Caddoan Corn (Re: Fw: OK and more Ofo/Biloxi)

[David Costa]

One might as well include Kitsai /kotai/ 'corn' as well (HNAI 13: 64), tho
it doesn't match the word in any of the sister languages. A loan word from
who knows where?

David C

> On Wed, 1 Dec 2004, R. Rankin wrote:

>>I only bring it up here because there is pretty clearly some Caddoan
>>influence in Biloxi and Ofo, to wit, the word for 'corn'.
>>
>> Ofo:                        a-cé ki           'corn'
>> Biloxi:                     a-yé:ki           'corn'
>> Pawnee:                     ré:k  su       'corn'
>> Pawnee:                     ni kii s         'corn' (Gilmore 1919)
>> Arikara:                     ne:    s^u?    'corn'
>> Wichita:                      té:    s ?       'corn'
>> Caddo:                          ki  si?       'corn'
>
> Doug Parks lists an absolutive (independent noun forming) suffix -u for
> Pawnee.  The comparable element in Wichita seems to be ?a, though I don't
> mean to suggest that this is cognate.  Even doubting it was cognate would
> be overreaching myself in Caddoan!  I believe that in both cases these
> elements occur with some nouns, but not with others with no conditioning
> factor known.  The critical element is that the suffix occurs with an
> affected noun in its independent form, but is lost when the noun is
> combined with something else (presumably following).
>
> I suppose that since in this corn set Pawnee has -s, Arikara has -su?, and
> Wichita -s? that isn't a factor here.
>