Re: Some Mujai Idioms
| From: | Matthew Pearson <matthew.pearson@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, December 11, 2001, 22:24 |
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--- Tom Wier asks:
Quoting Matthew Pearson <Matthew.Pearson@...>:
> No idioms to contribute right now, but I just wanted to say that I'm
> very proud of the Tokana word for obsidian, "ehunmehtilas"
> [E.hun.mEh.ti.'las]. It means "midnight glass".
I've been meaning to ask you about this: where'd you get
the coda /h/? Is there a story behind that? (Navaho has
that.)
--- end of quote ---
I don't exactly remember now, but I probably stole it from Cree, which I had
studied in a structure of Algonquian class a couple years before beginning
Tokana. Or perhaps I got the idea from Finnish? Both languages made major
contributions to the early phonemic profile of Tokana (the idea of having just
one series of stops, rather than voiced/voiceless pairs, probably came from
Cree as well).
Matt.
Matthew Pearson
Department of Linguistics
Reed College
3203 SE Woodstock Blvd
Portland, OR 97202
503 771 1112 x 7618