How far/how long?

[bi1 at soas.ac.uk]

Does anyone know the Lakota equivalent of 'how far' in distance.  I
presume tohanyan is something like that.  But I wonder how one
would say 'how far is it to Rapid city from here?' and indeed would
one say that or would one say 'how many days march is it?' or
something.  I am surprised that in none of my texts is there any
such sentence?  It is the sort of thing a foreigner in Lakota contry
might ask and Lakota would not need to.  Any hints from other
Siouan languages.

Bruce

On Tue, 13 Nov 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> I guess Rory's 'wadhawa' "something [you] count" is as good a noun as
> any.  Kaw would be *wayawa.

I wondered about we'dhawa (we'yawa?) 'with which you count', though
perhaps that would be a closer equivalent to 'numeral'.  (This would
definitely be at least an etymologically long e, too.)

In consideration of Alan Hartley's comments, I'd guess you'd say 'let's
count things', which would, in fact, require wadhawa.

I suspect the Kaw forms without -wa are simply somewhat contracted.  A w
is easily lost between vowels in many languages.  In that case the final a
should probably sound rather long, and we all know how easy it is to miss
long vowels ...

And speaking of etymology, a verb root beginning in w- is a little
unusual, isn't it?  For a Mississippi Valley Siouan language, that is.

JEK

Dr. Bruce Ingham
Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies
SOAS