Sky and clouds

[Bruce Ingham]

Yes it had occurred to me that living on the Plains would make a difference
in one's concept of sky and clouds.   I suppose the 'clouds' are
seen as a reduction of the 'vastness' to specific entities. On a
sailing note in England we talk about the 'sea-side' and in America
and Australia  I hear people refer more often to 'the Ocean',
presumably because the only sea you've got is an ocean. The
colour is different too.  We distinguish 'grey water sailors' around
the estuaries, 'green water sailors' in the English channeI and North
Sea and 'blue water sailors' who cross the oceans.

On days without any clouds in the sky I heard people saying
"thowaN'z^ic^a"
(tho + waNz^i' -ka) - something like "all blue" or "whole blue". I don't
have Buechel on hand right now but I think he has this word in his
dictionary too.

Thanks Jan
I think that occurs in Buechel too.  That would obviously be the
way it would be done.


Bruce

Date sent:      	Wed, 14 Feb 2001 11:04:42 -0700 (MST)
Send reply to:  	Koontz John E <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>
From:           	Koontz John E <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>
To:             	siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject:        	Re: Sky and clouds

> Therefore I wonder how to say such a thing as 'there are no clouds in
> the sky'.

I'd assume that historically this would be akin to saying 'there are no
clouds among the clouds'.  In other words, I think the conception of sky
was an emptiness populated by clouds, so that clouds were the thing to
which attention was directed, leaving no actual term for the emptiness,
except in the theological conception of stacked worlds that occurs among
Siouan groups as it does elsewhere.

It might be relevant that sky is psychologically very different in a
grassland from sky peeping between trees in a forest or hanging between
mountains in a valley.  It seems less a lid and more a vastness.
Easterners always comment to me on how weird it seems too see distant
rain.

However, whatever the etymological basis of the forms, with or without
English, French, etc., and Christian influences, this conception may have
changed in a given language.

The formulation of 'sky' as 'clouds' enters into the compound
'blue-sky-people' for the Arapahoes.

> ... and one sees sentences like, I think, mah^piya ska wan woslal he
> 'a white cloud stood vertically (in front of them)'.

I seem to recall that clouds walk in Omaha-Ponca.

JEK

Dr. Bruce Ingham
Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies
SOAS