Osage 'eight'

[Rory M Larson]

>> Does Kaw reduce what in OP is gdh- to l-, as I believe happens with
Osage?  Could that -loba be equated to OP gdhu'ba, 'all', 'the whole
thing'?

> Yes, it does.  But 'all, whole' is /bloga/ in Kaw, so there's been some
messing around with the initial cluster.

In Omaha, this and I believe a few other words seem to do some sound
symbolic alternations between bdhVgV and gdhVbV.  So we have bdhu'ga too
for 'all', as well as gdhu'ba.  I don't think we've figured out for sure
quite what the difference is.  I guess the question would depend on how far
back in the Omaha/Dhegihan language lineage a *bro'ka/*gro'pa alternation
existed.

Rory
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