OSAGE OTHOGRAPHY

[Jimm GoodTracks]

It is said that...
"Mogre Lookout has really been pushing to have Wahzhazhe spoken under the 
dance arbor.  He is also teaching the advanced language class there in 
Pawhuska.  Kathryn Red Corn's nephew Tallee Red Corn is rapidly becoming one 
of the most fluent speakers in the tribe.  Sounds like the language program 
is going well and there is talk of adding classes in Hominy and Gray Horse 
Districts."

Beyond this much, I will have to wait on further information.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Justin McBride" <jmcbride at kawnation.com>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 11:19 AM
Subject: Re: OSAGE OTHOGRAPHY


>> HVvBV  Hu-a (fish symb)  THV-HV
>> ZHO-KU-La(fish)  Av-KV-TSE  Av-KU-Tha (fish).
>> Hanba hua thaha    (lit:  Day coming when)
>> Zhukinla angatsi ankatha/o   (lit:  Together we go we go forth)
>
> Wow.  That's news to me, too!  It must be a very new development.  When I 
> visited their classes a few months ago, they were just using a Roman 
> alphabet with no special characters other than a hyphen and an apostrophe 
> (well, and maybe a superscript n, but I can't remember).  I seem to recall 
> that they were using all caps.  I don't think they distinguished between x 
> and <gamma>. Nor did they distinguish between preaspirate hp, ht, hk, and 
> hc and their plain unaspirated counterparts p, t, k, and c in the 
> orthography, thus blurring the contrast between 1st person and 3rd person 
> forms of certain verbs.  For example, TON-PE stood for both htoNpe 'I see' 
> and toNpe 's/he sees.'  From what I saw, that confused some of the 
> students.  But otherwise, most of the class appeared to understand the 
> writing system and could easily read it.  I wonder what prompted the 
> change...
>
> -jm
>
>
>