butterfly

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Rory M Larson wrote:
> John wrote:
> > I can't make anything of all this except that the
> > ...ninikka part looks a lot like Winnebago
> > miNiNmiNiNke form.  The -kka matches -ke regularly, but
> > the reduplicated part has ni(N)ni(N) instead of miNmiN.
>
> We do have a precedent of Proto-Dhegiha *miN > OP ni(N)
> in the case of 'moon', don't we?  Isn't OP ni'oNba
> derived from PDh *miN'-aNpa, meaning something like
> 'moonlight'?  Could this be regular under certain
> conditions, ...

Right!  I was actually thinking of this case under my breath, so to speak,
but I think it's probably not a regular change, but some sort of more
sporadic adjustment.  I was trying to thionk of something like this in
English, or some other familiar source of examples, but I couldn't come up
with anything.  Of course, 'moon' is pretty clearly connected, but I'm not
sure I've offered any kind of convincing case for a connection here with
'butterfly'.