Nishnabotna etym.

[Tom Leonard]

I think the original translator (perhaps) transcribed it
"Neesh-nah-ba-to-na" incorrectly (i.e. "to-na" was, more than likely,
supposed to be "ttaNga"). I don't think 'canoe making river' is/was the
literal translation. Rather, I think
"ni s^nabe ttaNga" (river-dirty-big) was/is probably an actual name for a
specific river or creek -more than likely the spot considered good for
making canoes.
TML


----- Original Message -----
From: "Rankin, Robert L" <rankin at ku.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 10:37 AM
Subject: RE: Nishnabotna etym.


> I can't add a thing to John's analysis except that it might pay to look at
> the original handwriting in the L&C journals to see if anything else can
be
> made of the last couple of syllables.  That's sort of a last resort, I
> guess.
>
> Bob
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Koontz John E [mailto:John.Koontz at colorado.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 9:32 PM
> To: Siouan
> Subject: Re: Nishnabotna etym.
>
>
> On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Alan H. Hartley wrote:
> > Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William
> > Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but
> > Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is
> > an Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'."
>
> I assume Clark was representing something like /nis^nabetone/.
>
> My recollections of working on this term for Moulton with Bob Rankin and
> Doug Parks are about the same as Bob's. It corresponds, I believe to the
> placename usually spelled Nishnabotna, which is somewhat syncopated over
> Clark's form.
>
> In accord with Tom Leonard's suggestion, /tone/ might possibly represent
> Osage or Kaw versions of /htaNka/ (Os) or /ttaNga/ (Ks), which I think may
> tend tend to lose the velar.  Omaha-Ponca has /ttaNga/.  The same form
would
> come out /thaN<ng>e/ ~ /than[y]e/ in Ioway-Otoe, but IO substitutes
another
> term for 'big'.  The phonology isn't quite right for any of these, except
> maybe the hypothetical and entirely unattested IO one.
>
> Bob Rankin and I did note that same form s^nabe 'dirty' that Tom came up
> with.  The name in that parallels the (Little and Big) Nemaha 'Miry River'
> in sense.  Actually a lot of river names in this area embody a comment on
> the amount of sediment in the water (or maybe the soil on the banks).
>
> The IO term for 'boat' is ba(a)j^e < *Waat(e).  One might just think to
> discern it in "bot," but then the rest of the word (after ni) doesn't
work.
> Of course, it would be possible to have a term that implied boats and
> referred, say, to making them, but the form doesn't seem to have an
> etymology in those terms.
>
> What I have noticed since then is a form in LaFlesche 1930, the Osage
> dictionary, p. 107v ni-hni'-bo-shta 'two springs not far from each other,
> one clear and sweet, the other black and bitter.  A strange feature in
> connection with these springs was that there was a peculiar movement that
> caused the Indians to call them shooting springs.  This was the final camp
> of the second buffalo trail.'
>
> Immediately before this is ni-hni' 'water cold; a spring or well.' The
> remainder, bo-shta seems to have the 'shooting instrumental' (cf. OP mu=).
> The particular verb doesn't seem to be attested in LaFlesche as an
> independent form.
>
> I'd make the form in something less Omaha-influenced and more Osage
looking,
> something like niN s^niN pos^ta.
>
> I think pos^taN might be 'to miss in shooting'.  Osage does have
> bo-gthoN-tha 'to miss a mark' (LaFlesche 1930:294b).  This would be
> poloNdha, or earlier on [pogloNdha ~ podloNdha].  I suppose this might
have
> been heard as [podnodha], given the nasalized vowel (with [dha]
alternating
> with [ra] or [la] or [na] or, in fast speech [a]).
>
> If the latter term were substituted for the first (and this substitution
> were deemed reasonable), I suppose a name like niN s^niN podnoN(n)a might
be
> produced.
>
> That's probably a bit tendentious, however, and I'm pretty sure that we're
> not dealing with the same places, but only parallel names.
>
> I'm not sure that the 'spring' term is reall 'cold water', though IO has
> what I take to be n[y]i(N)<th>riN=xti < niN sniN=xti 'very cold water'.
>
> JEK