???*yaS and Woraxe as Potawatomi

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 20 Aug 1999, Alan H. Hartley wrote:
> > Further afield, I've recently realized that another similar form seems to
> > appear in the term Hidatsa, in which -datsa (/raca/), if it is segmentable
> > and of Siouan origin and goes back that far, would be from Proto-
> > Crow-Hidatsa *-rasa.  The fricative grade is off again here:  s, not s^.
>
> So a step further away from the "willows" analysis of HIDATSA?

I wouldn't take this one very seriously.  I can't account for the hi, for
example, so this form remains (as far as I can tell) unanalyzable.  It
could be all one morpheme (there are a few three syllable morphemes in
Siouan languages, mostly foreign), or two or three, and who knows where
the cuts are or what it means, other than, of course, "Hidatsa."
The best bet is probably still hira ??? + tsA 'yellow' (in some
nominalized form.

On the other hand, I'm not convinced there isn't something in the Dakotan
and Dhegiha forms, without feeling I've proved it at this point.  But
going further, to the forms for 'Potawatomi' and 'Hidatsa', seems quite a
stretch.  In the first case I'm not convinced that the form is of Siouan
origin, and in the second I'm not sure raca is an actual constituent.

So, while I mentioned the Hidatsa form for the sake of completeness, I'd
like to keep the serious discussion of Hidatsa vs. Wirahaatsa separate, if
that's possible!