'snake' and 'god' terms.
Rankin, Robert L
rankin at ku.edu
Thu Aug 24 19:27:51 UTC 2006
> Wow, interesting! The Biloxi words for 'root' are apparently tudi and udi (not sure if there's some semantic difference between the two), which I suppose could also possibly incorporate that -ti- root (although I'm not sure why t would change to d). But 'tixi' meaning 'sacred (medicinal/curing) root' sounds very convincing and plausible to me, even more than the 'tea' interpretation!
Udi is the normal BI reflex of common Siouan *hute' 'base, stump, etc.' I don't know where the t- is coming from in the alternate form. Haas (1968) as well as Dorsey had sporadic voicing of intervocalic stops in Biloxi. [b, d, g] are therefore often variants of /p, t, k/, but [d] is ALSO the regular outcome of proto-Siouan *r in Biloxi, which accounts for why there are so many d's but so few b's and g's.
Bob
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