Dakotan T-words and their equivalents in Siouan

[Rory M Larson]

John wrote:

> Note that Rory and I are writing H (superscript h) as a reflection of the
new "popular" orthographies.  I'm neglecting E (which Rory thinks may
contrast with e) in these contexts because I think the "eh" pronunciation
in tHe and kHe reflects the affect of aspiration on the vowel.

> Rory seems to be writing r now for dh (popular system th), which makes
perfect sense.

Oops.  I should have explained that I was following Dorsey's orthography as
much as possible in assembling these lists.  I really hate digraphs,
especially the ambiguous 'th', and Dorsey is kind enough not to use them.
I'm typing these into Notepad in straight ASCII so I don't have to worry
about special fonts.  What has evolved is a very serviceable, if unholy,
mixture of Dorsey with NetSiouan.  So in these word lists, c means esh (s^)
and j means ezh (z^), as Dorsey had them.  I don't have a cent sign in
Notepad or on my keyboard, so I made the executive decision to use r for
ledh (dh), which, I agree, makes perfect sense.  I'm trying to normalize
the stop consonant series, which he failed to complete, as e.g. d, tt, tH,
t?, and ct, and I rely on our speakers to help me there.  Where I'm not
sure if e.g. a t in Dorsey is tense or aspirated, I write it tt(H) on the
theory that that will irk me enough to remember to ask the speakers.  The
alveolar affricate series has to be handled as dj, ttc, tcH, etc.
Otherwise, I'm mostly following his usage.  The velar fricatives are q
(harsh, or voiceless) and x (soft, or voiced).  Dorsey was very good about
distinguishing these, and the Fletcher and La Fleche-based orthographies
since then have not been.  I use upper-case vowels A, E, and I where Dorsey
uses a short-vowel symbol (little bowl over the vowel).  Presumably he
heard a phonetic distinction here: I'm not claiming the distinction was
necessarily phonemic, but am only recording the difference for tracking
purposes, in hopes it will help us figure out what the rule for the
distinction was.

John, I'll write back more, hopefully tomorrow or the next day.  I have a
Japanese final tomorrow to study for, so I'll have to shut up till then!

Rory