Word for 'prairie' in Hochunk.

[Henning Garvin]

>In connection with mooska (Miner has mo'osga (moo'sga) 'dessert'), while a
>loan would be interesting, it is also possible to see this as a compound
>*maNaN-ska 'white earth'.  If it were a *-ka nominalization of *maNaNs -
>perhaps a sound symbolism grade of *maNaNx(e) 'field', I think it would be
>expected to appear as *maNaNske, which it doesn't.  In both these cases
>I'm also trying to make moo- into maNaN-, perhaps maNaN- 'earth'.  For
>forms like moowe' 'to walk', or moo's^?ok 'hill, mound', moo'ga 'bank',
>moo'haj^a 'hard ground', moo'c^i 'cellar' this might work.  The frequent
>initial accent in these forms is, like the mo sequence, a bit unusual.  I
>wonder if they might not represent dialect variants.


moowe               'to walk, follow a path'

maNaN + howe    'earth, ground + follow a path, a path'

mooci                 'cellar, den'

maNaN + hoc^i      'earth, ground + dwelling, house'

mooraje              'visits the earth (Bear Clan Name)'

maNaN + horaje   'earth + visit'

moos^?ok          'small rounded hill, mound'

maNaN + s^?ok   'earth, ground + something rounded, bumplike'

mooska              'clearing or field'

maNaN + hoska   'earth + clearing or field'

I asked these forms of my informants and this is what they were able to tell
me.

they couldn't break down mooga, just telling me the entire word means the
bank of a lake or any water body.

moohaj^a didn't make sense to them as hard ground.  They said it would mean
travelling around the world, literally seeing other countries.  But even
then they would rather say maNaN haja.
Hard ground could be mooja.  It can be used to refer to hard ground, but
more specifies a rather well delineated area of land.  They didn't break
this word down for me.  maNaN + hoja didn't work well for them.  I was
thinking it could possibly be related to jaa 'be frozen' but the speakers I
was with didn't like that analyses.




Henning Garvin
Linguistic research
Ho-Chunk Nation Language Division

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