CHIWERE etymology
Koontz John E
John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Tue Feb 22 01:11:58 UTC 2000
On Mon, 21 Feb 2000, Alan H. Hartley wrote:
> The Hdbk. Amer. Indians (1907, I. 287) gives the meaning of CHIWERE as
> 'belonging to this place; the home people', presumably following Dorsey.
> Can anyone confirm that and/or amplify on it? And provide the earliest
> occurrence (? Dorsey c. 1880).
I can't access the file at the moment, but doesn't Dorsey discuss the
Dhegiha term in the Phonology of 5? (4?) Siouan languages paper, too? I
think that's c. 1895. That might be the place to look, by analogy.
Chiwere is from Jiwere (or jiwele, c^iwere, c^iwele, depending on how the
liquid and the unaspirated c^ are written). Rankin generally recommends
using j^ for c^ (vs. c^h, I think, for c^h), in order to maximize the
attention drawn to the aspiration distinction, which is regularly and
thoroughly (though not universally) overlooked in Ioway-Otoe-Missouria
work. The j^i stem should be *t-hi 'to arrive here' (<**re-hi), as PS
(post)aspirates end up as voiced in Ioway-Otoe and Winnebago. If it were
c^h it would be from *hti (the PREaspirate), which would be 'to dwell'.
The latter is not the root that occurs here.
The -were part could, I suppose, involve the we 'horizontal positional'
stem. That is, this could be based on one of the 'suddenly' verbs,
analogous to Dhegiha (cf. OP) thihe. Cf. Good Tracks's dictionary j^iwe
'to fall, come down lying'. (Here and below I convert his j to j^.)
But the final -re is a problem, I think, as this slot should have the
causative, if anything, which would be -hi. That would produce *j^iwehi
(not attested, but probably valid, though not as the name in question!).
Good Tracks does list j^irehi 'to remove, subtravct, take away', which is
the causative of j^ire, another 'suddenly' stem, which is glossed 'to get
up, rise up, begin, commence'. Good Tracks cites the ablauted form j^ira.
This is analogous to OP thidhe, or Dakota hiya. These forms reduplicate
as j^irara, thidhadha, and hiyaya.
If the stem in j^iwere is j^ire, then we is some sort of inflectional or
derivational inclusion, apparently -wa-(something?)i-. I'm not sure what
at the moment.
All things considered, probably the simplest thing is to mark the form
'name in Ioway-Otoe-Missouria of the Otoe (not certainly analyzable)'.
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