[Fwd: [Fwd: poison ivy]]

[Bruce Ingham]

re Bob's reply to my note.  Yes I can understand descriptive names, things
 like for instance 'bindweed' kimimila thawanah^ca (butterfly flower)
which I suppose is because it looks like a butterfly or butterflies
like it and would also think of as a 'name' or 'maple' chanhasaN
(light bark tree) which describe the plant in terms of something
else, but  a plant name meaning 'it resembles another plant' seems
somehow uny such examples occur in other languages.


Bruce
PS
in the Middle East some of the new plants have the designation
'European' they call 'potatoes' apples of the erath (Turkish yer
elmasi, Persian sib zamini) and in Persian tomatoe is 'European
(Frankish) plum (goje farangi), starwberry is 'European mulberry'
(tut farangi).  Okra or egg plant among Arabian bedouins takes the
persian Badhenjan and reanalyzes it as Beedh Jann (Jinn egg).


Date sent:      	Thu, 22 Feb 2001 10:37:03 -0600
Send reply to:  	siouan at lists.colorado.edu
From:           	RLR <rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu>
To:             	astomb at ksu.edu, Siouan list <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Subject:        	[Fwd: [Fwd: poison ivy]]


And re Bruce's note on descriptive natural history terminology: After
Frank Siebert published his paper on Algonquian animal/plant names in an
attempt to isolate the proto-Algonquian homeland, I set about searching
for similar terms/evidence in Siouan. While it's true that the oldest,
most widespread animal terms seem to be "names" (i.e., unanalyzable), a
huge number of natural history terms that Siouan speakers clearly knew
about do seem to be transparently descriptive. What this suggested to me
was that perhaps Siouan speakers had, in relatively recent times,
migrated from one climatic/floral/faunal zone into a new one which had
many different trees, plants and animals. Thus the (more recent)
descriptive terminology. Other interpretations are probably possible.
And some languages just seem to "like" descriptive terms.

Bob
Dr. Bruce Ingham
Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies
SOAS