Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 April 19

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April 19

Yakari

As there was a question about a Franco-Belgian comic series quite recently, I had another (albeit hypothetical) question. In the eponymous series, the main character's name is Yakari (French pronunciation being something like [jaka:ʁi], I think), a Sioux Native American, apparently of the Lakota tribe. But I don't think there ever has been any given meaning for the name. In the series Buddy Longway, creator Derib includes another Sioux woman named Chinook, which allegedly is from a whole other language, so despite Derib's self-professed admiration for the tribe, he might often have been relatively loose with actual facts (in a well-meaning hippie way). So, anyway, it's a two point question. If someone familiar with the Lakota language, could come up with a believable Lakota name that could have been mangled into French [jaka:ʁi], or if not, any probable source from where artist Derib or writer Job could have picked up the name? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 07:35, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Our article Yakari#Characters says: 'Yakari is also the only Sioux in the comic whose name does not mean anything further'.

names.org has a post saying: 'A user from Texas, U.S. says the name Yakari is of Native American origin and means "One with nature"' (pinch of salt required for that). Alansplodge (talk) 13:19, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Our Lakota language#Consonants suggests a lack of any kind of "r" sound in the Lakota phonology. Alansplodge (talk) 13:31, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Lakota does seem to have the same "guttural r" as French, though. And the article claims "The voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/ becomes a uvular trill ([ʀ]) before /i/." But still, would [jaka:ʀi] mean anything other than nonsense in Lakota? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:59, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

And the uvular trill occurs in dialectal French.  --Lambiam 14:02, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

From what I can see, [ʁ]/[ʀ] is spelled as ǧ in the most widespread Lakota orthography. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:06, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

There's a word wikt:khąğí meaning "crow". I have no idea whether it's connected to the character's name. --Amble (talk) 18:22, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Might be the best guess so far. I'm not really expecting an answer, unless Derib or Job has mentioned something in an interview, though. I come to think of the Crow people, although it's hypothetized that their name originally referred to the thunderbird. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:49, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, by wikt:yaŋká (to sit) and wikt:khąğí (crow), you can sort of derive the compound "Sitting Crow", although it's very strained, even disregarding the fact that I know nothing about Lakota morphology and semantics. This dictionary seems pretty good, although it's difficult to look up words by the letter. Anyway, I think the discussion has been interesting so far. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:02, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Wild guess: wikt:yacare from Tupi. There are Brazilian and Argentinian derivations. --Error (talk) 18:51, 19 April 2022 (UTC)