Word for 'prairie' in Hochunk.

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Sat Jan 31 05:22:17 UTC 2004


In support of the productivity of these forms:

maNaN' in Miner

On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Henning Garvin wrote:
> moowe               'to walk, follow a path'
> maNaN + howe    'earth, ground + follow a path, a path'

moo'we and howe' both in Miner

Further afield, -we is cognate with Dhegiha *-phe, OP -he, as in z^ohe 'to
wade', uhe 'to follow'.

> mooci                 'cellar, den'
> maNaN + hoc^i      'earth, ground + dwelling, house'

moo'c^i in Miner; hoc^i' in Lipkind

> mooraje              'visits the earth (Bear Clan Name)'
> maNaN + horaje   'earth + visit'

horaj^e' in Miner

> moos^?ok          'small rounded hill, mound'
> maNaN + s^?ok   'earth, ground + something rounded, bumplike'

moo's^?ok in Miner; and hos^?o'k 'hill' is, too

> mooska              'clearing or field'
> maNaN + hoska   'earth + clearing or field'

moo'sga and hosga' in Miner

Miner writes sg for sk on principle.

Under hosga' 'be open, clear (land)' he includes hosga'ij^a 'prairie'.
Marino (p. 317) gives mosga 'prairie'

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

Miner lists moo'ga.  He doesn't have hoga', but IO has 'uka, ukaN' 'cliff,
bank', which implies PWC *oka', the necessary underpinning for maNaN +
*(h)oga', even though hoga' isn't attested anywhere as far as I know.
Perhaps the word has fallen out of use entirely, or perhaps no one has
stumbled on a speaker who recalls it.

> 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.

Miner has moo'haj^a' and, of course, haj^a' 'to see'.  He doesn't have any
hypothetical hohaj^a'.  There is maNaNha' 'mud' and j^aa 'frozen'.
Moo'haj^a might be a rendition of maNaNha'j^a 'frozen mud' somewhat along
the lines Henning suggests.  Hypothetical moo'j^a from maNaN +
hypothetical (h)oj^a makes more sense to me, too, though the form hoj^a
isn't attested in Miner and we still haven't handled the -ha- in the
middle.

Miner also lists

moo'kahi 'every year' and explains it as maNaN + hokahi 'every' under the
latter.

moosiN'niN Mosinee, WI hosiNniN' is 'be cold' (cf. OP usniN')

Marino (p. 317) lists additional mo(o)- forms:

modja' (mooj^a) 'something that grows in the ground', cf. ???
mogi'eje 'to scatter', mokie 'scattered', cf. gi?e 'scatter', horu?e' 'to
  sow', hoi?e' 'sow, scatter seeds'
mopase 'bluff', cf. hopase' 'corner (in town)'
moro 'shore', cf. ???
mowaxu 'pour on the ground', cf. howaxu' 'pour into'



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