Locative Postpositions

[Alan H. Hartley]

John E Koontz wrote:

> One of the observations wrt to Native American
> languages, at least in the East and Plains, is that they seem to be
> relatively impervious to loans.

I've observed the same absence of borrowing in the areas of Minnesota
from which the Dakota were displaced by the westward-advancing Ojibway:
there are few if any O. placenames (and other vocabulary, for that
matter) borrowed from Dakota. (That situation was an extreme case in
that the displacement was often violent, making interpersonal contact,
except violence, pretty rare.)

> It occurs to me that there is likely to be a connection between Ogalala
> (OP Ubdhadha) and the Niobrara (OP NiN Ubdhadha), but I'm not sure in
> which direction (or how), and the ethnonym is not a formal locative.

That's really interesting! So Riggs' posited connection of Lakota oglala
with a Dakota word for 'scatter' is groundless? (He cites ohdada 'to
scatter one's own'.)

Alan