hunka/honga, etc.

[Wallace Chafe]

I was about to say that it's not Caddoan either, but then it occurred to me 
that tahunkah (accent on the second syllable) means "he has moved it" in 
Caddo. I doubt if there's any connection, but just thought I'd throw that 
in.

Wally Chafe

--On Friday, May 18, 2012 12:07 PM -0700 David Costa 
<pankihtamwa at EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:

> It's not Algonquian.
>
> Dave Costa
>
>> Mark et al.
>>
>> There is no really straightforward answer to the question.  The term
>> occurs in all Mississippi Valley Siouan languages and Mandan with the
>> meanings indicated below.  It does not occur in Missouri River Siouan or
>> Ohio Valley Siouan as far as we have been able to determine.  This means
>> that the term is probably a good 2000 years old at least within Siouan.
>> I don't know what your contact's source is, but it is highly unlikely
>> that anyone would "remember" where it comes from or whether it came from
>> outside Siouan.  It might, of course, in which case the place to look
>> for similar terms would be Algonquian.  Other possibilities include
>> Caddoan, but no one has suggested a source.  Below is the CSD entry.  We
>> debated the meaning/source and came up with basically nothing.
>>
>>
>> PSI[ *h???ka
>>
>> MA[ h??ka ?parent? H-83
>>
>>
>>
>> PMV[ *h???ka
>>
>> PDA[ *h?ká
>>
>> LA[ h?ká ?ancestor, chief, elder, relative? C
>>
>> DA[ ?h?ká ?hu?ká? ?parent, ancestor? R-157b
>>
>> ST[ h?gá ?chief? PAS
>>
>>
>> PWC[*h???ke
>>
>> CH[ h???ge ?chief? RR
>>
>> WI[ h???k KM-1617 ?chief?
>>
>>
>>
>> PDH[ *h??ka RR
>>
>> OP[ nadáh?ga ?chief? RR, ?war leader? SW-34
>>
>> KS[ h??ga ?gens name?; dod??h?ga ?war leader? RR
>>
>> OS[ ?h??ka ?ho?´ga? ?eagle, sacred one, moiety name? LF-65b
>>
>> QU[ tot??h?ka ?war captain? JOD
>>
>>
>>
>> COM[ Length and accentual pattern suggest there may have been an old
>> initial
>>
>> syllable, probably the possessive {*i-}.  The proto-DH form may have had
>>
>> {??}, but most of the evidence comes from unstressed forms where |?| and
>>
>> | ?| have fallen together more or less completely. La Flesche?s OS does
>> | not
>>
>> distinguish the two even in accented position.  Jimm Good Tracks 92:28
>> reports that this
>>
>> term has the broader meaning ?blessed one (who has been prayed/sung
>> over)?.
>>
>> This may in fact be closer to the original meaning, since it encompasses
>>
>> virtually all of the derived meanings.  I invite Jimm to comment further.
>>
>> Bob
>> ________________________________
>>> A graduate student here at UNL forwarded this inquiry.
>> Any suggestions, please?  Thank you,
>> Mark Awakuni-Swetland
>>
>>> Do you know where the term Hunka originated?  One of my sources talked
>>> about how it is not a Siouan word and was borrowed from some other
>>> tribe/language group.  I thought perhaps you might have some info on
>>> this.