day

noun time_phase

Proto-Siouan-Catawba

Proto-Siouan *hą́•pe

Proto-Crow-Hidatsa *wa•pE

Crow baapí ‘day, daytime’ RG, GG:21, RGG:37

Hidatsa wá•pi ‘day’ J , má•pi ‘today’ J , wá•pehe , má•pehe

Pre-Mandan

Mandan hą́p ~ hąpé ‘day’ RTC

Proto-Mississipi-Valley *hą́•pE

Proto-Dakota *ą́pa

Lakota ą́pa ‘dawn’ RTC , ąpétu ‘day’

Dakota aŋpé ‘day’ SRR

Yanktonai áñpa ‘day, daylight’ SRR

Stoney ą́ba PAS

Proto-Hoocąk-Chiwere *hą́•pe

Chiwere hą́we ‘day’ RTC , ą́•we ‘day’ RR

Otoe hą́we, hą́•we ‘day’ RR

Hoocąk hą́ąp KM:762 , hąąp

Proto-Dhegiha *hą́•pa

Omaha *ą́ba ‘day’ RR

Ponca ãʹ•ʔba ‘day’ FH

Kanza/Kaw hą́ba, hǫ́ba ‘day’ RR

Osage hóⁿba , †hą́pa ‘day’ LF:63b

Quapaw hǫ́pa, hą́pa ‘day’ RR, JOD

Proto-Southeastern *nąhą́pi

Proto-Biloxi-Ofo *ną́pi

Biloxi náⁿpi, nápi, nap, naⁿp, nowe, náwi , †ną́pi ‘day’ D&S:232a

Ofo nóⁿpi , †ną́pi ‘day’ D&S:327a , nóⁿpi shíhuⁿ , †ną́pi ‘Sunday’ D&S:329a

Proto-Tutelo-Saponi

Tutelo nahambe, nahamp, nahañpe , †nąhąpe ‘day’ H

Proto-Catawba

Catawba ya•p ‘day’ FS

General comment

MRS loses -h- and fuses the (innovated) prefix with the root. The sporadic loss of #h- in MVS is unusual. The Omaha-Ponca and Chiwere forms without initial h- may well be borrowings from Dakota, since of the remaining MVS languages, these are the two most closely associated with Dakota speakers. The Ponca form is from Frida Hahn’s correspondence with Franz Boas (via JEK).

(Hahn, a native speaker of German, had no trouble distinguishing long vowels from short in Omaha-Ponca, and her transcriptions are especially valuable for that reason.) The semantics of the OVS prefix, ną-, is not understood, but cf. oną ‘prairie fire’ as well as the ‘by heat’ instrumental for possibilities. If the prefix were Proto-Siouan the MVS languages should have an initial reflex of *r-h (the product of syncope), but they do not, so we must look upon *ną- as a southeastern innovation. The correspondences here are not those that we reconstruct as *rh in, e.g., ‘stand’ or ‘arrive here vertitive’. This suggests that Tutelo may have remained most faithful to the original with Biloxi and Ofo losing -h- and collapsing the vowel sequence. This is another term in which we have OVS unity opposed to the rest of Siouan.

An alternative hypothesis also has its attractions. If the Proto-Siouan form were *ą́•pE the lack of *h in Crow, Hidatsa, Dakota, Omaha-Ponca, IO, Biloxi, Ofo would need no explanation, and its presence in the other languages could be fairly convincingly ascribed to analogy with ‘night’, q.v., which does have the initial h. Some evidence for this is provided by the term for ‘lightning, sheet (?)’, q.v., in which even more of the languages lack the h-. Catawba also lacks h. Unfortunately loss of h could be regular anyway in Crow/Hidatsa, Biloxi and Ofo, so the hypothesis only aids us in analysis of IO (as opposed to Otoe) and Omaha-Ponca (as opposed to the rest of DH). But these are the languages most influenced by neighboring Dakota, so this counter proposal does not explain as much as one would hope. Dakota is the language that really needs to be explained. One possibility is that the noun is deverbal, as Dakotan appears to lose root-initial h in verbs. Use of this root in various ‘sunrise’ expressions suggests that this hypothesis bears further investigation.

Language Cognate Phonetic Siouan Meaning Comment Sources