Autonym of Mosopeleas-Ouesperies-Ofos

[Rankin, Robert L]

W usually next to a vowel.  [u] generally otherwise.

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From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of Rory M Larson
Sent: Sun 3/4/2007 7:51 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: RE: Autonym of Mosopeleas-Ouesperies-Ofos



Pardon me; I think I was confused on a point of orthography.  I had been thinking the Algonquianist use of 8 was for schwa; I seem to recall now that it is either for /wa/ or some kind of long /oo/.  I believe the @ sign is what we've been using for schwa, isn't it?

> We could reasonably reconstruct this as something like *woNs8pee ~ *wuNs8pii.

Make that *woNs at pee ~ *wuNs at pii

> [...] we are essentially there: *moNs8pe(l)e ~ *woNs8pee.

Make that *moNswape(l)e ~ *woNs at pee.

Sorry for the error!

Rory


> Under the circumstances, I think the Uspe are the better choice.  Swanton gives the vowels in the Tunica version as long, with the first being circumflex: Uus^pii.  The various French versions given are Ouispe (/wispe/), Oussipe's (/usipee/), Ounspie (/uNspii/), and Onspe'e (oNspee).  We could reasonably reconstruct this as something like *woNs8pee ~ *wuNs8pii.  In an earlier posting (May 4, 2004), Michael McCafferty has stated that the first record of the Mosopelea name was on Marquette's map of the Mississippi of 1673, in which it was written MONS8PELEA, with the initial vowel nasalized and the second (I think) schwa.  So if we drop the final (ethnonymic?) -a, consider the initial m to be a tight w before a nasal vowel, and guess that the l was a light rhotic or y to separate the two e syllables, we are essentially there: *moNs8pe(l)e ~ *woNs8pee.