a wish?

[Carolyn Quintero]

I believe that rather than the "charge" interpretation based on LF 'menace,
charge against', another reading is possible.  In instances where a doubly
inflecting verb such as 'menace' is shown to be, if there is only one
subject pronominal, it will be the left one, not the right one. And if there
is only one object pronominal in such a verb, it will be the left one.
Therefore this internal ON as either A1p or P1s does not seem at all likely.

What about the KO(n) being LF's 'to wish or to desire'?  This usage was not
present in the Osage I collected but it appears LF32:88. We could assume
that it is also a noun 'a wish'.

If i, like (a)pi in OS, will cause the final e of *the* to be a, then we get
the ON-THA. Does that happen?

Then that leaves us with ON-THA-IHA, and the only thing I can make of this
is either

a) oN'the 'toss out, discard'  (giving: a wish we/he threw away?)
or
b) aNthe  'he/they made me' with *the* as the causative and aN '1s patient',
giving 'they made me wish'???

In Modern Osage these two alternatives would be(without the *ha* which is
not used at least nowadays) as follows:

a') oN'thape
or
b') aN'thape

I don't believe b) could be construed as 'they made me the wish' because
that would involve a different 'make', probably *kaaghe*.

Carolyn

'

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Koontz John E
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2003 1:20 AM
To: 'siouan at lists.colorado.edu'
Subject: Re: Attn. Dhegiha specialists.


OK, having read ahead ...

I actually make it

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> KO-THA-U-CA-SHE / THI-CE-XTSI MO-NI / KO-ON-THAIHA-IN

Top:

KO-THA U-GA-SHE THI^N-GE XTSI MO-NI

Kkudha  ugas^e  dhiNge= xc^i maNniN
Friend, ailment lacking very (you?) go
"Go (or 'you went') in health."

Bottom:

KO^NON-THA IHA

KkaN=aNdha=i=ha
He threatened (charged) me.

As Bob points out, the raised n's are missed in Doerner's transciption.  I
think all the C's are actually G's, too, from what I can make of the
photo.  He accidentally repeats the NI of the top part as IN in teh bottom
part, too.

Everybody else got the first one before I checked my mail this evening,
but I think I have the last one.  See LaFlesche 1933:89b k.oN-tha 'to
attack, to charge upon an enemy, to raid, to threaten, to menace'.
LaFlesche gives the active inflection, and shows that both stems kkaN and
dha are inflected, e.g., akkaN=bdha 'I threatened him'.  I assume that
kkaN=aNdha is the first person patient form, though I don't think there's
a parallel formation with gaN=dha 'to wish' (also with both stems
inflected).

I think there's a very good chance that the message was composed by
LaFlesche, though I don't know what connection he had with Curtis, and I
don't know what events in the life of Curtis (presumably) or circumstances
between Curtis and (presumably) LaFlesche the message may refer to.
It seems that somebody threatened Curtis (presumably) and that the
presenter wishes him well.

As far as the language, it is essentially Omaha-Ponca once you see the G's
instead of C's.  The orthography isn't quite the usual one for LaFlesche,
assuming it's him, but he wasn't always consistant on raised n vs.
n-in-line (KO^N-ON-THA), and I suspect that xtsi for OP xti ~ xc^i isn't
unreasonable for someone who's recently been working on Osage.  The use of
th for *dh instead of y or d shows it's not Kaw or Quapaw, though there's
no evidence that LaFlesche in particular worked with either language
(though he does lists some names from both in The Omaha Tribe).  The use
of =i=ha PROXIMATE-DECLARATIVE (male) (in archaic form) pretty well shows
it's Omaha-Ponca.  The -xtsi is odd, but not impossible.  He is using o in
ko-tha (kkudha) 'friend', but he's back to u- in ugashe (ugas^e).  Mo-ni
could represent either maNdhiN or maNniN, which in OP terms would be the
third person (or imperative, though there's no imperative particle) in the
case of maNdhiN, or it would be the second person maNniN < maNhniN <
maNs^niN.  He always wrote aN (~ oN) as oN, except when he wrote uN (u
apparently schwa) occasionally.

JEK