Choctaw language
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The Choctaw language, traditionally spoken by the Native American Choctaw people of the southeastern United States, is a member of the Muskogean family. The Choctaw language was well known as a lingua franca of the frontiersmen of the early 19th Century, including eventual American Presidents Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison. The language is very closely related to Chickasaw and some linguists consider the two dialects of a single language, although recent reports indicate that speakers of Choctaw find Chickasaw to be unintelligible.
Dialects
There are three dialects of Choctaw (Mithun 1999):
- "Native" Choctaw on the Choctaw Nation in southeastern Oklahoma
- Mississippi Choctaw of Oklahoma on Chickasaw Nation of south central Oklahoma (near Durwood)
- Choctaw of Mississippi near Philadelphia
Other speakers live near
Tallahassee,
Florida and with the Koasati in
Louisiana.
Phonology
Consonants
Some orthographies use <š> and <č> for /ʃ/ and /ʧ/; others use the digraphs and . /j/ is spelled , and most modern orthographies use to represent the lateral fricative.
Vowels
In closed syllables, [ɪ], [ʊ], and [ə] occur as allophonic variants of /i/, /o/, and /a/. In the orthography, nasalized vowels are usually indicated by underlining the vowel (e.g., <o> represents /õː/), and the allophonic [ʊ] is often written . Some orthographies use and to represent the lax allophones of short /a/ and /o/--that is, [ə] and [ʊ]. These orthographies also use to represent some cases of /iː/, and for others, and also use , , and to represent both the long and short phonemes of /a/, /i/, and /o/.
Grammar
Syllabary
The Choctaw syllabary was adapted from Sequoyah's Cherokee syllabary.
Examples
Some common Choctaw phrases:
- Choctaw: Chahta
- hello: halito
- thank you: yokoke
- what is your name?: Chi hohchifo nanta?
- my name is... sa hohchifo ut...
- yes: a
- no: keyu
- I don't understand: Ak akostinincho
- Do you speak Choctaw?: Chahta imanumpa ish anumpola hinla ho?
See also
Code talkers
External links
References
- Broadwell, George Aaron. (1991). Speaker and self in Choctaw. International Journal of American Linguistics, 57, 411-425.
- Byington, Cyrus. (1915). A dictionary of the Choctaw language. J. R. Swanton & H. S. Halbert (Eds.). Bureau of American Ethnology bulletin 46. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. (Reprinted 1973 & 1978).
- Downing, Todd. (1974). Chahta anompa: An introduction to the Choctaw language (3rd ed.). Durant, OK: Choctaw Bilingual Education Program, Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
- Heath, Jeffrey. (1977). Choctaw cases. Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, 3, 204-213.
- Heath, Jeffrey. (1980). Choctaw suppletive verbs and derivational morphology.
- Howard, Gregg; Eby, Richard; Jones, Charles G. (19991). Introduction to Choctaw: A primer for learning to speak, read and write the Choctaw language. Fayetteville, AR: VIP Pub.
- Jacob, Betty. (1980). Choctaw and Chickasaw. Abstract of paper delivered at the 1978 Muskogean conference. International Journal of American Linguistics, 46, 43.
- Jacob, Betty; Nicklas, Thurston Dale; & Spencer, Betty Lou. (1977). Introduction to Choctaw. Durant, OK: Choctaw Bilingual Education Program, Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
- Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
- Munro, Pamela. (1987). Some morphological differences between Chickasaw and Choctaw. In P. Munro (Ed.), Muskogean linguistics (pp. 119-133). Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, Department of Linguistics.
- Munro, Pamela (Ed.). (1987). Muskogean linguistics. UCLA occasional papers in linguistics (No. 6). Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, Department of Linguistics.
- Nicklas, Thurston Dale. (1974). The elements of Choctaw. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor).
- Nicklas, Thurston Dale. (1975). Choctaw morphophonemics. In J. Crawford (Ed.), Studies in southeastern Indian languages (pp. 237-249). Athens: University of Georgia.
- Nicklas, Thurston Dale. (1979). Reference grammar of the Choctaw language. Durant, OK: Choctaw Bilingual Education Program, Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
- Pulte, William. (1975). The position of Chickasaw in Western Muskogean. In J. Crawford (Ed.), Studies in southeastern Indian languages (pp. 251-263). Athens: University of Georgia.
- Ulrich, Charles H. (1986). Choctaw morphophonology. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles).
- Ulrich, Charles H. (1987). Choctaw g-grades and y-grades. In P. Munro (Ed.), Muskogean linguistics (pp. 171-178). Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, Department of Linguistics.
- Ulrich, Charles H. (1987). Choctaw verb grades and the nature of syllabification. In A. Bosch, B. Need, & E. Schiller (Eds.), Papers from the 23rd annual regional meeting. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
- Ulrich, Charles H. (1988). The morphophonology of Choctaw verb roots and valence suffixes. In W. Shipley (Ed.), In honor of Mary Haas: From the Haas Festival conference on Native American linguistics (pp. 805-818). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 0-8992-5281-8.
- Ulrich, Charles H. (1994). A unified account of Choctaw intensives. Phonology, 2, 325-370.
- Watkins, Ben. (1892). Complete Choctaw definer: English with Choctaw definition. Van Buren, AR: J. W. Baldwin. (Reprinted 1972).
- Wright, Allen. (1880). Chahta leksikon: A Choctaw in English definition for the Choctaw academies and schools. St. Louis: Presbyterian Publishing Co.
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