Linguistic term needed

[Rankin, Robert L]

Hard to prove any sort of relation between ttu and su, but they're
interesting nonetheless.  The vowels are etymologically different but
phonetically the same.  In other words, Dakota [su] has proto-Siouan *u
but Omaha [ttu] has Psi *o.  They only coincide in the present.  I still
don't have a term for this.  I hate cluttering up Linguistics with more
Greek and Latin terms, but I gotta admit Michael's term sounds classy.

Bob

> Or actually, how about this one?  I've noticed that words for metals
in MVS languages are commonly compounds of 'metal' plus a color term.
Thus, 'white metal' is silver, 'black metal' is iron, 'red metal' is
copper, and 'yellow metal' is brass. (Gold is 'yellow silver', or
'yellow white metal'.)  In OP, the word for lead is moNze tu, 'blue
metal'.  But in Dakota, lead is maNza su, which also means 'bullet'.
Apparently the Dakota word was influenced by the Omaha term
phonologically, but since the Omaha word for 'blue', tu, had shifted so
far from the Dakota word tho, the Dakota reinterpreted the Omaha tu into
Dakota su, meaning 'seed' or 'pellet'.  Thus, it came out as 'metal
pellet', which served them both as the substance 'lead', and for the
bullets that are made of that substance.