Chair

Rankin, Robert L rankin at ku.edu
Fri Aug 1 15:23:10 UTC 2003


> The usual term for 'male friend' in OP in all recorded periods is khage,
even though learned linguists might recognize kku/odha.

Good point.  Khage in Kaw and Osage don't have that meaning/usage AFAIK.
Kkodha/kkoya would be the form of choice.

I fear we are at an impass in the case of MONI.  It may be a second person
form (Carolyn's OS speakers gave some imperatives or adhortatives with
second person inflection.  I thought it was a semi-speaker phenomenon, but
it may be older.)  But even if this is an ordinary imperative, the tendency
to have dh > [n], or something that sounds very much like n, between two
nasal vowels may make this question impossible to decide.  It's still the
bottom part that troubles me most.  I suspect that it is indeed something
like "We wish it - declarative', but the pronominal location remains
annoying, as does the initial K instead of G.

I conclude that the language is Osage, but with all the demonstrated La
Fleschean tendencies to fill in inflected forms from Omaha.  This is so
clear that I tend to agree that the donors of the chair were probably
referred to La Flesche at the Bureau as a person who could do the
translation for them.

I told John Boyle I'd try to sum all this up at the meeting, so, with any
luck, you'll all have another little co-authored paper to put on your vita.

Bob



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