Arikara language

Last updated
Arikara
Sáhniš
Native to United States
RegionNorth-central North Dakota
Ethnicity792 Arikara (2010 census) [1]
Native speakers
10 (2007) [2]
Caddoan
Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3 ari
Glottolog arik1262
ELP Arikara
Linguasphere 64-BAA-a
Arikara lang.png
Arikara language distribution
Lang Status 20-CR.svg
Arikara is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Arikara is a Caddoan language spoken by the Arikara Native Americans who reside primarily at Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Arikara is close to the Pawnee language, but they are not mutually intelligible.

Contents

The Arikara were apparently a group met by Lewis and Clark in 1804; their population of 30,000 was reduced to 6,000 by smallpox. [3]

History

For several hundred years, the Arikara lived as a semi-nomadic people on the Great Plains in present-day United States of America. They are believed to have separated as a people from the Pawnee in about the 15th century. The Arzberger site near present-day Pierre, South Dakota, designated as a National Historic Landmark, is an archeological site from this period, containing the remains of a fortified village with more than 44 lodges.

Arikara man, wearing a bearskin, 1908 Bear's Belly by Edward Curtis, 1908.jpg
Arikara man, wearing a bearskin, 1908

During the sedentary seasons, the Arikara lived primarily in villages of earth lodges. While traveling or during the seasonal bison hunts, they erected portable tipis as temporary shelter. They were primarily an agricultural society, whose women cultivated varieties of corn (or maize). The crop was such an important staple of their society that it was referred to as "Mother Corn".

Traditionally an Arikara family owned 30–40 dogs. The people used them for hunting and as sentries, but most importantly for transportation in the centuries before the Plains tribes adopted the use of horses in the 1600s. Many of the Plains tribes had used the travois, a lightweight transportation device pulled by dogs. It consisted of two long poles attached by a harness at the dog's shoulders, with the butt ends dragging behind the animal; midway, a ladder-like frame, or a hoop made of plaited thongs, was stretched between the poles; it held loads that might exceed 60 pounds. Women also used dogs to pull travois to haul firewood or infants. The travois were used to carry meat harvested during the seasonal hunts; a single dog could pull a quarter of a bison. [4]

In the late 18th century, the tribe suffered a high rate of fatalities from smallpox epidemics, which so reduced their population as to disrupt their social structure. [5] Due to their reduced numbers, the Arikara started to live closer to the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes in the same area for mutual protection. They migrated gradually from present-day Nebraska and South Dakota into North Dakota in response to pressure from other tribes, especially the Sioux, and European-American settlers. During the Black Hills War, in 1876 some Arikara served as scouts for Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer in the Little Bighorn Campaign.

The three tribes are settled on the Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota.

Phonology

Consonants

Arikara has the following consonant phonemes: [6] Notably, it is one of the very few languages without [m].

Labial Alveolar Post-
alveolar
Velar Glottal
Stop ptc [t͡ʃ]kʔ
Fricative sʃxh
Nasal n
Approximant wr

Arikara distinguishes between the affricate [t͡ʃ] and the consonant cluster /t+ʃ/:

Voiced consonants in Arikara have voiceless allophones. Whenever a sonorant precedes a devoiced vowel, that sonorant devoices as well.

Vowels

Arikara also has the following vowel phonemes:

   Short    Long  
Front Back FrontBack
High iu
Mid eo
Low a

Current status

Arikara is now spoken in North Dakota by a very few elders. One of the last fluent speakers, Maude Starr, died on January 20, 2010. [8] She was a certified language teacher who participated in Arikara language education programs. [9] Language revitalization efforts are continuing. As of 2014, speakers are centered on White Shield, North Dakota. The language is taught at Fort Berthold Community College, White Shield School, and at the Arikara Cultural Center. [10]

Arikara is extensively documented, with several volumes of interlinear texts of Arikara stories, [11] a learner's introductory text, [12] and linguistic studies. [13] As of 2014, iPhone and iPad Arikara language apps are available. [10]

The language is used in the 2015 film The Revenant starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass, a mountain man who interacted with Arikara people and learned the language in the 19th century. [14] [15]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allophone</span> Phone used to pronounce a single phoneme

In phonology, an allophone is one of multiple possible spoken sounds – or phones – used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plosive and the aspirated form are allophones for the phoneme, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in some languages such as Central Thai. Similarly, in Spanish, and are allophones for the phoneme, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arapaho</span> Native American tribe

The Arapaho are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lakota people</span> Indigenous people of the Great Plains

The Lakota are a Native American people. Also known as the Teton Sioux, they are one of the three prominent subcultures of the Sioux people, with the Eastern Dakota (Santee) and Western Dakota (Wičhíyena). Their current lands are in North and South Dakota. They speak Lakȟótiyapi—the Lakota language, the westernmost of three closely related languages that belong to the Siouan language family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pawnee people</span> Indigenous people of the Great Plains

The Pawnee are a Central Plains Indian tribe that historically lived in Nebraska and northern Kansas but today are based in Oklahoma. They are the federally recognized Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, who are headquartered in Pawnee, Oklahoma. Their Pawnee language belongs to the Caddoan language family, and their name for themselves is Chatiks si chatiks or "Men of Men".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White Shield, North Dakota</span> CDP in North Dakota, United States

White Shield is a census-designated place (CDP) lying within the boundaries of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation. It is located "on" the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in McLean County, North Dakota, United States. The population was 336 at the 2010 census. It is considered the primary community of the Arikara (Sahnish) people and is named for Chief White Shield.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tipi</span> Type of Native American tent

A tipi or tepee is a conical lodge tent that is distinguished from other conical tents by the smoke flaps at the top of the structure, and historically made of animal hides or pelts or, in more recent generations, of canvas stretched on a framework of wooden poles. The loanword came into English usage from the Dakota language and Lakota language.

The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, also known as the Three Affiliated Tribes, is a Native American Nation resulting from the alliance of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara peoples, whose native lands ranged across the Missouri River basin extending from present day North Dakota through western Montana and Wyoming.

Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds. Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless or voiced.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hidatsa</span> Native American ethnic group

The Hidatsa are a Siouan people. They are enrolled in the federally recognized Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Their language is related to that of the Crow, and they are sometimes considered a parent tribe to the modern Crow in Montana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arikara</span> Ethnic group

Arikara, also known as Sahnish, Arikaree, Ree, or Hundi, are a tribe of Native Americans in North Dakota. Today, they are enrolled with the Mandan and the Hidatsa as the federally recognized tribe known as the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caddoan languages</span> Family of Native American languages

The Caddoan languages are a family of languages native to the Great Plains spoken by tribal groups of the central United States, from present-day North Dakota south to Oklahoma. All Caddoan languages are critically endangered, as the number of speakers has declined markedly due to colonial legacy, lack of support, and other factors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mandan</span> Native American tribe of the Great Plains

The Mandan are a Native American tribe of the Great Plains who have lived for centuries primarily in what is now North Dakota. They are enrolled in the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation. About half of the Mandan still reside in the area of the reservation; the rest reside around the United States and in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plains Indians</span> Native Americans/First Nations peoples of the Great Plains of North America

Plains Indians or Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies are the Native American tribes and First Nation band governments who have historically lived on the Interior Plains of North America. While hunting-farming cultures have lived on the Great Plains for centuries prior to European contact, the region is known for the horse cultures that flourished from the 17th century through the late 19th century. Their historic nomadism and armed resistance to domination by the government and military forces of Canada and the United States have made the Plains Indian culture groups an archetype in literature and art for Native Americans everywhere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caddo language</span> Endangered language of the southern US

Caddo is a Native American language, the traditional language of the Caddo Nation. It is critically endangered, with no exclusively Caddo-speaking community and as of 2023 only two speakers who had acquired the language as children outside school instruction, down from 25 speakers in 1997. Caddo has several mutually intelligible dialects. The most commonly used dialects are Hasinai and Hainai; others include Kadohadacho, Natchitoches and Yatasi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pawnee language</span> Endangered Caddoan language of Oklahoma, US

The Pawnee language is a Caddoan language traditionally spoken by Pawnee Native Americans, currently inhabiting north-central Oklahoma. Historically, the Pawnee lived along the Platte River in what is now Nebraska.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site</span> National Historic Site of the United States in North Dakota

The Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, which was established in 1974, preserves the historic and archaeological remnants of bands of Hidatsa, Northern Plains Indians, in North Dakota. This area was a major trading and agricultural area. Three villages were known to occupy the Knife area. In general, these three villages are known as Hidatsa villages. Broken down, the individual villages are Awatixa Xi'e, Awatixa and Big Hidatsa village. Awatixa Xi'e is believed to be the oldest village of the three. The Big Hidatsa village was established around 1600.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Berthold Indian Reservation</span> Indian reservation in the United States

The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation is a U.S. Indian reservation in western North Dakota that is home for the federally recognized Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, also known as the Three Affiliated Tribes. The reservation includes lands on both sides of the Missouri River. The tribal headquarters is in New Town, the 18th largest city in North Dakota.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Like-a-Fishhook Village</span> Former settlement in North Dakota, United States

Like-a-Fishhook Village was a Native American settlement next to Fort Berthold in North Dakota, United States, established by dissident bands of the Three Affiliated Tribes, the Mandan, Arikara and Hidatsa. Formed in 1845, it was also eventually inhabited by non-Indian traders, and became important in the trade between Natives and non-Natives in the region.

The Assiniboine language is a Nakotan Siouan language of the Northern Plains. The name Assiniboine comes from the term Asiniibwaan, from Ojibwe, meaning 'Stone Siouans'. The reason they were called this was that Assiniboine people used heated stone to boil their food. In Canada, Assiniboine people are known as Stoney Indians, while they called themselves Nakota or Nakoda, meaning 'allies'.

In phonology, voicing is a sound change where a voiceless consonant becomes voiced due to the influence of its phonological environment; shift in the opposite direction is referred to as devoicing or desonorization. Most commonly, the change is a result of sound assimilation with an adjacent sound of opposite voicing, but it can also occur word-finally or in contact with a specific vowel.

References

  1. "2010 Census CPH-T-6. American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes in the United States and Puerto Rico: 2010" (PDF). census.gov. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
  2. "UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in danger". www.unesco.org. Retrieved 2018-05-24.
  3. "Arikara" . Retrieved 2015-08-29.
  4. Fiedel, Stuart J. (2005). "Man's best friend – mammoth's worst enemy? A speculative essay on the role of dogs in Paleoindian colonization and megafaunal extinction," World Archaeology, 37:1, 15—16
  5. "Lewis and Clark . Native Americans. Arikara Indians". pbs.org. Archived from the original on January 15, 2010. Retrieved January 28, 2010.
  6. Parks, Douglas R., Janet Beltra, & Ella P. Waters (1979). Introduction to the Arikara Language. Bismarck, ND: Mary College.
  7. 1 2 3 4 AISRI Online Arikara Dictionary. Available online at http://zia.aisri.indiana.edu/~dictsearch/. Accessed 12-27-2015
  8. "Tribe mourns loss of fluent Arikara speaker". nativetimes.com. Retrieved 2010-01-29.
  9. "MHA Nation – Three Affiliated Tribes". www.mhanation.com. Archived from the original on 2011-06-14. Retrieved 2010-01-28.
  10. 1 2 Rudy, Dan (2014-04-20). "Arikara app aims to revitalize language". Minot Daily News, via KansasCity.com. Retrieved 2014-04-26.
  11. Parks, Douglas R.; Alfred Morsette (1991). Traditional Narratives of the Arikara Indians: Stories of Alfred Morsette, interlinear linguistic texts . U of Nebraska Press. ISBN   978-0-8032-3691-2.
  12. Douglas R. Parks (1998). Sáhniš wakuúnuʼ: An introduction to the Arikara language. (Roseglen, N.D): White Shield School District. Retrieved 2010-01-28.
  13. Merlan, Francesca (1975). Noun-verb relationships in Arikara syntax. University of New Mexico.
  14. Morin, Brandi (Jan 7, 2016). "Meet the man who taught Leonardo DiCaprio to speak the Arikara language in The Revenant" . Retrieved Apr 14, 2021.
  15. Lee, Stephen (11 January 2016). "Arikara man was adviser on DiCaprio's "The Revenant"". Capital Journal. Retrieved Apr 14, 2021.