The Cegiha language [the speech of the Omaha and Ponka tribes of the Siouan linguistic family of North American Indians] (LC History-America-E) [Library Binding]

James Owen Dorsey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1890

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Library Binding
• Publisher: Reprint Services Corp (1890)
• ISBN-10: 0781244382
• ISBN-13: 978-0781244381
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.6 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,010,987 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dorsey's Cegiha Language, March 31, 2000

By 

John E. Koontz (Lafayette, CO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Cegiha language [the speech of the Omaha and Ponka tribes of the Siouan linguistic family of North American Indians] (LC History-America-E) (Library Binding)

This (1890)is one of two large collections of Omaha and Ponca texts prepared by the Rev. James O. Dorsey for the Bureau of American Ethnology (now incorporated in the Smithsonian Institution). The other is Omaha and Ponka Letters (1891), which is a supplement to this. Two or three texts remain in the National Anthropological Archives unpublished. One referred to a Congressman of the time in disparaging terms, and the others were obscene.

This material was part of a slated series, to include also a grammar and a lexicon. These were never published, due to Dorsey's untimely death. The manuscript(s) for the grammar, based loosely on the Riggs Dakota (Santee) grammar can be consulted at the NAA, which also holds the estimated 20,000 slips of Dorsey's Omaha-Ponca lexical files, and numerous other documents accumulated by him in the course of his Siouan work.

The Cegiha language consists of two volumes bound together with a common introduction. The volumes are indexed. Each volume consists of a series of texts in Dorsey's Government Printing Office version of his orthigraphy for Omaha-Ponca. Traditional literary texts come first, then more recent stories shading into historical texts and culminating in letters. Dorsey apparently kept copies of letters of the Omaha-Ponca text of letters that he wrote for members of the two tribes.

The details of the arrangements he made in connection with the letters are unknown, but as Dorsey seems to have been scrupulous in his dealings with the Omaha and Ponca and neither his colleague Francis LaFlesche (an Omaha) or any others at the time or soon after ever made any complaints on this score, I assume this keeping and publication was done with the knowledge of the authors and did not concern them. The letters are especially valuable as historical records, besides presenting contexts for linguistic constructions that might not otherwise be as well exemplified.

Apart from the numerous individual letter dictators (and in one case, writer) with whom Dorsey worked, he worked with a series of Ponca and Omaha individuals, mainly members of or associates of the LaFlesche families. Several Omaha individuals also assisted him in editing the material, and their useful comments, sometimes attributed, are listed in the notes.

Each text is presented in interlinear literal word (or phrase) by word translation, followed by a free translation. Each text has individual end notes and there are also end note series for the two volumes.

The texts have various faults that are due to the technology for recording them (rapid ink pencil handwriting on wrapping paper) or the early state of investigation of Omaha-Ponca and other Siouan languages, and they are not without some printing errors or mistranslations, but they are a priceless linguistic, literary, and historical testament to the Omaha and Ponca people of the 1880s and their neighbors.

In addition, even without Dorsey's numerous other publications, and the large body of fieldnotes, notes, and manuscripts in progress that Dorsey left behind at his death, this volume and its companion would establish Dorsey as scholar of stature, and through Franz Boas, who used this material in seminars with his students, as a seminal influence on American anthropology and linguistics. Student after student of Boas compiled grammars and collected texts in the original on Dorsey's model as a preface to their anthropological investigations, not always willingly, but to the continuing benefit of both the Native American groups involved and subsequent generations of anthropologists and linguists.