Missouria, Grandmothers (Re: Historical questions)

[Koontz John E]

> The Omaha word for the Missouria given in Fletcher and
> La Flesche is Niu'tachi, which they translate as
> "those who came floating down dead".
>
>   ni -  'water'
>   u-    'in'
>   t?e - 'dead', 'die'
>
>   ni-u'-t?e - 'die in water', 'drown'
>
> I don't recognize /(a)chi/, but I gather that that's the
> 'came floating down' part.  Perhaps 'grandmother speech'
> for athi', 'have arrived here' ?

IO has regular affrication of dentals before front vowels, and the
aspirates show up as voiced, so the cognate of OP thi(i) 'arrive here'
(usually with a- prefixed in Dhegiha), from Proto-Siouan *thi, is j^i(i).

There is also palatalization of n (to ny) in the same context.

Because of the prevalence of V1V2 contractions to V2 - typical of MVS
languages - you can find apparent exceptions to these rules, e.g.,
<ny>ut?aj^i (< <ny>iut?aj^i) or thiN (< tha(N)iN).

In effect, all IO speakers use "grandmother speech."  Of course, Francis
LaFlesche, one of Dorsey's regular sources, actually had an Ioway
grandmother, so there's a certain logic in this.  I think, however, that
we have enough instances of "grandmother speech" or "baby talk" from other
sources that we can assert that this is coincidental.

The basis of the "Ioway grandmother" observation is that Joseph
LaFlesche's senior wife "Hinnuagsnun" 'The One Woman' (HiNnu 'eldest
daughter' + ??? + snuN 'only' (?)), usually called Mary Gale, was part
Ioway and her mother Nicomi (N(y)ihku is 'salt' and miN is 'woman', but
this is a bald guess) actually was Ioway (with an Omaha mother).
Francis's own mother was the second wife, "Ta-in-ne" (probably
[MiN]TtaiNdhiN 'the (moving) visible (=new) [moon]') a/k/a Elizabeth Esau,
an Omaha woman.  I'm ignorant of how the kinship terminology works in
polygynous marriages where the mothers aren't classificatory sisters, so
I'm not positive, but I assume that the LaFlesche children could all call
Nicomi grandmother.