Linguistic term needed

[Rory M Larson]

> 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.

It may be coincidence, but the resemblance seems striking
to me.  Most of the basic metal terms in OP, Osage (?) and
Dakota seem to follow that 'metal' + color pattern where I
could find them attested.  But the Dakota term differs right
on that one point,where they come up with a very different
morphological and semantic expression that happens to match
the Omaha term phonologically except for the one consonant:

  OP  maNze ttu          =>          Da  maNza su
      "blue metal"                       "metal seed"
      "lead"                             "lead"
                                            or
  OP,Os.  maNze maN                      "bullet"
          "metal arrow"
          "bullet"

I'm guessing these words were adopted probably around the
latter half of the 18th century, so the OP *o => *u sound
shift should already have taken place.  I'm supposing that
Dakotan speakers picked up the term from OP speakers but
misheard it in such a way as to apply paronomasia in making
it their own.  (There!  I actually used the word!)

Do we have the term for 'lead' (the metal) in any other
MVS languages?  It wasn't listed in La Flesche's Osage
dictionary.

Rory





                      "Rankin, Robert L"
                      <rankin at ku.edu>             To:       <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
                      Sent by:                    cc:
                      owner-siouan at lists.c        Subject:  RE: Linguistic term needed
                      olorado.edu


                      04/12/2004 01:39 PM
                      Please respond to
                      siouan






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.