Biloxi banana

[R. Rankin]

Well, there shouldn't be cognates for 'banana' since
it's an introduced fruit in North America.  But Quapaw
uses /to z^oNke/ for both 'pawpaw' and the newer
'banana', so they take advantage of the same
similarity, but the words are different.  Quapaw /to/
refers originally to the 'Indian potato', Dakotan mdo
or blo, but the compound is 'pawpaw'.  I don't have the
separate meaning for /z^oNke/, but one of the Quapaws
speculated that it referred to 'sweet'.  It is not the
normal verb for 'be sweet' however, and I don't have it
in other usages.  Maybe there's an Omaha /z^oNge/ that
someone can identify.

I think some of the other Dhegiha dialects may use
something like /ttewadhe/ for 'banana', but I'm not
sure.  It's mentioned in Gilmore's ethnobotany of the
northern plains from 1919.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Kaufman" <dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com>
To: "Siouan List" <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 3:01 PM
Subject: Biloxi banana


> Hi all,
>
> There is the Biloxi word "haataN tani" glossed as
> "banana" in Dorsey's dictionary.  The "tani" part is
> "big" I know, but I'm having trouble locating any
> cognates in other Siouan languages (or Muskogean) for
> haataN.  I just recently found out about the native
> fruit "pawpaw" and I'm wondering if haataN may be the
> word for it (especially since pawpaws do look like
> smaller versions of bananas), thus "haataN tani" =
> large pawpaw = banana, perhaps?  Does anyone have the
> word for pawpaw in other Siouan languages for
> comparison?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Dave
>
>
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