Possible loanwords in Dhegiha

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 13 Sep 1999, Robert L. Rankin wrote:
> Paul's obviously right.  However, the several Algonquian loans into Siouan
> that have been spotted so far (mostly by John Koontz), like 'bow', seem to
> show that Siouan speakers grabbed the first two Algonquian syllables and
> the rest of the (huge, long) word went out the window.  So, in fact, we
> can all be right.

Grabbing the first two syllables, with some syncope, is a fair assessment,
though the words in question weren't enormously long in the fairly secure
cases, and only lose about two syllables from syncope and ending loss.  In
general the words seem to be subjected to some sort of Siouanization in
phonology (of course), with some modification based on a pseudo-Siouan
analysis of the morphology, e.g., 'cucurbit' loses its initial e (perhaps
taken as a demonstrative?).  In that particular case I'm not absolutely
sure which direction the loan went - i.e., it may have been out of a third
language presently unknown.  In both 'bow' (cf.  Omaha-Ponca maNde and Wi
maNaNc^ku)  and 'rattlesnake' (cf. Omaha-Ponca s^ekki) the animate -a is
deleted, which is odd, as this has a nice structural parallel (if not a
semantic one) in Siouan.  I'm inclined to wonder if some of the borrowing
occurred long enough ago that what are now grammatical morphemes in
Algonquian languages (e.g., animate singular -a) might have been more
segmentable enclitic articles.