Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > sci.lang > #131175

Re: Language with recursive name

Show all headers | View raw

On Friday, December 8, 2017 at 11:15:06 PM UTC+13, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2017-12-06, benlizro@ihug.co.nz wrote:
> 
> > On Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 4:06:54 AM UTC+13, Dingbat wrote:
> >> Does this language have a recursive name?
> >> 
> >> Onondaga Nation Language (Onoñdaʔgegáʔ nigaweñoʔdeñʔ
> >>  (IPA: [onũdaʔɡeɡáʔ niɡawẽnoʔdẽʔ], literally "Onondaga is our language")
> >>  is the language of the Onondaga First Nation, one of the original five
> >>  constituent tribes of the League of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee).
> >> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onondaga_language
> >
> > A feature of Onondaga as well as other Iroquoian languages is that
> > words translating nouns are often analyzable as having sentence-like
> > structure. The translation suggests that the second word above means
> > something like "it's our language", or maybe even "we-habitually-speak-it".
> > I wouldn't call this recursion, though. 
> 
> Tautological, maybe?

Don't think so. If my guessing is right, the first word doesn't explicitly
say anything about language. In the closely related Seneca language
I find 
ʔonɔ́taʔkeh 'on the hill, Onondaga reservation'
and with the 'characteristic' suffix:
ʔonɔ́taʔke:-ka:ʔ  'the Onondaga, lit. characterized by 
being on the hill'
(Chafe, Seneca Morphology and Dictionary, 1967)

So if I can try some more speculative paraphrasing, maybe:

"Onondaga-fashion   we-talk-that-way"

(Confession: I actually worked on this language, briefly, when
I was a student. But that was 50 years ago; it would take a while
to dig out my notes, and there might not be anything useful on 
this particular expression. Hence the speculation and reasoning
from collateral sources.)

Back to sci.lang | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar

Thread

Language with recursive name Dingbat <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com> - 2017-12-06 07:06 -0800
  Re: Language with recursive name "benlizro@ihug.co.nz" <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> - 2017-12-06 12:37 -0800
    Re: Language with recursive name Adam Funk <a24061@ducksburg.com> - 2017-12-08 10:12 +0000
      Re: Language with recursive name Helmut Richter <hr.usenet@email.de> - 2017-12-08 11:36 +0100
        Re: Language with recursive name Athel Cornish-Bowden <acornish@imm.cnrs.fr> - 2017-12-08 19:15 +0100
      Re: Language with recursive name "benlizro@ihug.co.nz" <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> - 2017-12-08 03:40 -0800
        Re: Language with recursive name Adam Funk <a24061@ducksburg.com> - 2017-12-12 09:45 +0000

csiph-web