Colors in Dakota

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 25 Mar 2003, Rory M Larson wrote:
> I think Dorsey actually records the word for 'cooked' as niNde. I
> suppose the nasalization here would be bleeding in from the initial
> 'n'?

That would be my guess.  Though in principle *R and *W appear as n and m
only and *r and *w appears as n/m or dh/w depending the nasality of the
next vowel, there are some exceptions, in the sense that some *R + V
sequences appear in Dhegiha or sometimes just Omaha-Ponca as nVN.  The
'sun/moon' word is one of the former.  Also, in verbs, dhVN occurs for
some *rVN forms and nVN for others in ways that make it seem that there
may have been a *r : *n opposition.

> (There seems to be an odd reversal in nasal/oral vowels following a
> nasal consonant: Dorsey /miN/ and /niN/ often seem to be /mi/ and /ni/
> in modern Omaha, while Dorsey /ma/ and /na/ are often /moN/ and /noN/
> in the modern language. Our speakers are pretty emphatic about the
> pronunciation here.)

I've always felt that Dorsey (and Siouanists in general, including even
modern ones) are not very reliable about recording nasality of vowels in
the context [mV]# and [nV]# (finally after m and n).  Nasality is much
more likely to be noted before a stop.

> If La. luta is cognate to OP nide, is there also any known Dakotan
> cognate to OP zhide?

Jim cites an example below.  Another cognate, somewhat irregular in the
same way (lack of voicing) is found in Winnebago.

> Is it possible that nide and zhide are alternates of an original
> 'red' pair, in the way that sabe and shabe are alternates of a
> 'black' pair, and zi and zhi are alternates of a 'yellow' pair?

It's not impossible, but I don't think so.  The phonology doesn't work
out, since the underlying forms in the first case are something like *Rut-
and *z^ut- (or *s^ut-).  But, of course, the phonology is missing in
ska/saN.  Of course, fricative gradation is found outside the color terms.