Dorsey u circumflex in Biloxi

[David Kaufman]

Thanks for this insight, Alan.

Another interesting Dorsey symbol for Biloxi represents something like d followed by a voiced th sound (like th in this).  Is this another sound common to Siouan?

I don't believe these pronunciation matters were adequately addressed in Einaudi's Biloxi dissertation, and I'm wondering if some of these "finer" sound distinctions apparently happened upon by Dorsey warrant some more review.  I will probably have to do some extensive cross-linguistic comparisons with other Siouan languages to narrow this down, at least in particular words.  I'm becoming more convinced however, since Dorsey did specifically mention the pronunciation of u circumflex as u in but, that this schwa-like (upside-down V) sound existed, and perhaps s[u-circumflex]pi (black) and pst(u circumflex)ki (sew) should both be pronounced something more like [suppy] and [pstucky], with perhaps a new character to represent this, rather than /supi/ and /pstuki/ as they appear in the dissertation.  Unless this sounds totally un-Siouan!?

Dave

"Alan H. Hartley" <ahartley at d.umn.edu> wrote:
David Kaufman wrote:

> Bob, John K, and I have been having some discussion re: Biloxi
> pronunciation and Dorsey's and Swanton's diacritic marks. One of these
> involves their use of *u-circumflex*, which Dorsey and Swanton describe
> as "/u/ in b/u/t," which sounds like the schwa to me. I'm particularly
> wondering about its use in the word *su(circumflex)pi*, meaning "black,"
> which according to this, should be pronounced something like "suppy".
> This would mean, I think, that perhaps in Biloxi a schwa could
> be stressed. I think Bob mentions Ofo having a similar stressed schwa
> sound. Do any other Siouan languages have this schwa sound in stressed
> syllables?

American English dictionaries often use the schwa symbol in both
unstressed and stressed positions, as in 'above'. Phonemically these may
be the same, but phonetically they differ, the second one (reversed
capital V in IPA) being, lower and backer than the first and probably
like u-circumflex. (The word 'schwa' in English can mean both 1.) a
vowel, like the in 'above', and 2.) the symbol, which can represent
in different systems a.) only the schwa-sound, or b.) the schwa-sound
and the revV-sound.)

Alan

		
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