Otoe-Missouria term for "gun"
Campbell, Sky
sky at OMTRIBE.ORG
Thu Oct 10 19:25:01 UTC 2013
I’m trying to figure out the breakdown of the Otoe-Missouria term for “gun” (iyujį). My first instinct was to go with this:
i- (instrumental prefix and/or “with”) + ujį (hit/strike)
And in there, the “y” would occur for the sake of euphony thus making “iyujį” (strike/hit with).
Then I saw Dorsey’s entry with his term “i-yu-́ciⁿ” where he says:
“Were it not for the W. eq., we would be inclined to derive this word from uciⁿ, to hit, with the instrumental prefix, i-, changed making the compound i-uciⁿ, changed for euphony to iyu-ci; but the W. izhu- shows that the “y” in iyu- is radical.”
Dorsey covered what my exact thoughts were but said no because of the Hocąnk cognate and that it is “radical.” I haven’t been able to find the Hocąk term anywhere and have no idea what he meant by “radical.” Anyone have any ideas? I haven’t had any luck with any related cognates that I could find.
Here are some spellings of this term I’ve come across that may help.
jútschä (Maximilian)
His forms don’t have the initial “i-“ but just jump right into the “y” sound. He also ends with “ä” (eh/ay sound) but clearly goes with “į” with his term “strike” (uh-tschin).
E-yock-a (Major Albert Green)
Linguistic precision definitely isn’t Green’s strong point but his “ck” has me curious.
i-yo-ćeˊ (Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden (1862)
uyóci (Wistrand-Robinson, 1972)
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Sky Campbell, B. A.
Language Director
Otoe-Missouria Tribe
580-723-4466 ext. 111
sky at omtribe.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/siouan/attachments/20131010/d72f02b7/attachment.htm>
More information about the Siouan
mailing list