Dakota Dialects (was RE: Sign Language (was Dances with Wolves))

[Marino]

John,

Parks and DeMallie don't actually say anything directly about Yanktonai
self-identification, but since 'dakhota'  was one of the words they
elicited and which they offer among 20-odd sets showing the differences
among the 5 dialects, their Yanktonai respondents were clearly not
self-identifying as 'nakhota'.  Maybe 'self-identification'  in a
socio-cultural context is a different sort of mental operation from
responding to a dialect survey. This is by no means impossible, and is part
of what prompted my question.

They don't actually discuss the origins of the 3-way analysis.  Riggs
identified 4 forms of Sioux and reported the h-k-g correspondence and
seemed to assign as much importance to it, as to d-n-l.

You're right about the Council Fires.  That tradition must predate the
westward expansion and socio-political elaboration of the Teton.

Mary

At 12:12 PM 1/25/2005, you wrote:
>On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, Marino wrote:
> > >I observed this at the first "No Borders" gathering of all peoples who
> > >self-designate as Nakota, which incluldes Assiniboine, Stoney, (and
> > >Yanktonai, although there were only two or three of them there).
> >
> > Do the Yanktonai self-designate as Nakota?   Parks and DeMallie say they do
> > not, in their 1992 article in Anthropological Linguistics, on the basis of
> > data gathered during the Sioux Dialect Survey.
>
>I wondered about that myself.  I don't recall what Parks & DeMallie said
>about self-identification, but I do recall that they found based on the
>speech forms collected in the course of the Dakota Dialect Survey that
>Yanktonai(s) and Yankton are closely related to each other and form a
>distinct Dakota(n) dialect different from Stoney (North or South),
>Assiniboine, Teton or what they called Santee-Sisseton.  In terms of some
>of the traditional shibboleths Yankton-Yanktonais would be what might be
>called a "D-dialect."  But, then, another important finding of the Survey
>was that the whole scholarly tradition of a three-way D : L : N dialect
>division is faulty - that there are essentially the five dialects (or
>dialect groupings) which Parks & DeMallie term Santee-Sisseton,
>Yankton-Yanktonais, Teton, Assiniboine, and Stoney.
>
>Did they go on to discuss the origins of the 3-way analysis?  I seem to
>recall from somewhere - some of it was definitely David Rood's lectures -
>that much of the traditional analysis of Dakota divisions and dialects
>originated among the Santee communities Ponds, Riggs, etc., worked with,
>and reflects a somewhat Santee-centric analysis of things, e.g., in its
>detailed depiction of Santee (and Yankton) subdivisions vs. its rather
>sweeping treatment of Teton, Assiniboine, and Stoney, or in its allocation
>of importance in terms of identifying Seven Fires within the Dakota
>speakers (exclusive of the Hohe or Assiboine and Stoney).
>
>The usual ethnographic catalog of Dakota divisions starts with a detailed
>depiction of the Santee and Yankton from these sources.  Then the Teton
>people are elaborated upon using as I recall detail obtained later from
>other sources more familiar with them.  In the context of the "Seven
>Fires" this is handled as internal detail, while the internal divisions of
>the Santee are presented as major divisions in their own right.  The
>Yanktonais are usually mentioned in these lists as an offshoot of the
>Assiniboine who joined the Seven Council Fires.  As I recall there are 4
>Santee Fires, and the Yankton, Yanktonais, and Teton are each counted as
>additional Fires, while the Hohe groups are not considered part of the
>alliance.