St. Louis - Pain Court; Ndeck and Other ppahV forms.

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 30 Mar 2004, Rory M Larson wrote:
> I agree with John's excellent summary of the question.  Just one
> small quibble: ...
>
> The 'red neck' interpretation comes from Dorsey, who I believe
> died in 1894.  Therefore, this Omaha word pre-dates the 1900s.

Quite right.  I had lost track of your comment that the 'red neck' version
was in Dorsey.

I don't actually know the first date of attestation of 'redneck' in
English, though perhaps the OED does.

Note, as far as the issue of OP terms for 'neck':

Swetland 1991:125  pa'hi (/ppa'hi/) 'neck'
Swetland 1991:269  tai' (/tta'(h)i/ 'back of the head'

These forms are presumably taken from Fletcher & LaFlesche 1972:107-109
and vetted by Elizabeth Stabler, who worked with Mark.

Dorsey also lists ppa'hi, sometimes ppahi', 'neck'.  An interesting
construction is ppa'hi=xti=(khe) 'right on (the) neck'.  I didn't find
ttai or ttahi in the texts.  It may be that ppahi has expanded at the
expense of ttahi in OP.

Apart from ppa'hi 'neck, hair of the head' (Swetland), I find ppa (?), pha
(?)  'bitter', ppai' or ppai' 'sharp', ppahiN 'quill', bahiN 'porcupine'.
In the Dorsey texts 'hair' is always hiN' '(animal) body hair' or
na(N)z^i'ha 'human (head) hair'.  The compound tte'ppahi 'buffalo neck'
occurs.  The inclusion of some of these forms will make sense with further
reading.

In Osage LaFlesche lists ppa 'bitter', ppahi' 'sharp', ppa'hiN
'porcupine', and instances of ppa'hiN and ppahu' as '(head) hair'.  I also
found tta'hu 'neck', but cce'ppahi (sic for ceppahu?) 'neck of buffalo'.

OP ppai' 'sharp' is sometimes considered to appear as -ppe in OP maNspe
'axe' < *maNzeppe 'axe', but cf. Osage maNhiNspe, which suggests a
different pattern of contraction.

Kaw has ppa(a)'hi 'sharp', also ppahi' (JOD), ppa'hiN 'porcupine; hair',
ppahu' 'hair of the human head below the crest'.  'Neck' is given as
tta'hu.

Quapaw has ppahi' 'head', ppahi' 'bitter', ppahiN' 'porcupine', and
ttai'tta 'neck'.

Note that the possible constituent elements here are ppa 'head, nose', hi
< *hu 'stalk, stem, tree', hiN 'body hair, fur'.

I haven't looked tonight to see how these terms play out further afield
than Dhegiha, though I recall that some of them do occur, in similar
forms.