Biloxi 'moon'

[David Kaufman]

Yes, I'm aware some languages, including Rumsen Ohlone, like Lakota, have a single word for both which can be clarified with day or night added on.  I doubt this is the case with Biloxi, however, as the word for 'night' is pasi.  Interestingly, however, along this line of thinking, there is a short form -iN which apparently does service for both sun and moon in Biloxi, as an alternative, which obviously could be short for both in-a or nah-iN-te. 
 
Dave

--- On Mon, 2/2/09, ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at Colorado.EDU> wrote:

From: ROOD DAVID S <David.Rood at Colorado.EDU>
Subject: RE: Biloxi 'moon'
To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Cc: "Siouan List" <siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Date: Monday, February 2, 2009, 11:22 AM

 	This may not help at all, but for what it's worth, Lakota has just 
one word for 'sun' and 'moon', which they compound with
'day' or 'night' 
if necessary.  Is there any way your Biloxi form could be 'night sun' 
instead of 'egg'?

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Sun, 1 Feb 2009, Rankin, Robert L wrote:

> Look under 'star 1' and also 'egg' in the Comparative
Dictionary file for similar forms.  It appears as though 'star' and
'egg' were possible homophones in Proto-Siouan.  And there may be some
connection with Dave's 'moon' term in Biloxi.
>
> Bob
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU on behalf of David Kaufman
> Sent: Sun 2/1/2009 5:12 PM
> To: Siouan List
> Subject: Biloxi 'moon'
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> I have a rather odd but I hope interesting hypothesis about the word for
moon in Biloxi, nahiNte.  I'm wondering if this may be derived from the word
for 'sun', ina + the word for 'egg' iNti or iNdi.  It seems that
initial vowels are sometimes lost in Biloxi compounds, e.g., aNyaa-xi
'sacred man, king, shaman' becomes 'yaaxi' in Gatschet's
data.  Thus perhaps dropping the initial i of 'ina' leaves na.  It is
also apparently common for Biloxi vowel initial words to add an h sound, such as
'aNyaa' or 'haNyaa' and in this case the h may serve an
epenthetic purpose between two vowels as well, so that na + (h)iNdi or (h)iNti =
nahiNte, nahiNti (e and i, acc. to Haas, were allophonic and pronounced
somewhere between ay and ee), thus moon or 'sun egg'.  Does anyone know
of other languages that may have such a metaphor, 'egg of the sun' or
such for moon?  The moon is considered female according to Biloxi mythology,
which might lend more credence to this idea.  Any thoughts?
>
> Dave
>
>



      
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