Word for 'prairie' in Hochunk.

[R. Rankin]

> I won't hazard a guess on if they are related, but the HoChunk word for
> 'sky, cloud' is
> /maNaNxi/.  Would be interesting if these are related in some way.

Hmmm, that *is* interesting.  The Kaw, etc. word is maaNxe 'sky, upper world'
(upper world having a religious reference).  By the usual sound changes this
would come out maaNx in HC, since HC usually loses final, unaccented /-e/ after
a single consonant.  So far, so good.  But maaNxi, with its different final
vowel, would remain as it is in HC, and there is no obvious cognate term in
Dhegiha dialects with the /-i/ that I know of.  So it's still hard to decide if
the two words are indeed related.

'Cloud' in Dhegiha dialects is *maNxpü.  The umlauted u unrounds to [i] in
Omaha, Ponca and Quapaw.  So it's a compound of maaNx(e/i?) and the latter part.

Bob