Apalachee language

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Apalachee
Native to United States
Region Florida
Ethnicity Apalachee
Extinct early 18th century
Muskogean
  • Eastern
    • Apalachee
Language codes
ISO 639-3 xap
Glottolog apal1237

Apalachee was a Muskogean language of Florida. It was closely related to Koasati and Alabama. [1] Apalachee was found to belong to the same branch of the Muskogean family as Koasati, Alabama, and Hitchiti. [2] Apalachee was originally spoken in western Florida, but is believed to have last been spoken in the nineteenth century by Apalachee people that had been removed to Louisiana. [3] : 11 

Contents

History

The language is known primarily from one document, a letter written in 1688 to Charles II of Spain. The original version of that letter is lost, but a copy published in 1860 survives. Additional Apalachee texts are said to have existed in archives in Havana but they have never been located. [4] : 136 

The letter is accompanied by a loose Spanish translation, from which some aspects of Apalachee have been inferred. Related Muskogean languages have also been used to help understand the structure of Apalachee. [4] : 136–137  [5] : 388  Geoffrey Kimball produced a grammatical sketch [4] and a vocabulary of the language [5] based on these resources.

Apalachee is one of only three indigenous languages from its region to have any surviving documentation, alongside Timucua and Calusa. [3] : 28 

Phonology

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n
Plosive plain p t tʃ k ⟨c, g, q⟩
voiced b
Fricative plain f s h
lateral ɬ ⟨lz⟩
Approximant w ⟨gu, w⟩ l j ⟨y⟩

Orthography is only shown where it differs from the IPA.

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i
Close-mid o
Open a

Vowels may also be elongated. [4] : 138 

Grammar

Apalachee relies on fixed word order (subject–object–verb) rather than case marking to specify the subject and object of a sentence. Apalachee does have some case markings, but does not rely on them to the same degree that other Muskogean languages do. [4] : 139 

There is significant affixation in Apalachee morphology. Possession and pluralization are both marked by affixes on the noun. Objects can be marked on the verbs by prefixes. [4] : 140–141, 147  Derivational affixes are attested for both nouns and verbs, including distributive and causative markers. [4] : 153, 156 

References

  1. ↑ Broadwell, George A. (1992). Reconstructing Proto-Muskogean Language and Prehistory: Preliminary results (PDF). 3, en. 2. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 7, 2006.
  2. ↑ Haas, Mary R. (April 1949). "The Position of Apalachee in the Muskogean Family". International Journal of American Linguistics. 15 (2). University of Chicago Press: 121–127. doi:10.1086/464031.
  3. 1 2 Goddard, Ives (2005). "The Indigenous Languages of the Southeast". Anthropological Linguistics. 47 (1): 1–60. ISSN   0003-5483 . Retrieved May 18, 2026.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kimball, Geoffrey (April 1987). "A Grammatical Sketch of Apalachee". International Journal of American Linguistics. 53 (2). University of Chicago Press: 136–174. doi:10.1086/466050. JSTOR   1265142.
  5. 1 2 Kimball, Geoffrey (October 1988). "An Apalachee Vocabulary". International Journal of American Linguistics. 54 (4). University of Chicago Press: 387–398. doi:10.1086/466093. JSTOR   1265100.
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