(O)maha

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004, David Costa wrote:
> Only in the sense that initial short vowels come and go unpredictably
> with tribe names in M-I (and elsewhere in central Algonquian). It can't
> be normal phonological processes, since word-initial short vowels are
> *not* deleted by sound law in old Illinois. In the modern (19th century)
> language, yes.

And then John Koontz said:
> So perhaps the form Maha may owe more to sporadic deletion of short
> initial vowels in Miami-Illinois

To which Michael McCafferty replied:
> Unlikely, in light of what Dave said. It's in the most recent records of the
> language that we see this loss

I guess I misunderstood David.  I thought he meant that deletion of
initial short vowels (which he said would have to be a-, not o-) was
irregular - not rule governed - in Old Illinois ethnonyms but now is
regular.  So what he meant was that they were not deleted at all in Old
Illinois (when we would expect amaha), but now they are deleted
sporadically?  I can certainly think of a few presumptive Old Illinois
ethnonyms without initial a.  Perhaps it's only some that have the a?

So if Old Illinois speakers got their hands on omaha or umaha (to neglect
nasality), they would normally be expected produce amaha?  And we only
know that they may perhaps have used maha because of Marquette's map,
because otherwise their form for Omaha is unknown?  So, in fact, we don't
know if they substituted a, lopped off o or u themselves, borrowed a
pre-lopped form, or, quite arbitrarily pronounced it Apalachicola, which
Marquette only misheard as Maha, because the toothless old man who
mentioned it mumbled?

Drat!

Out of curiosity, what is the modern MI form for Omaha?