rattlesnakes

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, David Costa wrote:
> The Miami-Illinois name for the Massasauga (the smaller of the two species
> of rattlesnakes in that area) is /$iih$iikwia/ ($ = s-hacek). All the sister
> languages have cognates, like Ojibwe /zhiishiigwe/ & Shawnee /sihsiikwe/.
> But I don't think it's necessary to posit an Algonquian -> Omaha-Ponca loan
> here. /s^(e)e'kki/ and the Algonquian etymon are clearly onomatopoeic, and I
> wouldn't be at all surprised for the different languages to independently
> create names like that.

Is the Algonquian set essentially regular?

I'd argue against onomatopoeia as the source of the Omaha-Ponca form.
There are basically three reasons for this.

First, C(V)V'CCV is a rather odd shape for a monomorphemic (root) stem in
a MV Siouan language.  (The (V)V' notation means I have my suspicions
about vowel length in this case.  I didn't use to think there was any, but
it looks like there probably is and this a place where it's probably been
missed, to wit, consider the accent.)  Typical onomatopoeic verb roots and
immitative words are monosyllables.  There are exceptions, like
maNgdhi'xta 'redwing' (from the male's territorial cry).

Second, the sound of rattling in Siouan languages takes various forms,
depending on the language, but this is not the form.  I don't know the
sounds attributed to rattlesnakes in most languages, but the usual Dakotan
(Teton) root for 'rattle' is xla.  In Omaha-Ponca the relevant root is
sadhu.  In effect, onomatopoeic forms can also show similarities among
related languages, but differ between unrelated families, even when some
degree of continuous reformation occurs.  The Iroquoian terms for
'redwing' are all rather similar (not far from the okalee you find in
Peterson's field guides), still bear a family resemblence that sets tem
apart from the Omaha-Ponca form just cited.  Similar patterns occur with
other bird names of onomatopoeic origin.

Third, onomatopoeic words get borrowed, too, and given the strong
resemblenace among the Algonquian forms, and the more or less unique,
oddball character of s^(e)e'kki in Omaha-Ponca, I think it likely this is
a borrowing.

However, it was the second and third syllables, not the first two, that
got borrowed.  Or, putting it another way, the reduplication and the
animate suffix get removed.  The animate suffix is also missing in 'bow'
(in Winnebago and Ioway-Otoe).

MI    s^iihs^ii kwia
PreOP     *s^eekku
OP         s^eekki

*u > i (via u") is regular in OP

In the Dorsey texts s^(e)e'kki "Ce'ki" only appears as a personal name,
glossed s^e'kki.  The texts actually call rattlesnakes w(e)e's?aN.
Swetland/Stabler give sadhu', no doubt following Fletcher & LaFlesche, who
do, too.  It appears that I got the gloss 'rattlesnake' from LaFlesche's
Osage Dictionary.  I'll have to assume that she'k.i there represents
/s^e'kku"/.

JEK