Siouan and Sprachbunds (Re: Balkan tongues)

[R. Rankin]

Probably my fullest published discussion of some of these things is in the Mary
Hass "Festkonferenz" volume.  There should be a ref. on John Boyle's "Siouan
Bibliography" site.

I've always thought that the extensive changes that Cheyenne and Arapaho
underwent along with the changes that Hidatsa and more especially Crow underwent
might have been part of what is called "Middle Missouri"  in archaeology.  (Is
that the right term?).  This includes the sound change s --> t /__a in both
Algonquian and Crow.  These things are hard to prove though.

John Koontz's  research tends to support strong Algonquian contact toward the
north -- in the Illinois country and points north.  He found loans for 'squash',
'bow' and maybe others.  I discussed common consonant cluster treatment (filter,
constraint) in an unpublished paper.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: "Koontz John E" <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>
To: "Siouan List" <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 11:04 AM
Subject: Siouan and Sprachbunds (Re: Balkan tongues)


> On Tue, 19 Oct 2004, Mike Morgan wrote:
> > I have a perhaps naive Native American Sprachbund question. Put simply,
> > what work has been done trying to argue for Sprachbund effects for
> > Siouan languages (as a group and/or individually).
>
> Well, Mary Haas, Dale Nicklas, and Robert Rankin have all argued in
> various places, mostly unpublished in the latter two cases, I think, that
> Biloxi - inserted in the middle of Muskogean territory - has a
> considerable degree of assimilation to Muskogean.  Noticeable loans, some
> tendency to CV- ~ VC- forms for pronominals, switch reference (with
> similar morphemes marking it - not sure if I remember that right?), and so
> on.
>
> I would argue, though I've never developed the arguments formally, that
> the many similarities of Crow-Hidatsa and Mandan are in many cases
> secondary and seem to reflect strong influence by Crow-Hidatsa on Mandan,
> which was originally more like typical Mississippi Valley languages.
>
> Bob Rankin has a paper - not published I think - that develops a case for
> a variety of Central Algonquian influences in Dhegiha.  He and others have
> also pointed out a regional tendency to use of positionals in the
> southeast that extends into Dhegiha.  Of course, all Siouan languages make
> more or less strong use of positionals, though Dhegiha and Biloxi are
> certainly among the champions.  However, Winnebago and Mandan also scatter
> them about fairly freely.
>
> The main prehistoric "entity" that might have served to integrate a
> Sprachbund include Siouan and other languages would seem to be
> "Mississippian" culture or perhaps more narrowly, Cahokian culture.
> Unfortunately this waned before the earliest visits, apart from Spanish
> raiding across the Southeast in Catawban and Muskogean territory, which
> was well organized militarily, but singularly unobservant.  De Soto and
> company make Lewis & Clark look the California Linguistic Survey.  The
> details in the memoirs mostly have to do with lengths of marches,
> foraging, armaments, numbers living and killed, and absence of gold.
> Sometimes they remembered the placenames, mostly with most of the
> syllables present and in the right order, surprisingly often even
> recognizable, considering the length of the chain of kidnapped
> translators.
>
> > Presumably the languages that would go into such a grouping are out East
> > somewhere. And since East is a relative term, I DON'T mean out East like
> > where I live, but the original homeland of the Siouans, or some
> > intermediate homeland for individual languages of subgroups, assuming
> > they stayed there long enough for the effects to take hold. Again
> > presumably - and supported by what LITTLE I know of the structure of
> > languages that they have been in contact with in recent history - the
> > Lakota (and Nakota) Sioux have not been where they currently dwell long
> > enough for any such effects (or am I wrong ... again?).
>
> The most easterly and southerly Siouan languages seem to be fairly recent
> arrivals where they are, though the jury is still out on "Tutelo - when
> and whence?"  The characterization of Siouan as "Eastern" derives from (a)
> its known connection with Catawban, (b) its less secure connection with
> Iroquoian and Caddoan and Yuchi, and (c) an early and incorrect perception
> that the Plains were uninabited/uninhabitable before the horse.  The
> center of gravity of the Siouan family seems to be something like Missouri
> or Iowa.
>
> If Biloxi is recent on Biloxi Bay, either it assimilated to Muskogean at
> break-neck speed, or it started out somewhere where Muskogean languages
> were also to be found, e.g., perhaps along the southern edge of the Ohio
> Valley?
>
> Archaeologists generally assign the Dakota-Lakota with various
> "manifestations" in Minnesota and the eastern Dakotas, now grouped under
> the name Psinomani i.e. psiN omani 'rice gathering', though the more
> westerly sites involve earth lodge villages and maize growing.  They are
> still assembling this from bits and pieces they hadn't previously
> associated and I'm not really current on progress.  One of the
> characteristic "wares" is called Sandy Lake, which is a sort of minimalist
> approach to Oneota pottery.
>
> I'm not sure if Psinomani is deduced from the linguistics, which would be
> somewhat risky, or if it is something more.  The Northern Plains seem
> somewhat negelected generally, and the easterly Dakota area (ranging into
> the Great Lakes woodlands) is on the edge of several well-studied areas,
> resulting in a tendency not to see connections.  (American archaeology
> seems to follow the Balkan political model.)  I personally wonder if
> Psinomani isn't really a case of Siouan languages (Proto-Dakota) spreading
> to a bunch of somewhat disparate adjacent groups. Anyway, the consensus is
> that the Dakota have been in the more easterly part of the Dakota-speaking
> area for a fairly long time, a least 1000 years.
>
> Most of the uncertainty as to original location and subsequent movement
> surrounds Dhegiha.
>