Chickasaw language

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Chickasaw language

The Chickasaw language (Chikashshanompa', IPA

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
) is a Native American language of Muskogean

Muskogean languages

Muskogean is an indigenous language family of the Southeastern United States. The Muskogean languages are generally divided into two rough branches, Eastern and Western, though these distinctions are the subject of some debate....
family. It is agglutinative and follows the pattern of Subject Object Verb

Subject Object Verb

In linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb is the type of languages in which the subject , object , and verb of a sentence appear or usually appear in that order....
. The language is closely related to, though perhaps not entirely mutually intelligible with, Choctaw

Choctaw language

The Choctaw language, traditionally spoken by the Native Americans in the United States Choctaw people of the southeastern United States, is a member of the Muskogean languages....
. It is spoken by the Chickasaw

Chickasaw

The Chickasaw are Native Americans in the United States people originally from the Southeastern United States . They are of the Muskogean linguistic group....
tribe, now residing in Southeast Oklahoma

Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a U.S. state and a sovereignty located in the South Central United States and Southern United States of the United States of America ....
, centered around Ada

Ada, Oklahoma

Ada is a city in and the county seat of Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 16,008 at the United States Census, 2000....
.

Sounds
Consonants
Chickasaw has 16 consonant

Consonant

Discussion

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Encyclopedia

The Chickasaw language (Chikashshanompa', IPA

International Phonetic Alphabet

Muskogean languages

Subject Object Verb

Choctaw language

Chickasaw

Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a U.S. state and a sovereignty located in the South Central United States and Southern United States of the United States of America ....
, centered around Ada

Ada, Oklahoma

Ada is a city in and the county seat of Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 16,008 at the United States Census, 2000....
.

Sounds

Consonants

Chickasaw has 16 consonant

Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
s. In the table below, the consonants are written in orthography. The phonetic symbolization of each consonant is written in the International Phonetic Alphabet

International Phonetic Alphabet

Chickasaw Consonants
	Labial Labial consonant Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips or with the lower lip and the upper teeth . English is a bilabial nasal consonant sonorant, and are bilabial stop consonant , and are labiodental fricative consonant....	Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the Dental alveolus of the superior teeth....		Post- alveolar	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the Soft palate)....	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider them to be consonants at all....
		central Central consonant A central or medial consonant is a consonant sound that is produced when air flows across the center of the mouth over the tongue.Examples of central consonants are the voiceless velar plosive , the voiced alveolar fricative and the alveolar nasal ....	lateral Lateral consonant Laterals are "L"-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue....	Post- alveolar
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered soft palate in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the tongue....	m	n
Plosive	p b	t			k
Affricate Affricate consonant Affricate consonants begin as stop consonants but release as a fricative consonant rather than directly into the following vowel....
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two Place of articulation close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German language , the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue ag...	f	s				h
Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and "typical" consonants. In the articulation of approximants, articulatory organs produce a narrowing of the vocal tract, but leave enough space for air to flow without much audible turbulence....			l		w

is labiovelar

Labiovelar consonant

The term labiovelar is ambiguous. It may mean Labial-velar consonant , or it may mean labialization velar consonant .When the manner of articulation is a stop consonant, nasal consonant, or fricative consonant, these are quite different....
.

Voiceless stops have a small amount of aspiration
Aspiration (phonetics)

In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of Earth's atmosphere that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents....
, especially at the beginning of words.
Voiced stops may undergo lenition
Lenition

Lenition is a kind of consonant mutation that appears in many languages. Along with assimilation , it is one of the primary sources of historical linguistics of languages....
to voiced fricatives between vowels.
All consonants except for the glottal stop
Glottal stop

The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound which is used in many Speech communication languages....
may be geminated and most consonants can occur in biconsonantal clusters.

Vowels

Chickasaw has 9 vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
s:

	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....			Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel....			Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
	short	long		short	long		short	long
	oral		nasal Nasal vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the Soft palate so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. The term stands in opposition to the term "oral vowel" refers to an ordinary vowel without this nasalisation....	oral		nasal Nasal vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the Soft palate so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. The term stands in opposition to the term "oral vowel" refers to an ordinary vowel without this nasalisation....	oral		nasal Nasal vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the Soft palate so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. The term stands in opposition to the term "oral vowel" refers to an ordinary vowel without this nasalisation....
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel....
Open Open vowel An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth....

Chickasaw vowels contrast between short and long

Vowel length

In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one such as in Australian English....
oral vowels and between long oral vowels and long nasal

Nasalization

In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the soft palate is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth....
vowels. Short vowels are centralized (see chart): short i is phonetically , short o is phonetically , and short a is phonetically .

caption| **Examples of Chickasaw Vowels**
IPA	Example	Meaning
	pisa	'she looks at him'
	piini'	'boat'
	sinti'	'his snake'
	paska	'bread'
	sahashaa	'I'm angry'
		'hair'
	ofi'	'dog'
	ihoo	'woman'
		'tongue'

Short vowels are also phonetically lengthened when they occur in the second syllable of a sequence of even-numbered open syllables. For example, the word pisali ('I took him') is phonetically . The lengthened short vowel is usually intermediate in length between a short vowel and long vowel. However, the phonetic realization varies depending on the individual speaker and also on phonetic environment. The lengthening does not occur at the end of words and is further restricted by certain morphological criteria.

Prosody

pitch accent
Pitch accent

Pitch accent is a linguistics term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in Pitch to give prominence to a syllable or Mora_ within a word....

Grammar

Verb

Pronominal affixes

Verb arguments (i.e. subject

Subject (grammar)

The subject is one of the two main constituent every sentence can be divided into, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle....
, direct object, indirect object) are indicated with pronominal affix

Affix

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivation , like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed....
es (both prefixes and suffixes) which are added to verb stems

Word stem

In linguistics, a stem is the part of a word that is common to all its inflection variants. Stems are often root , e.g. atomic, its root is atom, but its stem is atom?ic....
. The pronominal affixes are inflected according to number

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
(singular, plural) and person

Grammatical person

Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deixis reference to a participant in an event, such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns....
(1st, 2nd).

Chickasaw has an active-stative pronominal system with two basic series of pronominal sets: an active series (I) and a stative series (II). Additionally, Chickasaw also has dative (III), negative (N), and reciprocal

Reciprocal (grammar)

A reciprocal is a Linguistics structure that marks a particular kind of relationship between two noun phrases. In a reciprocal construction, each of the thematic role occupies both the role of agent and patient with respect to each other....
(IR) series.

The active series is used for active intransitive subjects and active transitive subjects. (An active subject, simply put, is a subject that is in control of the action while a stative subject does not have control of the action. This is the difference between She fell on purpose vs. She fell accidentally where the first she controlled the falling while the second she did not control the falling.) The active series is in the table below:

active
	singular	plural
1st	-li	il- / ii-
2nd	ish-	hash-
3rd	-

The third person lacks an affix and usually does not distinguish between singular and plural. The first person singular affix is a suffix while the other affixes are prefixes. The first person plural has two forms: il- which is used before vowels and ii- which is used before consonants — thus, il-iyya "we go", ii-malli "we jump". An example inflectional paradigm of the verb malli "to jump" is below (with the pronominal affixes underlined):

active affixes indicating subjects
	singular		plural
1st	mallili	"I jump"	iimalli	"we jump"
2nd	ishmalli	"you jump"	hashmalli	"you all jump"
3rd	malli "he/she/it/they jump"

The stative series (II) is below. This series is used to indicate stative intransitive subjects and direct objects.

stative
	singular	plural
1st	sa-	po-
2nd	chi-	hachi-
3rd	-

Example with stative intransitive subjects, lhinko "to be fat":

stative affixes indicating subjects
	singular		plural
1st	salhinko	"I am fat"	polhinko	"we are fat"
2nd	chilhinko	"you are fat"	hachilhinko	"you all are fat"
3rd	lhinko "he/she/it/they is/are fat"

Example with direct objects, pisa "to look at (someone)" (the subject in the paradigm below is unmarked

Markedness

Markedness is a Linguistics concept that developed out of the Prague School. A marked form is a non-basic or less natural form. An unmarked form is a basic, default form....
because it is in the third person):

stative affixes indicating direct objects
	singular		plural
1st	sapisa	"he/she/it/they look at me"	popisa	"he/she/it/they look at us"
2nd	chipisa	"he/she/it/they look at you"	hachipisa	"he/she/it/they look at you all"
3rd	pisa "he/she/it/they look at him/her/it/them"

Both active and stative affixes can occur together in which case the active affix indicates the active subject and the stative affix indicates the direct object. Active prefixes occur before stative prefixes. When ish- "active second person singular" occurs before sa- "stative first person singular", it results in issa- (the sh assimilate

Assimilation (linguistics)

Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word . A common example of assimilation would be "don't be silly" where the and in "don't" become and , where said naturally in many accents and discourse styles ....
s to s). Likewise, hash- "active second person plural" + sa- is realized as hassa-. The full paradigm of pisa "to look at" is below:

active & stative affixes together
verb form	translation	morpheme Morpheme In morpheme-based morphology, a is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantics Meaning .In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes .... segmentation
hachipisali	"I look at you all"	hachi-pisa-li
pisali	"I look at her"	pisa-li
iichipisa	"we look at you"	ii-chi-pisa
iihachipisa	"we look at you all"	ii-hachi-pisa
iipisa	"we look at her"	ii-pisa
issapisa	"you look at me"	ish-sa-pisa
ishpopisa	"you look at us"	ish-po-pisa
ishpisa	"you look at her"	ish-pisa
hassapisa	"you all look at me"	hash-sa-pisa
hashpopisa	"you all look at us"	hash-po-pisa
hashpisa	"you all look at her"	hash-pisa
sapisa	"she looks at me"	sa-pisa
popisa	"she looks at us"	po-pisa
chipisa	"she looks at you"	chi-pisa
hachipisa	"she looks at you all"	hachi-pisa
pisa	"she looks at her"	pisa

Verb grades

verb grades (gemination
Gemination

In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant.Consonant length is distinctive in some languages, for instance Arabic language, Estonian language, Finnish language, Russian language, Hebrew language, Hungarian language, Italian language, Japanese language, L...
, epenthesis
Epenthesis

In phonology, epenthesis is the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word. Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence and anaptyxis ....
)

		foyopa	'to breathe'
		fóyyo'pa	'to give a sigh of relief'
		foyohómpa	'to be breathing'
		foyámpa	'breathing' (at same time as another action)

External links

(pdf)
(pdf)

Bibliography

Gordon, Matthew. (2004). A phonological and phonetic study of word-level stress in Chickasaw. International Journal of American Linguistics, 70 (1), 1-32.

Munro, Pamela; & Willmond, C. (1994). Chickasaw: An analytical dictionary. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.