Lakota Concept of Zero

[Rankin, Robert L]

Also, I tend to think of OP bdhuga, Kaw bloga, etc. meaning 'one dollar', as referring back to the coins that were scored so they could be broken into eight parts or 'bits'.  "Pieces-of-eight."  Rory talked about these in his paper at the MSU Siouan Conference in East Lansing a few years back.
 
Bob

________________________________

From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of Rankin, Robert L
Sent: Thu 1/19/2006 3:22 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: RE: Lakota Concept of Zero


I tend to think that trying to relate kkoge to k?u is a folk etymology.  The phonemes k? and kk cannot correspond in these languages.
 
Perhaps a more likely relationship would be with the root kko- 'to make a hollow sound'.  
 
Bob
 
> If the origin of "trunk" is prior to 1820, as hypothesized - given the above
dates - I  wonder if in fact there may be some merit in what an elderly
Osage woman told me many years ago....that the word ku'ge for "trunk" was
derived from the Osage verb "k'u" - to give away. "Trunk" for "1000" is
certainly not an isolated case, it seems widespread. But most tribe never
saw trunks of 1000 coins until after 1820, most earlier treaties were for
less than 1000 dollars (or coins).