squash

[David Costa]

Bob:

>>From Siouan to Algonquian? Do you mean the other way around, or am I
misunderstanding you? This looks like a typical old loan from Algonquian to
Siouan.

A small thing to keep in mind is that this */e:mehkwa:na/ etymon means
'spoon' in every Algonquian language that has it except Miami. (And in
Menominee when used as a final.) I realize the obvious link is the use of
gourds as spoons, but if the borrowing was especially old, either Siouan
borrowed it from Miami, or Siouan changed its semantics when it borrowed the
term.

Dave Costa


> From: "Rankin, Robert L" <rankin at ku.edu>
> Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 12:03:27 -0500
> To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> Subject: RE: Dakotan gw/gm
> 
> I believe the similarities between the Siouan and Algonquian 'squash' terms
> show too many matching phonemes to be coincidence, especially given their
> geographic distribution.  Since the Algon. is reconstructible and the Siouan
> is not, I'd assume the progression went from Siouan to Algonquian.
>