More bears.

[Catawba Cultural Center]

In Catawba, "bear" is "nime~?" (where ? represents a glottal stop).  This is
the black bear; I don't think there were any other kind in this part of the
country (SE).  There isn't a "taboo" with this term, but there are examples
of descriptive terms for certain animals.  Some have older forms but others
just descriptive ones where the older form may have been forgotten.
The word for alligator means "one (who is) terrible", "dape~hi:yi~",
rabbit "one (who) sits", "dabawa~?",
chipmunk "one (whose) back (is) scratched/scraped/spotted"
de:pendata:ks'uksu

Can we not trace the English word 'bear', or German "Baer"(a umlaut) back to
the Indo-European "bheros", 'brown animal' also the same root for 'beaver'?
How does E "beaver" and G "Biber" relate to the Latin word "fiber"? I'm
curious about the etymology; isn't there a taboo to be found here too?

-----Original Message-----
From:	owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu] On Behalf Of RLR
Sent:	Wednesday, February 28, 2001 12:13 PM
To:	siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject:	More bears.


I went to my sources and retrieved the 'bear' terms we were talking
about. The Uto-Aztecan forms are more complicated than I remembered
(like John's "black and blue" words).  Here are the Siouan and then the
UA terms.

Crow
buusshi'
Dakotan
  hu'te
Chiwere
muN'je
Winneb.
  huuN'c
Biloxi    oNti
Tutelo
mu:Nti

Ofo 	uNthi with its aspirate has become mixed with 'grizzley' (maNtho).

Comments: The sound correspondences are not as regular as we would like
them to be. A possible prototype here might be *wi-hu:N'te.  The prefix
is the Siouan animate absolutive and it accounts for those languages in
which 'bear' begins with a labial sonorant. There is no uniformity in
retention of reflexes of this prefix however. Even Chiwere is split from
Winnebago on this feature. Dakotan ought to retain nasalization but does
not. In verbs, a w-initial prefix before root-initial h- would collapse
to a [p], but not here.

So the "bear" root would have been something like *hu:te or *hu:Nte.
Now consider these Uto-Aztecan forms:

Cora
	huu'ce?e  'bear'
Huichol
         hu'uce	  'bear'
Mayo
         hooso	  'bear' (may be contaminated from Spanish oso -- jek)
Hopi
         ho:nawy	  'bear' (related to 'badger' term)
Luiseno
         hu'n-wu-t 'bear' (related to 'badger')
Tubatul.        ?u:nal	  'black bear'
Cahuilla        hu'nal	  'badger'
Cupeno
         hu'nal	  'badger'
S. Paiute        yna-N	  'badger'
Shoshone        hunan	  'badger'

These are mostly from p. 56 of Millers UA Cognate Sets. Some information
is from Jane Hill personally. She says the root is *hun-.  I really am
not qualified to comment on the morphemic breakdown or sound changes in
UA. This could just be a "Wanderwort" that is borrowed in all the
languages where it is found. Note that the languages nearer to modern
Siouan locations tend to have the 'badger' meaning while the 'bear'
meaning is found farther afield. Messy.

Thanks to Lance for the wa0ewe term from Chiwere; it wasn't in the
comparative database. Stoney has wa0aben 'black bear' also, probably a
taboo replacement.

Bob