Miyoglasin

[Rankin, Robert L.]

Jan,

Thanks for the expert commentary and additional examples.

Othúŋwahe ‘town’ is another one of those wanderwoerter that has similar forms in Dakotan, Dhegiha, and Biloxi as well as Choctaw and Chickasaw.  I'm surprised it doesn't seem to be in Chiwere or Hochunk.  I think it turns up in Virginia in the tribal name Tomahitan, which would mean 'big town' also in Biloxi.  It's not out of the question that the word is native Siouan, but the distribution and sound correspondences don't make me feel good.  :-)

Bob
________________________________
From: Siouan Linguistics [SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] on behalf of Jan Ullrich [jfu at LAKHOTA.ORG]
Sent: Monday, September 09, 2013 2:25 PM
To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
Subject: Re: Miyoglasin

Dear all:

I think that there are more loan words in traditional Lakota than one may think. Here are some examples:

aspéla (from aspirin)
bébela ‘baby’ from French
khukhúše ‘pig’ from French
kuŋkúŋla  - ‘cucumber’
khamíte ‘committee’
pusíla – ‘cat’
spakéli ‘spaghetti’

I recorded these word from fluent traditional speakers, although it is true that not all of them are recognized across the community. Such is the case of spakéli, aspéla and pusíla, but the other ones are fully standardized lexical items. And I am quite sure that this is not the full list.

I am intrigued by Bob’s comment that othúŋwahe ‘town’ might be borrowing as well. I recall reading somewhere (perhaps in one of John Koontz’s materials, but I could be wrong) that the word itázipa ‘bow’ is a loan as well.

Also, many speakers told me how their monolingual Lakota speaking grandparents Lakotized the children’s English names because they couldn’t pronounce them. For example Delores was called “Čelowiŋ”, Imogene was “Imočila” etc. I have documented dozens of these. I think that this could be another indication that Lakota speakers were quite open to borrowing words from other languages. Contemporary speakers are usually very reluctant to do so, but I think this might have been different when the majority of speakers were still monolingual.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were lots of loans from other tribes, especially on fauna and flora.

As for “mirror” I have always been skeptical about the “mirror glass” etymology because the analyses that involves mní ‘water’ and a possessive or reflexive of ókas’iŋ ‘to peer into’ seem quite convincing and is consistent across dialects. But again, I can be wrong and it wouldn’t be for the first time.

Jan





From: Siouan Linguistics [mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] On Behalf Of De Reuse, Willem
Sent: Monday, September 09, 2013 1:58 AM
To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
Subject: Re: Miyoglasin

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<mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu>
Subject: Re: Miyoglasin


>  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.)


> 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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