Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set

[Jimm GoodTracks]

The suggestion for the Ponca term below suggested a "smelly potato" seem to
be suggestive that the plant had an unpleasant odor.  If the Ponca term does
referr to  "potato", the reference would be that of the Wild Potato, which
is identified as the Arrow root, which grows in marsh or swappy wetland
areas.  I have seen the plant but never had the pleasure of digging up the
root tubers.  Some swappy areas do seem to emit an unpleasant odor, I
believe, for which I am at a loss to explain.  Perhaps the Botanist at
Haskell Ind.Nat. University could explain the odor or smell, if any, of
digging up the wild potato.

Meanwhile, IOM has separate words that do convey "smelly; stinky" namely
"xu'mi"; and when somthing is really stink, they say "nax'ta" (nax'tHa).

The IOM sound of "i + u = y"  heard in
"pyu'braN" (mint; wild mint; Indian perfume" from (pi [good]) + (ubran [to
smell, emit an odor]).
This term is really meant for "wild mint" and includes another plant, the
"Indian Perfume" plant, which is more specifically, as John found:
"HaN'pyubraN", which is tall and has a pink/ purplish flower that resembles
clover.  While it is used as an herbal tea and also in the water used in the
sweat lodge (yu'gwe chi), it is referred to in English as "perfume" because
it is used to sweeten the smell within a suitcase of one's clothing.  Also,
it is tied into the two handkerchiefs worn on the bandoliers of the
traditional Iroshka or "straight dancers" clothing, to form a small ball.

IOM is quite consistant with this contraction as seen in the words:
"ñyu'wagu (spring) from "ñi [n~iN (water) + uwe' (go along) + gu (start to
come")]; "byu'wahu" (East) from: "bi (sun) + uwe' + hu (come from)" ;
"byu'ware" (West) from: "bi + uwe' + re (go to).  These are some words that
come to mind.

The prefix "u-" refers to "in; into; within".   Some words in which it is
used are:  ube' (throw in; put into); ut^a'we (jump into).  Sometimes its
use is not so clear as in: uch^e' (talk to; converse; talk over), ugi'saN
(help; aide), etc.
Jimm

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rory M Larson" <rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2003 3:37 PM
Subject: Re: Another Proto-Mississippi Valley *py Set


>
> >On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Jimm GoodTracks wrote:
> >> "pyúbraN" (mint; Indian perfume plant) is from:
> >> pi    =    good
> >> ubráN    =    to smell; emit an odor
> >>
> >> The "y" is the contracted sound resulting from  "pi + ubráN".
> >
> > Aha!  After I got done kicking myself for not seeing this it occurred to
> > me that next question was what does OP nubdhaN mean?  If it has some
> > fairly straightforward analysis that explains nu from another source,
> then
> > this set is just a figment of my imagination.  Otherwise it offers a
nice
> > example of how *py clusters can arise.  The obvious possibilities for nu
> > that occur to me are niN 'water' + ubdhaN or compounds with nu 'male' or
> > nu 'potato'.  None of these seem especially plausible, but I may well be
> > missing something.
> >
> > If this is a valid example, then note that *py here is from *hpi + u.
>
> I suppose "smelly wild potato [plant]" would be an obvious parsing of
> OP /nubdhaN/, assuming there is some reason for semantically associating
> mint with wild potatoes.
>
> The next question would be the meaning/cognancy of u- in IOM /ubraN/.  I
> assume -braN is the root that actually means "smell", along with OP
> /bdhaN/.
> In OP, u- relates to MVS? o-, and means "in", or "in context of".  But IOM
> u- ought to relate to some variety of OP i-.  So what is the meaning of
> pre-verbal u- in IOM?
>
> One possibility is that OP /nubdhaN/ is a reinterpreted loan word from
> IO.  There seems to be an historical friendship and association between
> these two groups, and it shouldn't be too hard to imagine a
> well-constructed
> IO term /pyubraN/ < /hpi=u=braN/ being heard by Omahas who understood that
> the -braN meant -bdhaN, but couldn't make sense of the phyu-.  In this
> case,
> they might have heard the /y/ as /n/, rejected the initial /ph/ as
> phonologically
> unacceptable, and mapped the IO /u/ to OP /u/.  This would give them /nu/,
> meaning "potato", which might be an odd species association, but still
> quite
> plausible, grammatical and memorable as the name of a plant.  Thus, IO
> "mint",
> "smells good", being loaned into OP, becomes "mint", meaning "smelly
> potato"
> through the Omahas' best interpretation of the IO word.  John's intuition
> that IO /pyubraN/, "mint", and OP /nubdhaN/, "mint", form a set would be
> correct, though not at the level of proto-MVS.
>
> Rory
>
>
>
>
>