Meaning of Siouan word "Shke-ma."

[Rory M Larson]

Tom - Thanks for pointing out that the "e" in "Shke-ma" is
pronounced [i].  That shoots down all three of the ideas I
posted the other day.

Jonathan - Thanks for posting the whole text, and the hints
that go with it.  That makes the picture a whole lot clearer!

> L.    SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY
> S.   SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY
>       SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY
>       SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY
>       SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY YO HAY YE OI

> tail. MOnCHU SHKEMA SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY
>       SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY
>       SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY YO HAY YE YA

It looks like A = a, AY = e, or perhaps ai, E = i, O = u, and
Un = aN.  That leaves us with I, which might represent ai, or
perhaps i, or maybe even ia.  I presume TH = dh.  So in NetSiouan,
the repeated line should initially be transcribed as

  s^upaidi dhi dhu aNhe

> SHUPIDE -- WHEN I ARRIVED ON THE SCENE, YOU RAN AWAY.

s^u- + motion verb means the motion is toward you.  John Koontz
has described an Omaha elder feeling his way around a darkened
room, warning the people in his path: "S^ubdhe'", "I'm going
toward you".  In this case, the motion verb is surely pHi,
which means "I arrived there".  (I believe this is aspirated;
John or other OPanists might want to comment on this!)  So

  s^upHi' probably means "I arrived at where you were".

-di would probably be the "when" part of that.  In OP, "when"
is typically tHE-di, but the tHE is presumably just the
positional that wraps up the preceding into a single chunk.
It might reasonably be left out, in which case we would have

  s^upHi'(a)di = "when I arrived at where you were".

The UnHAY must be aN'he, or aN'ha-i, meaning "to flee".

The THE THO is more problematic, but I find it tempting to
read it as dhe'dhu, meaning 'here', despite the inconsistency
in the rendering of the first vowel.  Putting it together, we
would have

  s^upHi'(a)di dhe'dhu aN'he (or aN'ha-i)

  "When I arrived here where you were, to flee... (or he fled...)"

>       SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY YO HAY YE OI

This might complete the sentence.  If the line suggested above
is valid, I would think YO HAY could be uhe', 'to pass', with
epenthetic Y from preceding aN'he.  In other words, somebody
went (passed) fleeing.  The YE would represent the -i particle,
strongly stressed with preceding epenthesis.  The OI would be
the closing particle, something like -u! or hau! or ho!  With
this interpretation, the sentence comes out as

  s^upHi'(a)di dhe'dhu aN'he uha'-i hau!

  "When I arrived here where you were, they went fleeing!"

This has the slight problem of seeming to switch from direct
address to third person reference with respect to the enemy.
This might be reasonable, however, if one is addressing the
leader of the band, but referring to his men as fleeing.


> tail. MOnCHU SHKEMA SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY

The assumption has been that MOnCHU SHKEMA is all part of the
name, which I gather is supposed to be Dakotan.  But if it is
Dakotan, the first part should really be MATO.  If SHKIMA is
to be pronounced s^ki-ma, then I think we can get a reasonable
OP translation as part of the sentence.  In OP, s^ki can mean
"you come back".  The MA would be a pluralizing article, -ma
or ama'.

Now when they are talking about this Sioux running away, are
they talking about a single man fleeing from individual combat,
or do they mean that the war band of a particular leader was
put to flight?  I suspect the latter.  How would that band be
referred to?  Could it be [leader name] + (a)ma?  I noticed
recently that this happens in Old Norse, in which you can have
constructions like "They Ingolf were ..." for "They (under the
leadership of) Ingolf were ...".  If this works, we should be
able to assume a Dakotan leader named MATO, transparently known
to the Ponkas as MOnCHU, whose war band was routed.  The line
might read

  MaNc^Hu' s^ki-ma(-s^e) s^upHi'di dhe'dhu aN'he ...

  "MaNc^Hu' you-all that came back, when I arrived here where
    you were, to flee ..."

And the sentence would end

>       SHUPIDE THE THO UnHAY YO HAY YE YA

  s^upHi'di dhe'dhu aN'he uha'-i a?

  "... when I arrived here where you were, did they run away?"

The final YA would be the question particle -a, with preceding
epenthetic Y.

> MOnCHU SHEMA -- THATS A SIOUAN NAME [...]

Jonathan- is that a typo?  SHEMA for SHKEMA?  Otherwise, does
this translation seem at all reasonable?

Rory