ie <- i-yA

[R. Rankin]

Well, the sound symbolism route is well-trodden!  James Crawford published a
paper back in the mid 70's on YA words for 'mouth, speak', etc. in a volume he
edited on Southeastern Indian Languages.  He found such terms all over the place
in many languages.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alfred W. Tüting" <ti at fa-kuan.muc.de>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 2:34 AM
Subject: ie <- i-yA


> Please don't beat me, but, until up to this discussion, I always had
> 'felt' that _ie_ [i-yA] might have something to do with 'mouth' (e.g.
> going along the lines of _ipuza_) with the part _-yA_ maybe being the
> causative or the verb 'to go'. In my naive interpretation, this didn't
> seem too far-fetched and unplausible. Had I to invent a Dakota verb for
> 'speak' etc., I might do it this way ;-)  But now, alas, I see that all
> this was nothing more than linguistic fancy and wishful thinking :(
>
> Alfred
>
>