Wanikiya Tun -> omaka

["Alfred W. Tüting"]

Thanks for your reply, John, and pointing to the earlier thread.

I do not tend to believe in mere homophony in this case because the
underlying idea being too universal (not only in Siouan languages) and
'obvious'.

Looking at the 'world/earth' (maka) around, a people still bound to and
aware of nature easily realizes the (cyclical) changes "on maka" (->
omaka?), so it seems quite natural relating these two ideas to each
other (cf. the names of the months in Dakota etc., but also in many
other languages, also the germanic ones before christianisation).

The hint to 'world' (somewhere on this listserve) is interesting. This
is what my 'Kluge' gives so far:
"Welt (< 8. Jh.) Mhd. welt, wer(e)lt, ahd. weralt, andfrk. werold aus
wg. *wira-aldô 'Zeitalter, Welt', auch in ae. weorold, afr. warld
Zusammensetzung aus g. *wera- 'Mann, Mensch' in gt. wair, anord. verr,
ae. wer, as. wer, ahd. wer; außergermanisch air. fer, l. vir und (...)
ai. virá (the i should be long), lit. vyras und als zweites Glied ein
Wort, das zu 'alt' gehört. (...)"

So, 'world' is composed of 'man/human' and 'old' (age) which means that
space (world/earth/maka) and time (age/era/'Zeitalter'/year/omaka etc.)
obviously can be understood as closely related.
This is the case also in Chinese language (and thinking!): the modern
word for 'world' is _shijie_ [shi4-jie4] where _shi_ means the
'generation' [of a man] (i.e. thirty years) - thus referring to 'man'
and to 'time' -, and _jie_ has the meaning of 'boundary' - thus
referring to 'space' (and, of course, again to 'man' also).

Please excuse my long-winded explanation against random homophony ;-)

Alfred




 > I'm sure there's a connection.  In fact, there was a discussion of
this in
2001 that you can consult in the list archives at:


http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?S2=siouan&q=year+earth&s=&f=&a=&b=


In general these terms are homophonous or nearly so throughout the family
and in a lot of other places, too. <<


 >> BTW, I have a question to the Siouanist experts here:
Dealing with Dell Hymes' work "In vain I tried to tell you", recently, I
ran into this statement:
"In winter the peripheral world of supernatural power and myth came
closer, spirit-power was sought and initiations into the control of
power held, and myths formally told. Myths, in fact, were not to be told
in summer for fear of rattlesnake bite. With spring, Chinookans, like
flowers, emerged from underground to a new world. The root for "world,
country, land, earth" indeed also has the meaning "year", pointing up
the interdependence of recurring time with the recurrences of the
seasonal round." (p. 21)

Apart from all this sounding very familiarily Chinese to me, here's my
query: how's this in Siouan etymology? As for Dakota, the word for
'season/year' _omaka_ obviously comprises _maka_ [makxa'] 'earth' etc.
plus the locative (or whatever) prefix _o-_.<<<<

Alfred
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