<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><FONT SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">In a message dated 8/23/2006 7:59:33 PM Eastern Standard Time, dvklinguist2003@yahoo.com writes:<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Just for the record, the Biloxi word(s) for 'medicine' is tixi, with another variant tyi. Come to think of it, this may actually be the same word 'ti,' with a palatalized variant 'tyi,' if that -xi suffix on 'tixi' is really the word for 'sacred/mysterious' that also occurs in 'aNya xi' meaning chief or doctor. Further, apparently the Chickasaw and Choctaw (?) word for 'tea' is 'tii,' of course probably a borrowing from English. But I wonder if it was borrowed into Biloxi to mean 'medicine' since medicinal plants are often put in teas. Then perhaps the real Biloxi translation would be 'ti xi' = 'sacred/mysterious tea' or something like that.</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
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Perhaps the Biloxi word is borrowed from the Chickasaw or Choctaw word for 'tea', but it is also possible that it reflects retention of an old Siouan-Catawba root. The Catawba root for 'root' is -ti:. It is a dependent root (meaning it never occurs by itself), but is found in such constructions as ?yapti: 'tree root' and, more important to the current discussion, wiNti: 'medicinal root, medicine' as a compound with the older word for 'medicine', which itself is not found uncompounded in the Catawba data, wiN.<BR>
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Blair</FONT></HTML>