<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">You are most welcome. However, please note that my citation of the title of the Smithsonian Inst. multi-volume "Handbook" should have read "Handbook of North American INDIANS". Sorry about that! :) Clive. P.S. May I inquire what is your own area of specialization & expertise? <BR><DIV><DIV>On 01/07/2006, at 10:18 AM, Jonathan Holmes wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV>Thank you for taking the time to explain so precisely. It helped a great deal.</DIV> <DIV>Jonathan<BR><BR><B><I>Clive Bloomfield <<A href="mailto:cbloom@ozemail.com.au">cbloom@ozemail.com.au</A>></I></B> wrote:</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE class="replbq" style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">Hello Jonathan, I believe I can translate your sentence for you : It IS certainly Lakota, and one translation might be : "SOON YOU (sg.) WILL/MAY BURST INTO LAUGHTER, PERHAPS." I will transcribe and gloss, first in traditional spelling, then, between Right Slash Marks, into so-called "Net-Siouan" format, in order to reflect pronunciation less approximately. NB : Acute accent marks stressed syllable. [ "ecanni"=>/echáNni/, Adverb, meaning "soon; early"; ["anayapsa kte" =>/anáyaps^a (kte)/, Finite VERB, 2pS., meaning : "You (Sg.) (will/shall) break/burst into laughter ("which had previously been suppressed" Buechel/Manhart, 2002, s.v.) ("kte" [a form of "ktA" -See below]) : Future/Intentional Modal Enclitic Suffix. Here, in effect, marking "future tense". )]; "sece" =>/séce/ (a form of "secA") : Another "Epistemic" (Ingham, 2003, 4.7.1.) Modal Encl. Suff. denoting Possibility and/or Probability. Should further explication of force/operation of these Enclitic Suffixes be needed, (in word-order they conform to a sort of "order-of-precedence hierarchy"), see : Ingham (ibid. Section 4.7, pp.28-33)); also Section 10 (pp. 473-476) of David S. Rood & Alan R. Taylor's "Sketch of Lakhota, a Siouan Language", in Vol. 17 ("Languages" :Ives Goddard [ed.]) of "Handbook of North American Languages", Washington : Smithsonian Institution,( Wm. C. Sturtevant, [ed.]) (1996) : pp. 440-482. Finally, a short "Key" to Net-Siouan Transcr. above : /N/ marks preceeding vowel as Nasalised; /s^/=Engl."sh-" as in "shop"; /A/ denotes a final vowel which is subject to certain changes ("ABLAUT"), conditioned by nature of immediately following word, or under certain other conditions, such as being "clause-final" : here, both "kta" and "seca" suffer this change from "a" to "e". (N.B. : to fully understand this, you would have to learn Lakhota!) Hope this is of some assistance to you Jonathan. Perhaps I have either assumed too much, or too little! :-) BTW, Net-Siouan is a set of orthographical conventions devised for writing Lakhota on the "Net", used by some. Regards, Clive Bloomfield. <BR> <DIV> <DIV>On 01/07/2006, at 1:45 AM, Jonathan Holmes wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">If this is Lakota, as it appears it may be, would anyone know what this sentence means? <BR><BR><EM>Ecanni anayapsakte sece. <BR></EM><BR><BR> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV><SPAN style="COLOR: red; FONT-STYLE: italic"><STRONG><FONT color="#0000bf">Be a friend...</FONT></STRONG></SPAN></DIV> <DIV><STRONG><SPAN style="COLOR: red; FONT-STYLE: italic"><FONT color="#c00000">Help support the Lakota Communities on Pine Ridge,</FONT></SPAN></STRONG></DIV> <DIV><STRONG><FONT color="#000000"><SPAN style="COLOR: red; FONT-STYLE: italic"><FONT color="#c00000">go to:</FONT> </SPAN></FONT></STRONG><SPAN style="COLOR: blue"><A href="http://friendsofpineridgereservation.org/">http://FriendsofPineRidgeReservation.org</A></SPAN></DIV> <DIV><SPAN style="COLOR: blue"></SPAN> </DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV> <DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV> <HR size="1"> Want to be your own boss? 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