Behind the 8-ball

[R. Rankin]

Can't say for sure, of course, but those higher numeral terms, esp. 8 and 9,
seem rather unstable within Siouan at least.  Nine is widely borrowed in or
between Siouan and Algonquian, i.e., the /ki$aNhka/ term.  It is very hard to
reconstruct 7, 8, 9 for Proto-Siouan without appealing to "irregular" changes.
'Eight' is also borrowed in Kansa (and, I think, Osage) and resulted in
competing forms.  Kaw has /ppe:ya:bliN/, the inherited form, along with
/kkiado:ba/ which looks very much like a Caddoan borrowing -- prob. from Wichita
(although there is a folk etymology analyzing it as "two X four").

There's that article on Algonquian numeral words in the Siebert Festschrift, but
I haven't read it yet.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Mccafferty" <mmccaffe at indiana.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 8:34 AM
Subject: Behind the 8-ball


>
>
> As many of you know, the Miami-Illinois term for "eight" /paraani/ is, as
> Bob Rankin pointed out in an article in IJAL several years ago, a
> borrowing from a Siouan language. Tutelo typically gets the nod.
>
> Can anyone suggest why this happened? No, not that Bob wrote it up, but
> that such a borrowing occurred. It's one of the strangest things. I
> imagine, since we're talking numbers, that it was borrowed probably in the
> process of trading. But does the number 8 have any mythological meaning?
>
> Thanks,
> Michael
>
>