <rankin at KU.EDU>
> *To:* SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
> *Sent:* Tuesday, 10 September 2013, 2:01
> *Subject:* Re: Miyoglasin
>
> Jan,
>
> Thanks for the expert commentary and additional examples.
>
> *O**thúŋwahe* ‘town’ is another one of those *wanderwoerter* that has
> similar forms in Dakotan, Dhegiha, and Biloxi as well as Choctaw and
> Chickasaw.  I'm surprised it doesn't seem to be in Chiwere or Hochunk.  I
> think it turns up in Virginia in the tribal name *Tomahitan*, which would
> mean 'big town' also in Biloxi.  It's not out of the question that the word
> is native Siouan, but the distribution and sound correspondences don't make
> me feel good.  :-)
>
> Bob
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* Siouan Linguistics [SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] on behalf of Jan
> Ullrich [jfu at LAKHOTA.ORG]
> *Sent:* Monday, September 09, 2013 2:25 PM
> *To:* SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
> *Subject:* Re: Miyoglasin
>
>   Dear all:
>
> I think that there are more loan words in traditional Lakota than one may
> think. Here are some examples:
>
> aspéla (from aspirin)
> bébela ‘baby’ from French
> khukhúše ‘pig’ from French
> kuŋkúŋla  - ‘cucumber’
> khamíte ‘committee’
> pusíla – ‘cat’
> spakéli ‘spaghetti’
>
> I recorded these word from fluent traditional speakers, although it is
> true that not all of them are recognized across the community. Such is the
> case of spakéli, aspéla and pusíla, but the other ones are fully
> standardized lexical items. And I am quite sure that this is not the full
> list.
>
> I am intrigued by Bob’s comment that othúŋwahe ‘town’ might be borrowing
> as well. I recall reading somewhere (perhaps in one of John Koontz’s
> materials, but I could be wrong) that the word itázipa ‘bow’ is a loan as
> well.
>
> Also, many speakers told me how their monolingual Lakota speaking
> grandparents Lakotized the children’s English names because they couldn’t
> pronounce them. For example Delores was called “Čelowiŋ”, Imogene was
> “Imočila” etc. I have documented dozens of these. I think that this could
> be another indication that Lakota speakers were quite open to borrowing
> words from other languages. Contemporary speakers are usually very
> reluctant to do so, but I think this might have been different when the
> majority of speakers were still monolingual.  I wouldn’t be at all
> surprised if there were lots of loans from other tribes, especially on
> fauna and flora.
>
> As for “mirror” I have always been skeptical about the “mirror glass”
> etymology because the analyses that involves mní ‘water’ and a possessive
> or reflexive of ókas’iŋ ‘to peer into’ seem quite convincing and is
> consistent across dialects. But again, I can be wrong and it wouldn’t be
> for the first time.
>
> Jan
>
>
>
>
>
>  *From:* Siouan Linguistics [mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] *On Behalf
> Of *De Reuse, Willem
> *Sent:* Monday, September 09, 2013 1:58 AM
> *To:* SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
> *Subject:* Re: Miyoglasin
>
>  Thanks for the very detailed miyoglas'in discussion, Rory.  I agree, and
> I like the expression 'chiming calque'.
>
> Willem
>  ------------------------------
>  *From:* Siouan Linguistics [SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] on behalf of Rory
> Larson [rlarson1 at UNL.EDU]
> *Sent:* Sunday, September 08, 2013 6:51 PM
> *To:* SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
> *Subject:* Re: Miyoglasin
>
> Ø  It is not unlikely that this was influenced by "mirrorglass".  But it
> has a good Lakota etymology (see the New Lakota Dictionary), so this is NOT
> a loan from English.  (Coincidences happen.   My favorite is [elkar] which
> means 'each other' in Dutch and in Basque.)
>
> Ø I have to admit that I’m very skeptical of 5 syllable long
> “coincidences”, so it seems to me more likely that ‘mirror’ is a loanword
> from either French or English that may have been reanalyzed in terms of the
> vertitive given in the new dictionary.
>
>
> The word miyoglasin, together with several variants of the term, appears
> in both Williamson and Riggs:
>
> Riggs:
>
>                 mi-yó-gla-siŋ, n. T. a mirror, looking glass.  See
> mioglasiŋ.
>
>                 mí-o-gla-siŋ, n. T. a mirror.  See mniohdasiŋ.
>
>                 mni-yó-hda-siŋ, n.  a looking-glass; window glass.  See
> mioglasiŋ.
>
> Williamson:
>
>                 mirror, n.  Ihdiyomdasiŋ.  Y.  Mniokdasiŋ.  T.  Miyoglasiŋ.
>
> Riggs:
>
> i-hdí-yo-mda-siŋ, n.  a looking-glass, mirror.  T., miyoglasiŋ.  See
> aokasiŋ and okasiŋ.
>
> a-ó-ka-siŋ,  v.a.  to look into, peep into—aowakasiŋ, aoyakasiŋ,
> aouŋkasiŋpi.
>
>                 ó-ka-siŋ,  v.  to look into.  See aokasiŋ, kas’iŋ, and
> okakiŋ.
>
>                 ka-s’íŋ, adv.  appearing, in sight.  See aokasiŋ and
> okasiŋ.
>
> The term is pretty clearly based on the verb ókas(‘)iŋ, ‘to look into’.
> In its vertitive form óglasiŋ, it should mean ‘to look into at oneself’,
> which makes very good sense for the meaning of ‘mirror’.  The Yankton and
> one of the Santee forms suggest that the word originally began with the
> term m(i)ni, ‘water’, rather than the undefined element /mi/.  The other
> Santee form shows that ‘oil’, ihdi, could be substituted for ‘water’ to get
> the same sense (though in this case, they are apparently using a different
> instrumental prefix—not sure why).  Most likely, native people were
> perfectly familiar with the concept of looking into a pool of clear, still
> liquid to see their own faces long before European mirrors ever appeared.
>
> These dictionaries were developed in the 19th century, and the suite of
> terms taken together shows the approximate etymology without having to
> assume a recent reanalysis.  Only the Teton/Lakhota form shows any notable
> similarity to “mirrorglass”, and then only because that dialect happens to
> use the cluster /gl/ where other dialects use /hd/ or /kd/.
>
> This almost certainly is not a simple loanword from French or English.
> French seems to have both “miroir” and “glace” as words for ‘mirror’, where
> English has “mirror” and “looking-glass”.  But was a term like
> “mirrorglass” actually in circulation in either language in the 18th or 19
> th centuries?  I don’t find it in my English dictionary, or in the French
> dictionary either.  If we can document that this compound was commonly used
> a couple of centuries ago, then perhaps the Lakhota form was influenced by
> it to the extent of changing initial mni- mi-.  Otherwise, I think the
> “coincidence” here may actually illustrate the process of creating a
> chiming calque, in this case, from Lakhota into English.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Rory
>
>
>
>
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