Miyoglasin

[De Reuse, Willem]

Thanks for the very detailed miyoglas'in discussion, Rory.  I agree, and I like the expression 'chiming calque'.

Willem
________________________________
From: Siouan Linguistics [SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] on behalf of Rory Larson [rlarson1 at UNL.EDU]
Sent: Sunday, September 08, 2013 6:51 PM
To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
Subject: Re: Miyoglasin



Ø  It is not unlikely that this was influenced by "mirrorglass".  But it has a good Lakota etymology (see the New Lakota Dictionary), so this is NOT a loan from English.  (Coincidences happen.   My favorite is [elkar] which means 'each other' in Dutch and in Basque.)



Ø I have to admit that I’m very skeptical of 5 syllable long “coincidences”, so it seems to me more likely that ‘mirror’ is a loanword from either French or English that may have been reanalyzed in terms of the vertitive given in the new dictionary.


The word miyoglasin, together with several variants of the term, appears in both Williamson and Riggs:

Riggs:

                mi-yó-gla-siŋ, n. T. a mirror, looking glass.  See mioglasiŋ.

                mí-o-gla-siŋ, n. T. a mirror.  See mniohdasiŋ.

                mni-yó-hda-siŋ, n.  a looking-glass; window glass.  See mioglasiŋ.

Williamson:

                mirror, n.  Ihdiyomdasiŋ.  Y.  Mniokdasiŋ.  T.  Miyoglasiŋ.

Riggs:

i-hdí-yo-mda-siŋ, n.  a looking-glass, mirror.  T., miyoglasiŋ.  See aokasiŋ and okasiŋ.

a-ó-ka-siŋ,  v.a.  to look into, peep into—aowakasiŋ, aoyakasiŋ, aouŋkasiŋpi.

                ó-ka-siŋ,  v.  to look into.  See aokasiŋ, kas’iŋ, and okakiŋ.

                ka-s’íŋ, adv.  appearing, in sight.  See aokasiŋ and okasiŋ.

The term is pretty clearly based on the verb ókas(‘)iŋ, ‘to look into’.  In its vertitive form óglasiŋ, it should mean ‘to look into at oneself’, which makes very good sense for the meaning of ‘mirror’.  The Yankton and one of the Santee forms suggest that the word originally began with the term m(i)ni, ‘water’, rather than the undefined element /mi/.  The other Santee form shows that ‘oil’, ihdi, could be substituted for ‘water’ to get the same sense (though in this case, they are apparently using a different instrumental prefix—not sure why).  Most likely, native people were perfectly familiar with the concept of looking into a pool of clear, still liquid to see their own faces long before European mirrors ever appeared.

These dictionaries were developed in the 19th century, and the suite of terms taken together shows the approximate etymology without having to assume a recent reanalysis.  Only the Teton/Lakhota form shows any notable similarity to “mirrorglass”, and then only because that dialect happens to use the cluster /gl/ where other dialects use /hd/ or /kd/.

This almost certainly is not a simple loanword from French or English.  French seems to have both “miroir” and “glace” as words for ‘mirror’, where English has “mirror” and “looking-glass”.  But was a term like “mirrorglass” actually in circulation in either language in the 18th or 19th centuries?  I don’t find it in my English dictionary, or in the French dictionary either.  If we can document that this compound was commonly used a couple of centuries ago, then perhaps the Lakhota form was influenced by it to the extent of changing initial mni- mi-.  Otherwise, I think the “coincidence” here may actually illustrate the process of creating a chiming calque, in this case, from Lakhota into English.


Cheers,
Rory

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