'Hau' / 'How' but not 'Klahowya'

[David Robertson]

Hau, khola, tanyan yaunpi hwo?

Lila was'te!  (So Sioux me if my grammar is bad.  :-)  It's been a while.)

In Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Sioux, 'hau' has no meaning other than as a
greeting.  By the way, only men, strictly speaking, say 'hau'; as in most
Siouan languages there are distinct grammatical forms for female versus
male speakers.  Women ought to say 'han', I'm told -- you don't pronounce
the "n" at the end; it simply marks nasalization on the "a" before it, so
the word sounds kind of French.

'Mitakuye' consists of 'mi-' meaning "my", prefixed to 'tha*kuya/ta*kuye'
meaning "relatives, people, family" etc.  The range of meanings is similar
to that of the Chinook Jargon word 'tillikum / tIlXEm'.

There's no relation to CJ 'klahowya' and I'd want to make sure that Sioux
and Chinooks like each other before I proposed such a thing!  :-)

While we're really far off-topic here, can I ask why so many Sioux dog
jokes at powwows?  A little bird told me Chinooks and Lewis and Clark ate
dogs too, as has almost everyone who's domesticated them in the history of
humankind.	WSSSSSSSSS  [You won't believe this, but my cat just
started mewing and jumped onto the keyboard of the computer.  She typed a
very articulate hiss in capital letters just as I was discussing dogs!]

Good day,
Dave






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