ethnic terms in Lakota

[bi1 at soas.ac.uk]

I have always presumed that it applied first to Frenchmen, who
were the first the Lakotas or Dakotas met.  For that very reason
other 'white men' have specific names, while the French don't i.e.
Mila HaNska 'American', S^aglas^a, Ogles^a 'British', Spayola
'Mexican'.

Bruce
On 22 Jul 2002, at 14:06, Michael Mccafferty wrote:

> May I barge in here with a question. The term you are discussing was
> applied also to Frenchmen in the 1600s, 1700s? To Spaniards? To Britons?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Michael McCafferty
>
> On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, Koontz John E wrote:
>
> > > Members;
> > > I'm reading your discussion re: the terms for whitemen, et. al. In
> > > actual usage with which I am familiar, WasicuN (sorry, no
> > > orthographically appropriate software) refers to white people but not
> > > to "white" people. Instead, I learned that it is a contraction of
> > > "wasi i'cuN" or "taking the fat" or "the fatty meat" which was said
> > > to be true for the early fur-trappers and the subsequent buffalo
> > > hunters. They are said to have killed the animal, taken the hide,
> > > then eaten the richest, fatty and most tender meats for survival,
> > > leaving the vast majority of the carcus to rot.
> >
> > This is the standard explanation among speakers of Dakota as far as I
> > know:  was^iN - Buechel 'fat not dried out, fat meat; pork' - plus ic^u -
> > Buechel 'to take, take up anything; accept, receive'.  I believe that this
> > would regularly contract to was^i'c^u.  That is, I assume the nasality of
> > the final vowel of was^iN would disappear because it would lose out toor
> > be elided by the initial unnasalized i of ic^u.
> >
> > So far so good, but I believe that the older pronunciations of the term,
> > at least as they are recorded in the lexical materials I normally see -
> > Riggs, Williamson, Buechel, etc. - show the 'whiteman' term as having the
> > final u nasalized, whereas ic^u does not, and so, presumably, neither
> > would was^ic^u derived from that.
> >
> > As far as I know, this difference of nasalization is the only structural
> > difficulty with the 'takes the fat' analysis.  In regard to this, however,
> > it seems that an unnasalized version of 'whiteman' is quite common today.
> > I am not in a position to assert that it didn't exist in the past, too,
> > even though I suspect it did not, unless variability in the nasalization
> > of final vowels is common.  I know that at least some enclitics -s^i ,
> > -xti, etc., are variably nasalized across dialects, but to some extent
> > this is true across Missisippi Valley, with these enclitics.  My suspicion
> > is that denasalization of was^ic^u is to some extent a consequence of
> > fitting the word to the etymology - a fairly common process in language,
> > including in English, as the crayfish said to the sparrow grass.  (Two
> > famous cases of mangling uninterpretable words in English, the originals
> > being ecrevisse - French for 'crevice dweller' - and aspergeoise - French
> > for asparagus.  All French from memory.)
> >
> > I ran into the was^ic^uN < s^ic^un ~ sic^uN explanation first in Powers'
> > 1986 book Sacred Language:  the Nature of Supernatural Discourse in
> > Lakota.  I should probably have noticed that essentially the same analysis
> > is offered by Buechel ...
> >
> > As I recall it, Powers' arguments stemmed [no pun intended] from a
> > consideration of plausabilities.  He may have discussed the nasalization
> > issue, too, I think.  I recall noticing that though he made some hay
> > ridiculing linguists and their silly orthographies he seemed to understand
> > aspiration and nasalization and similar fine points well enough.
> >
> > I could add an additional argument at this point, which is that the
> > Winnebago form might provide a precedent for the Dakota form.  I would be
> > interesting to know what other formulations were used in the area, e.g.,
> > in the Algonquian languages of the Plains and Great Lakes.  I'm wondering
> > if it couldn't be argued that the Dakotan form is essentially a calque of
> > the Winnebago one.  In the same way there is some possibility that the
> > Ioway-Otoe form leads to the Omaha-Ponca one (if the 'maker'
> > interpretations are actually correct), and that the more southerly Dhegiha
> > languages have borrowed each others' terms.
> >
> > So there we are. I suspect most, if not all, speakers of Dakotan accept
> > the 'he takes the fat' analysis.  I also suspect linguists, and apparently
> > anthropologists, too, tend to consider it a bit strained, though various
> > explanations are offered.  In general, one suspects etymologies based on
> > annecdotes.  The example of the folk etymologies of terms like Oglala and
> > Niut?ac^hi (Missouria) may make us pause, of course.  Sometimes the
> > annecdote points the way.  It is not folk etymologies that are wrong - it
> > is incorrect folk etymologies that are wrong.
> >
> > It may also be worth pointing out that while historical linguists
> > certainly give precedence to an historically correct analysis - when they
> > are able to determine what it is - that from a certain point of view, when
> > a innovated analysis has effected a form so strongly as to change its
> > shape, it has also acquired a certain reality of its own - something that
> > the sparrow grass may well have observed back at the crayfish.
> >
> > For the record, I think the explanation in terms of s^ic^uN makes more
> > historical sense.  It would be interesting to know when the 'takes the
> > fat' explanation is first attested.
> >
> > JEK
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> Michael McCafferty
> 307 Memorial Hall
> Indiana University
> Bloomington, Indiana
> 47405
> mmccaffe at indiana.edu
>
> "Talking is often a torment for me, and I
> need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.
>                                                        C.G. Jung
>
> "...as a dog howls at the moon, I talk."
>                                     Rumi
>
>
>


Dr. Bruce Ingham
Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies
SOAS