sky

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 16 Feb 2001, RLR wrote:
> > I suppose the name might be MaNghuska, too.
>
> Don't think so. It was written down by a number of different people and
> became a place name in KS and NE, etc. It was never written with a
> rounded vowel as far as I know (and I've been looking at these names
> lately for Bill Bright's book).  The most common (mis)spelling was
> "Mahaska".  The -u of maNghu still has to be coming from a suffix.

OK, strike MaNghuska as a possibility for "Mahaska," etc.

> The spelling mo"xpi for sky or cloud found in Jimm's dictionary is
> listed as being from Prince Maximilian of Wied's word lists in the
> 1820's. I've written on this and we know his word list came from one
> Major John Dougherty who was assigned as an agent of the War Department
> to the Otoes at Belleview, NE. He is known to have substituted words
> from other Indian languages he had a passing familiarity with when he
> couldn't recall the term in the languages he had volunteered information
> about. I found a number of clearly Otoe terms among his "Kansa"
> contributions.

That would tend to confirm that.  There shouldn't be any *xp > xp in IO,
only *xp > xw.

JEK