Number 'nine' in Chiwere.

Mon Apr 21 13:29:25 UTC 2014

I’ve also thought about the “contaminated forms.”  Maximilian got his Otoe language information (among other tribes’ language info) from Major Dougherty who was said to speak quite a few of them (I think I remember reading somewhere that he was said to have spoken 11 of them).  So not only do we have to hope that he didn’t accidentally mix anything up, but we also have to consider that his non-Indian accent wasn’t working its way in there when he was pronouncing these for Maximilian.

Sky Campbell, B. A.
Language Director
Otoe-Missouria Tribe
580-723-4466 ext. 111
sky at omtribe.org

From: Siouan Linguistics [mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] On Behalf Of John Koontz
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2014 8:34 PM
To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
Subject: Re: Number 'nine' in Chiwere.

And German j would be English y, so nj here is enye, which makes sense.    It is possible that things were in flux when he visited, but it sounds like he might also possibly have gotten contaminated forms.
________________________________
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2014 07:56:53 -0500
From: sky at LEGENDREADERS.COM<mailto:sky at LEGENDREADERS.COM>
Subject: Re: Number 'nine' in Chiwere.
To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu<mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu>
Yes, I suspect the "ch" is the "velar" one as well.  Maximillian almost exclusively uses "j" as it is pronounced in French (which is noted for each time it is used).  He'll have something like:

clear (water), ni-bréjé (French); they give this name to the Mississippi

But he also uses a "dj" to represent more of our "j" sound and also points out when the "j" is as in German.  This next entry illustrates both:

Sea, nih-chonn-djé (dje French); the Ayowas say, nih-chon-je (je German)

What I also found interesting is that what we use a "ch" sound for nowadays (for example, "ch'e" for "die"), he has spelled as "tsä̇h".  I'm curious about the "ts" rather than the "tsch" he often uses (and even the odd "tj").  Speaking of "tj", I wonder if Maximilian's time period during his travels (early 1830s) was part of a transition period moving from more of a "t" sound to "ch."  For example, he has listed "tjä̇" for "buffalo" but has "teh-på-seh-nih" with the "teh" sounding much more Ponca/Omaha.  Nowadays we have "che" for buffalo and his use of "t" for one and "tj" for the other has got me thinking :).  Plus where we have more ð and Θ now, back then you see more "s" sounds.  Fascinating stuff :).

One thing to note though is that Maximilian notes that he got his pronunciations from Major Dougherty rather than an Otoe or Missouria speaker.

I'm also interested in the "intensifier" being used with the number one.  This is my first experience with it (assuming that is what it is) and the first I've heard that it is common.  I'll keep an eye out for it :).

Sky

From: Siouan Linguistics [mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] On Behalf Of John Koontz
Sent: Tuesday, April 8, 2014 1:11 PM
To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu<mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu>
Subject: Re: Number 'nine' in Chiwere.

I'm sorry, some of my text comes out blue.  The quotes are marked with >.

> Your take on the pronunciations are what I have found as well.  Maximilian was really big on the "x" sound which he represented as "ch".  Most of his entries with "ch" have a note that says something like "ch guttural."

There are two ch's in German.  The "gutteral" (velar) one in ach, and the "soft" (or palatal) one in ich.   So I expect he's trying to make it clear it's the more velar of the two readings for ch.

> And I am also of the opinion that his "sch" is our "sh" sound.

Yes.  That's the German spelling for what English writes sh.   Both actually from Proto-German sk, cf. English doublets like skirt and shirt, or skipper and ship (where the one with k is generally a loan term).

> He also simply uses an "s" where he felt it was needed.  Although some of his spellings aren't always consistent when he is going with the same word (used in other areas), he does seem to have taken great care to represent pronunciations as accurately as possible.  Most of his terms have little notes (as I mentioned above) with them.  And from what I've seen of his use of "tsch", it seems to be a "ch" pronounced somewhat forcefully (I don't know the technical term for that).

He's essentially transcribing what he hears phonetically, not writing in a standard more or less phonemic orthography.    Tsch is standard German spelling for what English writes ch.   A forceful one would probably be an aspirated one.  The less aspiration, the more it would sound like English j, where German would have orthographic difficulties.

> I hadn't considered the idea of the term being reinvented in Osage.  I guess it shouldn't be surprising that a culture that has those types of conventions might fill a need in the same manner as before.

It depends a lot on the cultural context, but number words are often forgotten or borrowed.    For some reason this is not especially true in Indo-European, so it's kind of unexpected.   I remember that Omaha speakers were particularly prone to substituting English numerals (and date terms, etc.) even in conversation that was otherwise Omaha.

> I'd wondered about the "xce" as well as far as being an intensifier.  In Otoe-Missouria, you have a few variants that I've come across.  First is more of the "h" sound with "-hji".  But I've also often found that where you have a sort of "intrusive h", there are often "x" variants (for example, hga/xga for "white").  So I've also seen "-xji" as well.  And to top it off, there are a lot of "s" sounds that work in there as well.  I hear the "s" version pronounced often where I work.  So that suffix would be "-sji" (other examples would be "wanuhje/wanusje" for "animal").  Another thing to consider is perhaps Maximilian's "ch" for the "xce" portion might be that "k" sound that emerges with glottal stops (I don't know the technical term for it but Hamilton and Irvin document it a lot in their Ioway books).

The =xti ~ =xc^i intensifier enclitic, generally glossed 'very' often used in a sense of 'real' or 'just, exactly' is common with 'one'.

>
>  Nine, grä̇bena – tscheh – uïningkä̇
>  (the whole run together); i. e.,
>  ten less one; they also say,
>  schangká

lebraN (krebraN) =che wiN niNg(e?)
ten                            the  one it-lacks

che = <ts>he with aspirated c (ts), 'the (vertical, inanimate)'.    Os che < PDh *the, with *th > ch before e (and i).

In general 'vertical' (in a pile) is used with quantities.

I agree with Rory that the historical form is s^aNkka, a word that appears widely in Eastern North America, so historically a loan, but I imagine that more analytical terms are fairly common.  You can find 'two fours' for 'eight' here and there, and sometimes you find variations like 'sitting on it, two' vs. 'two sixes' , in various languages.   We're used to thinking of number systems as fixed, and our modern arithmetic and commercial traditions insist on it, but in many cultural contexts there's less "standardization" or numerals.

> I looked up ‘nine’ in Carolyn Quitero’s Osage Dictionary, and the first (long) term is the only one she seems to have listed:

                lébrą hce wįįke

This is the same term., of course, with the initial nasal between wiN and (n)iNge 'to lack' omitted.

> Dhegiha *gr- generally goes to l- in Osage and Kaw, but apparently in Maximilian’s time the leading /g/ was still present.  His ‘ä’ and his ‘eh’ apparently both represent what we write as /e/, while the ‘e’ between the ‘b’ and the ‘n’ presumably represents schwa.  The ‘n’ in the first word would be /r/ followed by a nasal vowel.  In Omaha, the corresponding word for ‘ten’ at that time was grébrą, now shortened to grébą.

I agree with all this analysis by Rory.  The corresponding form in Dakotan (wIN)kc^emna(N) shows us that Proto-Siouan 'ten' is something like *kyepraN.  Some people might prefer to think of it as *kyewraN.  I don't think there's any contrast between *pr and *wr except "part of speech," which essentially encodes collections of phonological context.    Except in Dakotan the *Cy and *Cr clusters fall together.

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