Yuchi language

Last updated
Yuchi
Euchee
Tsoyaha
Native to United States
RegionEast central Oklahoma
Ethnicity1,500 Yuchi (2007) [1]
Native speakers
0 [2]  (2021)
12 L2 speakers (2016) [1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 yuc
Glottolog yuch1247
ELP Yuchi
Yuchi lang.png
Distribution of Yuchi at the time of European contact
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Yuchi or Euchee is the language of the Tsoyaha (Children of the Sun), also known as the Yuchi people, now living in Oklahoma. Historically, they lived in what is now known as the southeastern United States, including eastern Tennessee, western Carolinas, northern Georgia, and Alabama, during the period of early European colonization. Many speakers of the Yuchi language became allied with the Muscogee Creek when they migrated into their territory in Georgia and Alabama. They were forcibly relocated with them to Indian Territory in the early 19th century.

Contents

Some audio tapes in the Yuchi language exist in the collections of the Columbus State University Archives in Columbus, Georgia. [3]

Classification

Cheeaexeco, a Yuchi woman, painted by George Catlin, 1838 George Catlin - Chee-a-ex-e-co, Daughter of Deer without a Heart - 1985.66.310 - Smithsonian American Art Museum.jpg
Cheeaexeco, a Yuchi woman, painted by George Catlin, 1838

Yuchi is classified as a language isolate, because it is not known to be related to any other language. Various linguists have claimed, however, that the language has a distant relationship with the Siouan family: Sapir in 1921 and 1929, Haas in 1951 and 1964, Elmendorf in 1964, Rudus in 1974, and Crawford in 1979. [4]

Geographic distribution

Yuchi is primarily spoken in northeastern Oklahoma, where Yuchi people live in present-day Tulsa, Okmulgee, and Creek counties, within the Muscogee (Creek) Nation's tribal jurisdictional area. [5] In 1997, 12 to 19 elders spoke the language out of an estimated Yuchi population of 1,500 speakers. In 2009, only five fluent speakers, whose first language was not English, remained, and in 2011 only one. [6]

History

Yuchi people lived in Tennessee at the time of European contact. In the early 18th century, they moved to northwestern Georgia in the southeastern United States, under pressure from the powerful Cherokee in Tennessee. There they settled near the Muscogee Creek and were allied with them. In the 1830s, speakers of the Yuchi language were forcibly relocated with the Muscogee people to Indian Territory.

Contradictions in linguistic study and linguistic history

The spoken Yuchi language has changed over time, in part due to relocation. In 1885 in an article in Science, Swiss linguist Albert S. Gatschet wrote about various linguistic idiosyncrasies in Yuchi. He said that adjectives are not expressed with number, but nouns are, by the addition of the particle ha (coming from the original term wahále, meaning many), which made the word essentially plural. He also said that the language was no longer in an archaic state due to the lack of a "dual," and that the language had temporal and personal inflection. [7] Gatschet did much field study and documentation regarding the language. Many of his original vocabulary lists can be found at the National Anthropological Archives or on their website.

In 1907, American Frank G. Speck published Ethnology of Yuchi Indians. He said that Yuchi had only one dialect, that inflection was not a characteristic, and that there were no true plurals. These conclusions contradict Gatschet's published 1885 study. The two authors did agree on linguistic idiosyncrasy, and the case of the third person. [8]

In 1997, the Euchee United Cultural Historical Educational Efforts (E.U.C.H.E.E.) published a work entitled Euchees: Past and Present, providing more current information regarding the language. The organization claimed that there were two currently spoken dialects: the Duck Creek/Polecat and the Bigpond variations, which were spoken by Yuchi people of those communities in Oklahoma. [9] This contradicts Speck's 1907 claim of one dialect.

Current status

Sisters Maxine Wildcat Barnett (left) and Josephine Wildcat Bigler (1921-2016); two of the last elderly speakers of Yuchi, visiting their grandmother's grave in a cemetery behind Pickett Chapel in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. According to the sisters, their grandmother had insisted that Yuchi be their native language. Yuchilanguagespeakers.jpg
Sisters Maxine Wildcat Barnett (left) and Josephine Wildcat Bigler (1921-2016); two of the last elderly speakers of Yuchi, visiting their grandmother's grave in a cemetery behind Pickett Chapel in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. According to the sisters, their grandmother had insisted that Yuchi be their native language.

Due to assimilation into Muscogee and English-speaking culture, only a few elderly speakers of the Yuchi language remain.

In 2000 the estimated number of fluent Yuchi speakers was 15, but this number dwindled to 7 by 2006, [11] 5 by 2010, [12] and 4 by 2013. [12] In 2016, Yuchi elder Josephine Wildcat Bigler died. Speaking Yuchi as her first language, she had been active in recording and preserving the language for future generations. [13] Her sister, Maxine Wildcat Barnett, was the last tribal elder to speak fluent Yuchi, passing away August 27, 2021. [6]

The Yuchi Language Project (YLP) teaches Yuchi classes in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, free of charge. [14] The YLP opened the Yuchi Immersion School in 2018 where English is not spoken, despite an Oklahoma state law passed in 2010 declaring English the state's official language. [15]

The Yuchi people and language are the subject of a chapter in Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages (2003), a book on endangered languages by Canadian writer Mark Abley. [16]

Linguistics

The language had no standard orthography until the 1970s, when linguists James Crawford and Addie George (Yuchi) created a phonetic transliteration. Yuchi people have adopted this to write the language.

Morphosyntax

Yuchi is an agglutinative language, in which words are pieced together from pre-existing morphemes to make entirely new words. The word order of the language is subject–object–verb. [17]

The language uses clitics and particles to express a variety of things, including possessives, cases, affixes, ideas, locatives, instrumentals, simulatives, ablatives, and demonstratives.[ This needs to be seriously expanded upon. Does anyone have more information? ] [18]

Phonology

The language has 49 sounds, 38 of which are consonants, and the remaining 11 are vowels. This number is more than twice that of most Southeastern Native American languages. [19]

Vowels

Yuchi has oral and nasal vowels. Oral vowels are defined as being created by the raising of the soft palate to the nasopharyngeal wall, creating a velopharyngeal space within the oral cavity; nasal vowels, on the other hand, are typically defined as being created by the lowering of the soft palate, allowing air to escape through the nasal cavity. [20]

Two vowel charts appears below. [21] The vowels below represent the phonetic inventory, meaning the set of all (or most) sounds in the language. The phonemic inventory, those sounds which contrastively mark differences in meaning, are highlighted in the list below the vowel charts.

Oral Vowels
Front Central Back
Close i ʊ , u
Close-mid e o
Mid ə
Open-mid ɛ ʌ , ɔ
Open æ , a
Nasal Vowels
Front Central Back
Close ĩ , ɪ̃
Close-mid õ
Mid ə̃
Open-mid ɛ̃ ɔ̃
Open æ̃ , ã

The phonemic vowels of Yuchi are /i,u,e,o,æ,a,ĩ,ẽ,õ,æ̃,ã/; some levels of phonological or morphological variation must therefore be occurring in order for all of the sounds above to be possible.

Phonological variation

Phonological variation often occurs in different kinds of morphological environments. For example, the phoneme /o/ is often pronounced as /ʊ/ in 1st-person singular and impersonal 3rd-person pronouns by Big Pond speakers. Also, the phonemes /a/ and /o/ can become [ə] in unstressed environments. [22]

Length

Vowel length indicates grammatical function, such as superlative or comparative adjective forms or emphasis. It may also indicate contracted morphemes, and thus is not a phonological process but rather a morphological one. [23]

Consonants

Yuchi has been analyzed as having from 19 to 40 consonants, chiefly depending on whether the glottalized and labialized consonants are counted, or considered to be sequences with /ʔ/ and /w/, respectively. Some of the latter are included in the table in parentheses:

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
plain sibilant
Plosive/
Affricate
tenuis p p t t ts ts ch k k ʔ '
aspirated tsʰ tsʰ tʃʰ chʰ
voiced b b d d dz dz j ɡ g
ejective ( p')( t')( tsʼ ts')( tʃʼ ch')( k')
Fricative f f ɬ ł s s ʃ sh h h
Approximant w w l l j y
Nasal m m n n

Stress and intonation

Stress

Stress in Yuchi is fairly regular. All major parts of speech have syllable-final stress, and syllable-initial secondary stress[ does this mean word-final stress, and word-initial secondary stress? ]; also, particles (one-syllable words) are stressed. There are some minimal pairs to be found due to stress; some representative samples include:

[ˈɡopʼa] – "Creek person, tribe" [24]
[ɡoˈpʼa] – "go see someone" [24]
[ˈsɛtˀne] – he sees [25]
[sɛtˈˀne] – she sees [26]
[ʃaˈja] – "weeds" [24]
[ˈʃaja] – "squirrel" [24]

As mentioned above, most nouns have syllable-final primary stress[ again, by syllable does this mean word or morphological unit? ]; there are, however, some regularized exceptions to this rule, the most common of which are nouns with lexicalized suffixes in the stem, which have stress on the penultimate syllable. Also, contractions within compounded nouns have primary stress on the contraction. There are various other exceptions, but the two mentioned above are the most frequent and the most important in helping us to understand why Yuchi nouns often appear to have irregular stress patterns. [27]

Both regular and non-regular stress patterns are exemplified below, all glossed. All data come from Wagner, 1974, unless otherwise noted.

[ɡojalinɛʔ] – young man
[jacɛsiʔ][ clarification needed ][ what is "c"? ] – sparks of fire
[tsɛʔ] – water
[saʔ] – earth
[tsoonɔʔ] – the sun
[ʔaˈɡale] ~ [aɡæle] – today, morning [28]
[tsɛˈkʰale] – misty rain [28]
[kʼɔndi] – meat

Verb stems typically have primary stress on the ultimate syllable, as well. The two major exceptions are reduplicated verbs, which have equal stress on both the last and reduplicated syllables of the stem, and verb compounds with the head root /ju/, in which primary stress is syllable-initial. Some examples include:

[ɡetaʔ] – to hold it up [29]
[taʔtaʔ] – light [26]

Intonation

Intonation varies depending upon the kinds of sentences being uttered. Declarative, negative, and command speech acts have falling intonation, while information questions and yes/no questions have rising pitch. [30] Morphologically, intonation can also change the reception of a word and its intended meaning, as we see in the following example of three different intonation patterns for the word "What": [31]

[wikæ] – "What?" (requesting information)
[wíkæ↘] – "What?" (didn't hear)
[wikæ↘] – "What?" (frightened/surprised)

Contractions

One of the most significant aspects of Yuchi morphophonology is the prevalence of contractions. Contraction should not here be taken to mean only a shortening of words; rather, it is more useful to think of contraction as a deletion of sounds that in turn affects surrounding vowels. [32]

What can be contracted is dependent upon two major factors, the sound which begins the contracted syllable, and the stress of the syllable. In order for a syllable to be contracted, it must begin with a [+sonorant] consonant, that is, a voiced sound with a relatively free passage of air. In Yuchi, this includes sounds such as /n/,/ˀn/,/w/,/ˀw/,/j/,/ˀj/ (where /ˀ/ indicates a glottalized sound),[ why are these not listed among the consonants? ] the fricative /ˀh/,[ clarification needed ] and /ʔ/. A syllable must also be unstressed in order to contract. [33]

Contraction causes phonetic changes in the vowels directly preceding the deleted syllable. In order for Yuchi speakers to understand the grammatical features of the words being used in contracted forms, vowel features alternate to match the deleted sounds. [33] So, for example, if the morpheme /ne/ was contracted, the vowel preceding it would become nasalized to indicate that a nasal sound has been lost.

Contraction must necessarily come before the phonetic change in vowels. For example, consider the following word: [34]

[diˀlɛnɛpʔájɛ] – 'Did you look in the box?'

/nɛ/ can contract here because it is an unstressed syllable beginning with a sonorant: [diˀlɛmpʔájɛ]. CCC clusters are relatively rare, occurring in only six variations as noted by Wolff, [35] four of them beginning with fricatives; such a construction as above would therefore likely be odd to speakers of Yuchi.

Contractions take on several forms and occur in many other environments. Those seeking additional information about the many kinds of contraction in Yuchi are advised to seek out Dr. Mary Linn's "A Grammar of Euchee."

A list of the most commonly contracted morphemes is below, along with their grammatical function. [36]

  • ne- : 2nd-person singular actor
  • we-: 3rd-person non-Yuchi actor or patient, singular or plural
  • 'o-: 3rd-person plural Yuchi actor or patient (women's speech)
  • hi-: 3rd-person inanimate patient, singular or plural
  • ho-: 3rd-person inanimate patient and participant, singular or plural
  • 'yu-: verb root
  • -ne-: habitual aspect
  • -e: active verbalizer

Grammar

Like many Indigenous languages of the Americas, Yuchi grammar is agglutinative. [37] Words are formed by the addition of various prefixes and suffixes to a stem. Yuchi features separate male and female registers [38] and an idiosyncratic noun classification system wherein nominal distinction is made regarding animacy, Yuchi ethnicity, kinship and, for inanimate nouns, shape or spatial position. [39]

Much of the information in this section is drawn from Wagner (1938); some of Wagner's conclusions, particularly regarding his interpretation of Yuchi kinship terminology [40] and certain aspects of his description of Yuchi pronouns, [41] have been disputed.

Verbs

The Yuchi verb consists of a mono- or polysyllabic stem modified almost exclusively by suffixing. [42] Yuchi features attributive verbs, which is to say that the language makes very little distinction between verbs and adjectives as parts of speech. For this reason, Yuchi verbs and adjectives are virtually identical. [43]

Tense

The concept of temporal verb inflection is only weakly realized in Yuchi [44] and corresponds more closely in some cases to aspect rather than tense. The past tense is generally expressed via suffixing of the verb stem. [45]

  • -djin          incomplete past ("ate")
  • -dji'nfwa       complete past ("had eaten")
  • -djinfa'        habitual past ("used to eat")
  • -djinfwadji'n    emphatic past ("happened to eat")
  • -djigo'         uncertain past ("perhaps ate")

There are also two ways of expressing future tense. The first, which usually denotes intentions or events of the immediate future, is expressed by lengthening, stressing and nasalizing the final syllable of the verb stem. The second, pertaining to the distant future, is expressed by the suffix -e'le. [46]

Modality

Modality of the verb is also expressed through suffixing. [47]

  • -no    imperative ("go!")
  • -wo    exhortative ("should go")
  • -go    potential ("might go")
  • -ho    emphatic ("did go")
  • -te    ability ("can go")

Nouns

Nouns are classified according to a broad animate versus inanimate paradigm [48] which is expressed using a variety of article suffixes. Within the animate class, nouns are further subdivided into two sub-classes. The first of these includes all humans belonging to the Yuchi tribe, and is itself further divided according to a very complex system of kinship relations and gendered speech registers. [38] The second sub-class of animate nouns encompasses all human beings outside of the Yuchi tribe, as well as animals, and the sun and moon. [49] The animate (Yuchi) suffixes express a very complex system of kinship and gendered speech [50] in much the same way as do third person pronouns.

Inanimate nouns are divided into three groups: vertical, horizontal, and round objects or those otherwise do not conform to either of the other two groups. [49] Each of these groups is represented by a suffix.

Number

The concept of plurality in Yuchi is not as strongly developed as in English, [51] leading one early descriptivist to claim that Yuchi has "no true plural." [52] Animate nouns can, however, be pluralized by the addition of suffixes that correspond closely to their singular counterparts. Although tribal affiliation and gender distinctions carry over into the plural, kinship does not. [53]

  • -he'no    Yuchi tribe members (male speech)
  • -o'no     Yuchi tribe members (female speech)
  • -we'no   all other animate beings

Inanimate nouns can be made plural by the suffix -ha, which replaces the singular inanimate suffixes listed above. [54]

In addition to suffixing, several words related to kinship are pluralized via reduplication of the stem. [54]

Pronouns

The Yuchi pronoun is extremely complex. [55] Except in a few emphatic forms, [56] the pronoun is always suffixed to a verb or noun stem, and appears in eight distinct sets. [57]

The first pronoun set, termed the Subjective Series, [58] denotes the subject relationship of the pronoun to the verb. [59] Series 1 and 2 are close variations that respectively represent a general and specific object, whereas the "independent series" represents freestanding pronouns. [58]

Subjective Series
Subject Series 1Subject Series 2Independent
1st Person Sing.di-do-di
2nd Person Sing.ne-yo-tse

Third person pronouns follow a complex pattern of kinship and gendered speech that corresponds very closely to the animate noun suffixes.

First person pronouns in the plural are inclusive and exclusive, and there are several kinship-specific third person forms.

Subject Series 1Subject Series 2Independent
1st Person Pl.o- / no-o- / no-odi' / nodi'
2nd Person Pl.a-a'yo-a'dze

A few of the third person singular pronouns double as plural pronouns as well.

The next set, termed the Objective Series, [60] denotes the direct or indirect object relationship of the pronoun to the verb. [61] It otherwise functions identically to the Subjective Series; the two pronoun sets are distinguished by their relative positions within the verb complex. [60]

Objective Series
Direct Series 1Direct Series 2Indirect
1st Person Sing.di-do-di
2nd Person Sing.ne-yo-tse

The third person singular pronouns are identical to those of the Subjective Series.

Direct Series 1Direct Series 2Indirect
1st Person Pl.ondze- / ondzio-ondzio- / nondzio-ontso / nonsto
2nd Person Pl.andze-andzio-aso

As above, the third person plural pronouns are identical to those of the Subjective Series.

Reflexive pronouns

Reflexive pronouns are amalgamations of the Objective Series 1 and Subjective Series 1 ("Reflexive Series 1") or Subjective Series 2 ("Reflexive Series 2") pronouns. [62]

Reflexive Series 1Reflexive Series 2
1st Person Sing.tse di-do'-
2nd Person Sing.nendze ne'-yo'-

Reflexive third person pronouns function the same, in terms of kinship and gendered speech, as their non-reflexive counterparts.

  • hode'- / hondio'-     any male or female Yuchi (used by men and women)
  • siode'- / siodio'-     any younger (for men, related) female (used by men and women)
  • s'iode'- / s'iodio'-     younger male relative (used by women only)
  • e'yode- / eyondio'-   older female relative (used by men and women)
  • ode'- / odio'-        younger unrelated male or any other unrelated person (used by women only)
  • yode'- / yondio'-      any older male relative (used by women only)

Plural reflexive pronouns demonstrate clusivity in the first person, and are identical to non-reflexives in terms of kinship and gendered speech.

Reflexive Series 1Reflexive Series 2
1st Person Pl.ondzeo'- / nondzeno'-ondzeo'- / nondzeno'-
2nd Person Pl.andzea'-andzea'yo-

Plural reflexive pronouns function identically to their non-reflexive counterparts in the third person.

  • hode'- / hondio'-     any male or female Yuchi (used by men and women)
  • ode'- / odio'-        in the plural, refers to any younger Yuchi regardless of kinship or gender (used by women only)
  • yode'- / yondio'-     in the plural, refers to any older Yuchi regardless of kinship or gender (used by women only)

Other affixes

Instrumental prefixes

The relationship between an action and the instrument by which it is carried out is expressed via the prefix hi-. This prefix has become fused in some cases with certain verb stems, forming a sort of instrumental verbal compound of idiomatic meaning. [63]

Locative affixes

The concept of location is important to the Yuchi verb complex. Similar in some ways to the English preposition, these prefixes denote the location or direction of the verb's action. [63]

  • a-      static location
  • ti-      inside of an object
  • f'o-     inside the earth or under water
  • toya-   into water
  • ta-     on top of
  • po-     under
  • kya-    through
  • la-     out of
  • pe-     above or over
  • yu-     up in the air
  • ya-     across

Additionally, there are four very general locative suffixes that can be used in place of the prefixes listed above. [57]

  • -he   on / at / away from
  • -le    along / back to
  • -ke   over there
  • -fa    to / towards

Negation

An entire verbal complex can be negated using one of two prefixes, na- or ha-, both of which are identical in meaning. [64]

Interrogatives

In direct speech wherein the sentence does not begin with an interrogative pronoun, interrogatives are formed with the suffix -le. If the question implies some action in the future, the suffix -yi is used instead. [65]

Notes

  1. 1 2 Simons, Gary F; Fennig, Charles D, eds. (2018). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (21st ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
  2. "'Race against time': Pandemic propels fight to save Native American languages". POLITICO. 13 April 2021. Retrieved 2021-04-13.
  3. "Joseph Mahan Collection (MC 32)". Columbus State University Archives and Special Collections. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  4. Mithun, Marianne. The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
  5. Jackson, Jason Baird (2004). "Yuchi". In Fogelson, Raymond D. (ed.). Handbook of North American Indians: Vol. 14, Southeast. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution. p. 415. ISBN   0-16-072300-0.
  6. 1 2 "'Race against time': Pandemic propels fight to save Native American languages". POLITICO. 13 April 2021. Retrieved 2021-04-13.
  7. Gatschet, Albert S. "The Yuchi Tribe and its Language." Science 5.112 (1885): 253. Print.
  8. Speck, Frank G. Ethnology of Yuchi Indians. Philadelphia: University Museum – UPenn, 1909. Print.
  9. Euchees: Past and Present. Sapulpa, OK. E.U.C.H.E.E., 1997. Print.
  10. "One of the Last Remaining Native Yuchi Speakers Passes". www.culturalsurvival.org. Retrieved 2020-12-13.
  11. Anderton, Alice, PhD. Status of Indian Languages in Oklahoma. Intertribal Wordpath Society. 2006-2009 (retrieved 7 Feb 2009)
  12. 1 2 "Our partners and advisors: The Euchee Language Project". Cultural Survival. Archived from the original on 8 April 2016.
  13. "One of the Last Remaining Native Yuchi Speakers Passes". Cultural Survival. 14 June 2016. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  14. Classes. The Euchee Language Project. (retrieved 7 Feb 2009)
  15. "The Yuchi Language Comes Home | First Nations Development Institute". www.firstnations.org. Retrieved 2023-07-31.
  16. Mark Abley (2005). "4. Unseen And Unheard: Yuchi". Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 53–82. ISBN   0-618-56583-3.
  17. "Euchee Language Project." EucheeLP.org. Euchee Language Project. Web. 12 Sept. 2009.
  18. Wolff, Hans. "Yuchi Phonemes and Morphemes, with Special Reference to Person Markers." International Journal of American Linguistics. 14.4 (1948): 240-43. JSTOR. Library of Congress. Web. 12 September 2009.
  19. Hackett (Woktela), David. "The Yuchi Language Primer; a Brief, Introductory Grammar." www.yuchi.org. Woktela. Web. 12 Sept. 2009
  20. Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, Third Edition. UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p.136
  21. Linn, Mary Sarah. A Grammar of Euchee (Yuchi). Kansas City, Kansas: University of Kansas, 2001., p. 55
  22. Linn, 2001, p. 43
  23. Linn, 2001, 52
  24. 1 2 3 4 Linn, 2001, p. 85
  25. Edmondson, Jerold. "Yuchi." Arlington, Texas: University of Texas at Arlington, 2011. Sound recording.
  26. 1 2 Edmondson, 2011 (recording)
  27. Linn, 2001, pp. 86-87
  28. 1 2 Linn, 2001, p. 87
  29. Wagner, 1974
  30. Linn, 2001, pp. 101-103
  31. Linn, 2001, p.103
  32. Linn, 2001, p. 58
  33. 1 2 Linn, 2001, p. 60
  34. Linn, 2001, p. 62
  35. Wolff, 1948, p. 241
  36. Linn, 2001, p. 59
  37. Speck 1909, p. 16.
  38. 1 2 Gatschet 1885, p. 253.
  39. Wagner, Günter (1938). "Yuchi". In Boas, Franz. Handbook of American Indian Languages – Part 3. Columbia University Press. pp. 300–84.
  40. Speck, Frank G. "Eggan's Yuchi Kinship Interpretations." American Anthropologist 41.1 (1939): 171.
  41. Ballard, William L. "More on Yuchi Pronouns." International Journal of American Linguistics 44.2 (1978): 103-112.
  42. Wagner 1938, p. 312.
  43. Wagner 1938, p. 343.
  44. Speck 1909, p. 15
  45. Wagner 1938, p. 351-2.
  46. Wagner 1938, p. 352.
  47. Wagner 1938, p. 354.
  48. Wagner 1938, p. 320.
  49. 1 2 Wagner 1938, p. 321.
  50. Wagner 1938, p. 326.
  51. Wagner 1938, p. 310.
  52. Speck 1909, p.15.
  53. Wagner 1938, p. 322.
  54. 1 2 Wagner 1938, p. 323.
  55. Wagner 1938, p. 311.
  56. Speck 1909, p. 15.
  57. 1 2 Wagner 1938, p. 324.
  58. 1 2 Wagner 1938, p. 325.
  59. Ballard 1978, p. 103.
  60. 1 2 Wagner 1938, p. 330.
  61. Ballard 1978, p. 104.
  62. Wagner 1938, p. 333.
  63. 1 2 Wagner 1938, p. 358.
  64. Wagner 1938, p. 361.
  65. Wagner 1938, p. 357.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maidu language</span> Extinct Maiduan language of northeastern California, US

Maidu, also Northeastern Maidu or Mountain Maidu, is an extinct Maiduan language of California, United States. It was spoken by the Maidu peoples who traditionally inhabit the mountains east and south of Lassen Peak in the American River and Feather River basins. These river regions include such valleys in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains of California as: Indian Valley, American Valley, Butte Valley, and Big Meadows. Maidu may also refer to the related Konkow and Nisenan languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timucua language</span> Extinct language in Florida and Georgia (U.S.)

Timucua is a language isolate formerly spoken in northern and central Florida and southern Georgia by the Timucua peoples. Timucua was the primary language used in the area at the time of Spanish colonization in Florida. Differences among the nine or ten Timucua dialects were slight, and appeared to serve mostly to delineate band or tribal boundaries. Some linguists suggest that the Tawasa of what is now northern Alabama may have spoken Timucua, but this is disputed.

The Ojibwe language is an Algonquian American Indian language spoken throughout the Great Lakes region and westward onto the northern plains. It is one of the largest American Indian languages north of Mexico in terms of number of speakers, and exhibits a large number of divergent dialects. For the most part, this article describes the Minnesota variety of the Southwestern dialect. The orthography used is the Fiero Double-Vowel System.

Tübatulabal is an Uto-Aztecan language, traditionally spoken in Kern County, California, United States. It is the traditional language of the Tübatulabal, who still speak the traditional language in addition to English. The language originally had three main dialects: Bakalanchi, Pakanapul and Palegawan.

Ixcatec is a language spoken by the people of the Mexican village of Santa María Ixcatlan, in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca. The Ixcatec language belongs to the Popolocan branch of the Oto-manguean language family. It is believed to have been the second language to branch off from the others within the Popolocan subgroup, though there is a small debate over the relation it has to them.

The Owa language is one of the languages of Solomon Islands. It is part of the same dialect continuum as Kahua, and shares the various alternate names of that dialect.

Bororo (Borôro), also known as Boe, is the sole surviving language of a small family believed to be part of the Macro-Gê languages. It is spoken by the Bororo, hunters and gatherers in the central Mato Grosso region of Brazil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maliseet-Passamaquoddy language</span> Algonquian language

Maliseet-Passamaquoddy is an endangered Algonquian language spoken by the Maliseet and Passamaquoddy peoples along both sides of the border between Maine in the United States and New Brunswick, Canada. The language consists of two major dialects: Maliseet, which is mainly spoken in the Saint John River Valley in New Brunswick; and Passamaquoddy, spoken mostly in the St. Croix River Valley of eastern Maine. However, the two dialects differ only slightly, mainly in their phonology. The indigenous people widely spoke Maliseet-Passamaquoddy in these areas until around the post-World War II era when changes in the education system and increased marriage outside of the speech community caused a large decrease in the number of children who learned or regularly used the language. As a result, in both Canada and the U.S. today, there are only 600 speakers of both dialects, and most speakers are older adults. Although the majority of younger people cannot speak the language, there is growing interest in teaching the language in community classes and in some schools.

Hidatsa is an endangered Siouan language that is related to the Crow language. It is spoken by the Hidatsa tribe, primarily in North Dakota and South Dakota.

Old Norse has three categories of verbs and two categories of nouns. Conjugation and declension are carried out by a mix of inflection and two nonconcatenative morphological processes: umlaut, a backness-based alteration to the root vowel; and ablaut, a replacement of the root vowel, in verbs.

Warndarrang (waɳʈaraŋ), also spelt Warndarang, Wanderang, Wandaran, and other variants is an extinct Aboriginal Australian language in the Arnhem family, formerly spoken by the Warndarrang people in southern Arnhem Land, along the Gulf of Carpentaria. The last speaker was Isaac Joshua, who died in 1974, while working with the linguist Jeffrey Heath.

Longgu (Logu) is a Southeast Solomonic language of Guadalcanal, but originally from Malaita.

The grammar of the constructed Na'vi language was created for the movie Avatar by Paul Frommer. It is a tripartite, primarily affixing agglutinative language.

Turkmen grammar is the grammar of the Turkmen language, whose dialectal variants are spoken in Turkmenistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and others. Turkmen grammar, as described in this article, is the grammar of standard Turkmen as spoken and written by Turkmen people in Turkmenistan.