Stars, etc.

[Catawba Cultural Center]

Going back to a discussion about a week ago of "heavenly" things, Dr. Rudes
and I discussed the terms in Catawba.  This is a list of words, phrases we
compiled:

Sky: wa:pit (accenton a:)
Cloud: namuN? (accent on uN)
Air: ye (also means wind)
Heaven: himbare: (accent on i) (see below regarding this word)
incidentally, we use "himba" for "yes"
Star: wa:pidnu: (accent on i)
Comet, meteor, shooting star: ukni: (accent on u)
(Comet, metaphoric:wa:pidnu: tusa? [accent on i of first word and u of
second word], literally, star-tail)
Moon, sun: nuNti: (accent on i)
(sometimes when Catawbas want to be very specific about Moon, they say nu~ti
wic^awa, Night Sun)
Milky Way: yiNwe yaN (accent on iN of first word; literally, dead people's
road)
Rainbow: nami: (accent on the a)

Regarding himbare:, the only sources of /b/ or the cluster /mb/ in Catawba
are: (a) assimilation to a neighboring voiced consonant, (b) an onomatopoeic
word, or (c) partial or complete denasalization of /m/ next to oral vowels.
I think the /mb/ in this word comes from (c), and that the word may have
originally entered Catawba from German Himmel. Note that the earliest
missionaries in the central Carolinas were the Swiss Palatine (who settled
in
Tuscarora territory), the Moravians (who settled in Winston-Salem), and the
United Brethern (Quakers) (who founded Greensboro). I think the Catawba word
may just be a nativization (with the indicative suffix -re:) of the German
word, with later partial denasalization of the /m/. It would be interesting
to look for other German loan words among other words referring to aspects
of
Christianity.
We have many words that have the /mb/ occuring in words, phrases for
"shoot", "sleep", "bad", "brother" examples of which are too numerous to put
in this list here, but probably for the reasons (a), (b), and (c) mentioned
above by Dr. Rudes.

Note that the Catawba word for moon, sun is essentially identical to the
Cherokee word for sun (nvte), so one borrowed from the other, but it is not
clear which is the source and which borrowed the word.

There are of course many more. Catawbas could be very precise and
descriptive, which what I enjoy about working with them and their language.

Claudia
Catawba Cultural Preservation Project