Assuming that either -н or -он must be the converbal ending, I've found:
"толло [см. 2-толун]," leading to:
"2-толун, толлор (v). Трусить, робеть, бояться, страшиться, стесняться, не решаться, не сметь, не отваживаться, не дерзать, с Abl."
E. K. Pekarskii, Slovar' Iakutskogo Iazyka. Tom III. Leningrad: Akademiia Nauk SSSR, 1959 [Trudy iakutskoy ekspeditsii, snariazhennoy na sredstva I. M. Sibiriakova. Vypuski 10-13. Leningrad: Izdanie Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1927] s.v. "толло"; "толун".
With this and the context of the passage from Acts, I'm convinced by the "quick, fearful movement" conclusion, but I'm no expert in Sakha, and I might be playing fast and loose with verb forms.
Regarding Biblical linguistic data, I'm reminded of an odd rabbit hole I went down a few years ago. While my wife and I were casually browsing a late-'90s book of 30,000 baby names, I saw one entry that gave the name's origin as "Eskimo" with a meaning of "hyena." I messaged a friend who works in the Alaska Native Languages Archive in Fairbanks, and the only instance of "hyena" that he could find appeared in an Inuktitut translation of the Bible. How or why this word found its way into an otherwise unassuming book of baby names is beyond me.
Amazing, thanks. Indeed, I did manage to figure out after I published this that the verbal root was толун. I should have figured that out sooner.
I usually use Sleptsov's Саха тылын быһаарыылаах тылдьыта, whose 15 volumes are available online here: https://sakhatyla.ru/books
Here's what Sleptsov gives for толун: робеть перед кем-либо, стесняться, бояться кого/чего-либо.
I would think it unlikely that there would be an Indigenous Alaskan word for “hyena”. Though perhaps there's a clue to a solution of the mystery in Philip Johan von Strahlenberg's Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia (1730), who consistently refers to Siberian wolverines as “hyenas” (walruses also get called “hippopotamuses”).
Please do chime back in with relevant linguistic insights as occasions arise. I usually only find ChatGPT willing to discuss such things with me.
Wonderful stuff, as usual. "A real life Suttree" had me cracking up, mainly because the scene with the watermelon in the field is frequently referred to in my family. And the anecdote about the beast's back and the mountain ridge reminds me of a study with illiterate Uzbek villagers where they were asked to describe colours and rather than refer to shade or hue, they said things like "cotton in bloom," "decayed teeth" "sky" and "pistachio." I've always found this metaphorical thinking very moving and, as you say, awesome.
Assuming that either -н or -он must be the converbal ending, I've found:
"толло [см. 2-толун]," leading to:
"2-толун, толлор (v). Трусить, робеть, бояться, страшиться, стесняться, не решаться, не сметь, не отваживаться, не дерзать, с Abl."
E. K. Pekarskii, Slovar' Iakutskogo Iazyka. Tom III. Leningrad: Akademiia Nauk SSSR, 1959 [Trudy iakutskoy ekspeditsii, snariazhennoy na sredstva I. M. Sibiriakova. Vypuski 10-13. Leningrad: Izdanie Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1927] s.v. "толло"; "толун".
With this and the context of the passage from Acts, I'm convinced by the "quick, fearful movement" conclusion, but I'm no expert in Sakha, and I might be playing fast and loose with verb forms.
Regarding Biblical linguistic data, I'm reminded of an odd rabbit hole I went down a few years ago. While my wife and I were casually browsing a late-'90s book of 30,000 baby names, I saw one entry that gave the name's origin as "Eskimo" with a meaning of "hyena." I messaged a friend who works in the Alaska Native Languages Archive in Fairbanks, and the only instance of "hyena" that he could find appeared in an Inuktitut translation of the Bible. How or why this word found its way into an otherwise unassuming book of baby names is beyond me.
Amazing, thanks. Indeed, I did manage to figure out after I published this that the verbal root was толун. I should have figured that out sooner.
I usually use Sleptsov's Саха тылын быһаарыылаах тылдьыта, whose 15 volumes are available online here: https://sakhatyla.ru/books
Here's what Sleptsov gives for толун: робеть перед кем-либо, стесняться, бояться кого/чего-либо.
I would think it unlikely that there would be an Indigenous Alaskan word for “hyena”. Though perhaps there's a clue to a solution of the mystery in Philip Johan von Strahlenberg's Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia (1730), who consistently refers to Siberian wolverines as “hyenas” (walruses also get called “hippopotamuses”).
Please do chime back in with relevant linguistic insights as occasions arise. I usually only find ChatGPT willing to discuss such things with me.
Wonderful stuff, as usual. "A real life Suttree" had me cracking up, mainly because the scene with the watermelon in the field is frequently referred to in my family. And the anecdote about the beast's back and the mountain ridge reminds me of a study with illiterate Uzbek villagers where they were asked to describe colours and rather than refer to shade or hue, they said things like "cotton in bloom," "decayed teeth" "sky" and "pistachio." I've always found this metaphorical thinking very moving and, as you say, awesome.