I was wondering about this. I'm not even sure how to render "Bon appetit!"
usefully into English. The analog of the Ojibway form in Omaha-Ponca would
be:
wadha'tha=i=wadhe `let's eat (things)!'
I had to construct this myself, so beware; I've not heard it, though the
utterance is plausible.
At feasts the (male) announcer/m.c. says:
wadha'tha=i ga=ha'=u `eat (things), you-all!'
I've heard this at all of the few feasts that I've attended.
In these a' is the accented (last high pitch) vowel. dh is an edh (more
like a retroflex l), while th is aspirated t. = is a boundary between base
and enclitic. Note that au (in ha=u) sounds like "o". "(things)"
represents the detransitivizing prefix wa-. The stem dhathe' without wa-
requires an object (or implies a pronominal `it'). Note that ga=ha'=u is
the male emphatic imperative.
John Koontz