Re: infix(Lakota gloss included)

In a message dated 3/21/01 7:14:51 PM Central Standard Time, smithma@UCLA.EDU
writes:


> On Wed, 21 Mar 2001, Brandon Denny wrote:
>
> > Lakota has changed roughly three times in the past 150 years.  The first
> time
> > it was changed to make the writting of it easier, but the second drift
> > emphasized a more anglicized word order.
>
> Really? I'm sure you know more than I do, but the Lakhota speaker that
> works with people here at UCLA definitely doesn't have an "anglicized"
> word order. She is very consistently SOV, and does not really like to
> change orders around too much. Her demonstratives follow the nouns they
> modify, and her relative clauses are internally headed.
>
> So this makes me curious -- in what way has Lakhota word order been
> changed?
>
> Marcus
>
Well, in line with the original topic I had meant that Lakota has mostly
stopped using infixes, turining them to prefixes and suffixes, and began to
detach them from the verb form.
I should have been a lttle clearer about that part, sorry.
Also Lakota is is different depending on who teaches you.  Colorado U teaches
a form is very static and spells Lakota as Lahkota kola as khola etc., wheras
at the OLC In Pine Ridge, it is more dynamic  and they skip the additional H
(which is apparently meant to be sounded) in most words.
(Word order is basically the same, but some are different, what the exact
differences are I am unclear but I've disscussed it with proponents of both
styles-unfortunatly I am more into the culture/history of the Lakota, and am
by no means fluent in the language).
The process of writing the language, and developing teaching styles has
changed the language also.  My g-g-gramp's writings are fairly well known,
and his writings are considered archaic sounding, or at least stilted by the
native speakers I know.
My grampa would always use the -ma- infix, but his pronounciation of Lamakota
yelo sounded more like "lom-kod-a ye-luh", which when he came to speak to a
class at the U here in Nebraska confused the heck out of the students.  He
also had the somewhat annoying tendancy of including long pauses and skipping
the use of the yelo/welo enclitic for longer speech, which caused all sort of
chaos when I was first learning:)
On the Reservations Pine Ridge Lakota sounds different from other Lakota
resevations.  The Lakota were originally divided into seven groups, and the
largest, the Oglala, was further divided into seven.  Each group had certain
conventions understood by its constituent and usually by others (however
OmaHa was Lakota once, and although they lived next and with us for the time
of that split, there language is very different), and as modern Lakota
language studies are meant to teach non-native speakers (those who did not
grow up with it) different grammers have been developed that tried to include
the majority of conventions, but they still hang in there in certain
groupings.  A major difference was the so-called shamen's language which was
Lakota vocabulary with some (unknown unfortunatly) different structure and
maybe an additional word class for certain nouns.  As most of the earlier
writers had at least some "shaminic" training this probably influenced there
writing styles.

Brandon DW

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