Omaha-Ponca Long Vowels

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, Kathleen Shea wrote:
> Ardis, perhaps Omaha is different from Ponca.  I definitely hear a
> nasal vowel in niNiNde 'ripe, done, cooked,' and it's easy (I think,
> anyway) to hear a nasal vowel before a stop because of the
> homo-organic nasal consonant that occurs epenthetically.  ... By the
> way, any of you Dhegihanists, would you say that the word for 'gravy,'
> wanide (waniide --?) in Omaha-Ponca, has the same root as the word for
> 'ripe, cooked, done'?  Even if it does, it doesn't have a nasal vowel
> in Ponca.

I would have said so, but the difference in nasality is an interesting
conundrum.  I do think that there is a tendency of n < *R to nasalize the
following vowel.

> John, you mentioned the word naNzhiN 'hair' in Omaha-Ponca as historically
> having an initial "funny" *R.  Did its homonyms naNzhiN 'to stand, standing'
> and naNzhiN 'rain' begin with *R, too?

I'm not sure about 'hair'.  Osage has nizhu 'hair' (per LaFlesche) and
nizhiu 'rain', both presumably ni[n]z^u, and noNzhiN 'stand', presumably
naNz^iN.  It would seem I was wrong in recalling 'hair' as a funny *R
word.  Ioway-Otoe has nayiN 'stand', and niyu 'rain'.  I don't see a match
for 'hair'.  Dakotan has naz^iN 'stand', and maghaz^u 'to rain', in which
the final -z^u matches the -z^u of Osage and the -yu of IO.  It is OP that
has the irregular developments in ''rain' and 'hair'.  I don't see a match
for 'hair' in Dakotan either.

JEK