mouth

noun physical_somatic_body_part

Proto-Siouan-Catawba

Proto-Siouan *ʔí•he

Proto-Crow-Hidatsa *í•

Crow íi ‘mouth’ RG

Hidatsa í• ‘mouth’ AWJ

Pre-Mandan

Mandan í•h ~ í•he ‘mouth’ RTC

Proto-Mississipi-Valley *ʔi•(ha)

Proto-Dakota *í

Lakota í ‘mouth’ RTC

Dakota í ‘mouth’ SRR:169b

Sioux Valley í pas

Proto-Hoocąk-Chiwere *ʔí•

Chiwere ʔí• ‘mouth’ RTC, RR

Hoocąk íi ‘mouth’ KM:1625 , ii ‘mouth’ JWE , ʔíi- , ii

Proto-Dhegiha *ʔí(-ha)

Omaha-Ponca ʔí ‘mouth’ RTC

Kanza/Kaw i ‘horse’s mouth’ RR , íha ‘mouth, top of mouth’ RR

Osage i , †i ‘mouth’ LF:68a

Quapaw íha ‘mouth’ RR

Proto-Southeastern *i•hi ~ *ihi•

Proto-Biloxi-Ofo *i•hi ~ *ihi•

Biloxi ihí, íhi , †ihi ‘mouth’ D&S:199b

Ofo ī´hi, ihī´ , †í•hi ~ †ihí• ‘mouth’ JSS

Proto-Tutelo-Saponi

Tutelo ihī , †ihi• ‘mouth’ H , īh , †i•h ‘mouth’ H

General comment

Cf. ‘tooth (1), edge, point’, ‘lip’. Kanza/Kaw and Quapaw perhaps come from *ih + *ha, mouth + skin, as in the Lakota iha ‘lips’. Since this is an external body part, it presumably would have been inherently possessed and would have carried the prefix *i- This would yield a reconstruction *i-í-(ha) with ʔ possibly inserted to mark the boundary at some point giving *iʔi-(ha). This might account for the glottal stop that surfaces in several languages and for the long (initial) vowel in languages that typically preserve length (Tutelo, Chiwere, Hoocąk, Crow, Hidatsa, Mandan). This does not explain why a ʔ is inserted here when the more common epenthetic glide is r, however. Cf. ‘chin’.

Language Cognate Phonetic Siouan Meaning Comment Sources