How far/how long?

Thu Nov 15 06:20:37 UTC 2001

I am pretty sure I remember the native speakers saying something like:
TohaN' thehaN' yathi' he? How far from here do you live.
Besides, I think the time adverbs like tohaN'yaN are adverbs of
place/distance at the same time, e.g. i'thehaN - long from / far from,
hehaN'yaN - that long (time) / that far.
So I presume Bruce's question could likely be:

How far is it to Rapid City from here?
Rapid City letaN' tohaN'yaN yaNka' he?
Or
Rapid City letaN' tohaN' thehaN' yaNka' he?

Rapid City is ten miles from here.
Mnilu'zahe OtxuN'wahe letaN' makhi'yutxa wikce'mna (hehaN'yaN) yaNke'.

Jan

PS: I am going to search some of my texts and audio recordings for evidence.

Jan F. Ullrich
ullrich.j at soupvm.cz
www.inext.cz/siouan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of bi1 at soas.ac.uk
> Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2001 5:38 PM
> To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> Subject: How far/how long?
>
>
> 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
>