Dorsey u circumflex in Biloxi

R. Rankin rankin at ku.edu
Wed Feb 2 19:24:14 UTC 2005


The only thing I can add to what I said before is that,
in Ofo, all the instances of stressed schwa that I can
locate are reflexes of denasalized /aN/.  Schwa can
come from both nasal and oral /a/ unaccented, but AFAIK
only from stressed nasal A.  (The way I know it's a
denasalized aN is by comparing it with cognates in
Biloxi, Tutelo or some more distant Siouan language
with a cognate lexeme).

The term for 'black' can come from either of two
different etyma.  *(i)sa:pe or *(i)sepi.  I would think
the former would underlie the Biloxi word, but can't
say for sure.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Kaufman" <dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com>
To: "Siouan List" <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 5:29 PM
Subject: Dorsey u circumflex in Biloxi


> Hi all,
>
> 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 but," 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?
>
> Dave
>
>
>
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