Ch.Orthography/ Word for "Chief", "Family"

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2001, Lance Foster wrote:
> What has been the most successful systems, in terms of community acceptance,
> for ANY Siouan language? Anyone want to nominate the one with the most
> community acceptance?

I have the impression that the popular orthography for Crow is well
accepted.  Before that there were at least the Lowie and the Kaschube
systems.

> Again, use of the x as in Jimm's system is simply not consistent with
> the rest of the system. For example, ch, ny, ng, etc are all written
> with two consonants. They could each be written with one (c, ñ, the
> "eng") if we want to be consistent with the use of x. If we wish to
> use ch, ny, ng, why not use kh? Not to pick on Jimm, but his and
> Lila's system uses "sh" not the "esh". I am simply arguing for
> consistency either way we go. And we are also talking about nonnative
> speakers and getting them interested rather than scared off.

I'm not sure Jimm's system was aimed at using one-letter ot two-letter
combinations.  It looks to me like he set out to use English patterns but
fell back on common expedients like x for the velar fricative where
English didn't go.  I don't think linguists attach much significance to
using one letter ot two to represent a sound in practical systems, only to
not using more than one expedient (of however many letters) to represent
the same sound.  So you wouldn't want to write IO "r" sometimes with r,
sometimes with l.

The one exception would be cases where there is some well-conditioned
allophony you want to appeal to.  For example, Carolyn Quintero uses r in
br, and edh otherwise for th Osage edh (or r).  And I use ptc^k in sp,
etc., but bdj^g not in clusters, though there is no contrast between p and
b, etc.  I've tried writing sp and p, e.g., pute for bu(u)de 'acorn', but
it involved more explaining than seemed necessary.  I've noticed that
folks working with Winnebago write sg and g, for example, though, and that
seems to work for them.

> A point I hadn't thought of. I was remembering a film I saw as an
> undergrad where a linguist, using NO english was able to elicit a
> basic vocabulary and basic grammar using nothing but gestures and
> repetition. Does this sound familiar?

My wife says she can teach English this way, but that it's a slow process.
It's better to have a translator.  We softies working with Native American
languages in the US tend to rely on the speaker to be the translator, too.
I've heard of cases where the linguist spoke a sort of X to a translator
who spoke X and Y and translated X into Y to deal with a speaker who spoke
Y and Z, Z being the language of interest.  Dorsey seems to have done
something like this with a lot of his Omaha-Ponca work.  The speakers in
many cases knew very little English.  He wrote as fast as he could, got
them to repeat when he could, and then worked through the results with the
aid of one of the tribe's translators or with various consultants like
Frank (Francis) LaFlesche or some others who were hired to come to
Washington or were visiting on other business.  He also elicited texts
from English-Omaha-Ponca bilinguals like Frank LaFlesche.

Your best bet in developing a vocabulary list is to look at existing
texts.

JEK