Choctaw language

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Choctaw language

The Choctaw language, traditionally spoken by the Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii....
Choctaw

Choctaw

The Choctaw are a Native Americans in the United States people originally from the Southeastern United States . They are of the Muskogean languages group....
people of the southeastern United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
, is a member of the Muskogean family

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....
. The Choctaw language was well known as a lingua franca

Lingua franca

A lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues....
of the frontiersmen of the early 19th century, including eventual American President

American president

American president may refer to:*President of the United States - The President of the United States*The American President - A Romantic Comedy surrounding a fictional President of the United States and his attempts to win over an attractive lobbyist...
s Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States . He was List of governors of Florida of Florida , commander of the American forces at the Battle of New Orleans , and eponym of the era of Jacksonian democracy....
and William Henry Harrison

William Henry Harrison

William Henry Harrison was an Military history of the United States and Politics of the United States, the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States, and the first president to die in office....
. The language is very closely related to Chickasaw

Chickasaw language

The 'Chickasaw language' is a Native American languages of Muskogean languages family. It is agglutinative and follows the pattern of Subject Object Verb....
and some linguists

Linguistics

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Encyclopedia

The Choctaw language, traditionally spoken by the Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Choctaw

United States

Muskogean languages

Lingua franca

American president

Andrew Jackson

William Henry Harrison

Chickasaw language

The 'Chickasaw language' is a Native American languages of Muskogean languages family. It is agglutinative and follows the pattern of Subject Object Verb....
and some linguists

Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
consider the two dialects of a single language, although recent reports indicate that speakers of Choctaw find Chickasaw to be unintelligible. The old Choctaw alphabet consists of 21 letters, two diphthongs, and four nasalized vowels; the Modern has 26 characters. The Choctaw language does not contain any "r" based sounds.

Orthography

The written Choctaw language is based upon English version of the Roman alphabet and was developed in conjunction with the civilization program of the United States in the early 1800s. Although there are other variation of the Choctaw alphabet, the three most commonly seen are the Byington (Original ), Byington/Swanton (Linguistic), and Modern (Mississippi Choctaw).

Byington (Original)

Byington/Swanton (Linguistic)

Modern (Mississippi Choctaw)

Modern (linguistic variant)

Many publications by linguists about the Choctaw language use a slight variant of the "modern" orthography listed here, where long vowels are written as doubled. In the "Linguistic" version, the acute accent shows the position of the pitch accent, rather than the length of the vowel.
The discussion of Choctaw grammar below uses the linguistic variant of the orthography.

Dialects

There are three dialects of Choctaw (Mithun 1999):

"Native" Choctaw on the Choctaw Nation
Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma is a semi-autonomy Native Americans in the United States homeland that maintains a special relationship with both the United States government and Government of Oklahoma governments, where approximately 250,000 people live in....
in southeastern Oklahoma
Mississippi Choctaw of Oklahoma on Chickasaw Nation
Chickasaw Nation

The Chickasaw Nation is a Native Americans in the United States nation that was part one of the Five Civilized Tribes in the United States. The Five Civilized Tribes were differentiated from other Indian reservations in that they had semi-autonomous constitutional governments and delegates in the U.S....
of south central Oklahoma (near Durwood)
Choctaw of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians
Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians

The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is a Native American tribe whose members are of [Choctaw]] ancestry. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 allowed them to become re-organized on April 20, 1945....
near Philadelphia, Mississippi
Philadelphia, Mississippi

Philadelphia is the county seat of Neshoba County, Mississippi, Mississippi, United States. With a population of 7,303 at the 2000 census, Philadelphia is most noted for the racial violence, murders, and other civil rights violations that occurred in the mid 1960s....

Other speakers live near Tallahassee, Florida

Florida

Florida is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the northeast....
, and with the Koasati in Louisiana

Louisiana

The State of Louisiana is a U.S. state located in the U.S. Southern States of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans....
, and also a few speakers live in Texas

Texas

Texas is a U.S. state located in the South Central United States, nicknamed the Lone Star State. Texas is the second largest U.S. state in both area and population, spanning , and with a growing population of 24.3 million residents....
and California

California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
.

Phonology

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....	Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate . Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex consonant....	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....
Plosive	p, b	t		k
Affricate
Fricative	f	s			h
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.... fricative
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
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....		l
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....			j	w

Some orthographies use <š> and for and ; others use the digraphs and . /j/ is spelled , and most modern orthographies use to represent the lateral fricative.

Vowels

	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....
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....	i, ,
Close-mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel....			o, ,
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....		a, ,

In closed syllables, , , and occur as allophonic

Allophone

In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words: That is, changing a phoneme in a word can produce another word....
variants of /i/, /o/, and /a/. In the orthography, nasalized vowels are usually indicated by underlining the vowel (e.g., o_ represents ), and the allophonic is often written . The traditional orthography (used in the Choctaw New Testament) uses and to represent the lax allophones of short /a/ and /o/--that is, and . This orthographies also use to represent some cases of , and for others, and also use , , and to represent both the long and short phonemes of /a/, /i/, and /o/.

Morphology and grammar

Verbal morphology
Choctaw verbs display a wide range of inflectional and derivational morphology. In Choctaw, the category of verb may also include words that would be categorized as adjectives or quantifiers in English. Verbs may be preceded by up to three prefixes and followed by as many as five suffixes. In addition, verb roots may contain infixes that convey aspectual information.

Verb prefixes
The verbal prefixes convey information about the arguments of the verb—how many there are and their person and number features. The prefixes can be divided into three sorts: agreement markers, applicative markers, and anaphors
Anaphora (linguistics)

In linguistics, anaphora is an instance of an expression referring to another.In general, an anaphoric expression is represented by a pro-form or some kind of deixis....
(reflexives and reciprocals). These prefixes occur in the following order:

Agreement-Anaphor-Applicative-Verb Stem

Agreement affixes
The agreement affixes are shown in the following chart. All but one of them are prefixes, only (-li) is a suffix.

I II III N
1st sg. (-li) sa- am-/a- ak-
2nd sg ish- chi- chim-/chi- chik-
1st pl. il-/ii- pi- pim-/pi- kil-/kii-
2nd pl. hash- hachi- hachim-/hachi- hachik-
unmarked Ø Ø im/i- ik-

I, II, and III are neutral labels for the three person marking paradigms. Some authors have called them Actor/Patient/Dative or Nominative/Accusative/Dative.
The 1sg I agreement marker is /-li/, the only suffix among the agreement markers. It is discussed in this section along with the other agreement markers.
I, II, and III agreement are conditioned by various kinds of arguments. Transitive active verbs show the most predictable pattern. With a typical transitive active verb, the subject will take I agreement, the direct object will take II agreement, and the indirect object will take III agreement.
As the chart above shows, there is no person-number agreement for third person arguments. Consider the following paradigms:

Habli-li-tok. `I kicked him/her/it/them.'
Ish-habli-tok. `You kicked him/her/it/them.'
Habli-tok. `She/he/it/they kicked him/her/it/them.'
Ii-habli-tok. `We kicked him/her/it/them.'
Hash-habli-tok. `Y'all kicked him/her/it/them.'

Sa-habli-tok. `She/he/it/they kicked me.'
Chi-habli-tok. `She/he/it/they kicked you.'
Habli-tok. `She/he/it/they kicked him/her/it/them.'
Pi-habli-tok. `She/he/it/they kicked us.'
Hachi-habli-tok. `She/he/it/they kicked y'all.'

Am-anoli-tok. `She/he/it/they told me.'
Chim-anoli-tok. `She/he/it/they told you.'
Im-anoli-tok. `She/he/it/they told him/her/it/them.'
Pim-anoli-tok. `She/he/it/they told us.'
Hachim-anoli-tok. `She/he/it/they told y'all.'

When a transitive verb occurs with more than one agreement prefix, I prefixes precede II and III prefixes:

Iichipísatok.
Ii-chi-písa-tok.
1pI-2sII-see-pt
‘We saw you.’

Ishpimanoolitok.
Ish-pim-anooli-tok.
2sI-1pIII-tell-pt
‘You told us.’

Intransitive verbs show more complicated patterns of agreement. For intransitive verbs, the subjects of active verbs typically trigger I agreement, the subjects of stative verbs typically trigger II agreement, and III agreement is found with the subjects of some psychological verbs.

Baliililitok.
Baliili-li-tok.
run-1sI-pt
`I ran.'

Saniyah.
Sa-niya-h.
1sII-fat-tns
`I am fat.'

Aponnah.
A-ponna-h.
1sIII-skilled-tns
`I am skilled.'

This type of morphology is generally referred to as active-stative.

Negatives
The set of agreement markers labelled N above is used with negatives. Negation is multiply marked, requiring that an agreement marker from the N set replace the ordinary I agreement, the verb appear in the lengthened grade (see discussion below), and that the suffix /-o(k)-/ follow the verb, with deletion of the preceding final vowel. The optional suffix /-kii/may be added after /-o(k)-/.
Consider the following example:

Ak-íiya-o-kii-ttook.
1sN-go-neg-neg-dpast
`I didn't go.'

Compare this with the affirmative counterpart:
Iyalittook
Iya-li-ttook.
go-1sI-dpast
`I went.'

To make this example negative, the 1sI suffix /-li/ is replaced by the 1sN prefix /ak-/; the verb root iya is lengthened and accented to yield íiya; the suffix /-o/ is added, the final vowel of iiya is deleted; and the suffix /-kii/ is added.

Anaphoric prefixes
Reflexives are indicated with the /ili-/ prefix, and reciprocals with /itti-/:

Ilipísalitok.
Ili-písa-li-tok.
refl-see-1sI-pt
`I saw myself.'

Verb suffixes
While the verbal prefixes indicate relations between the verb and its arguments, the suffixes cover a wider semantic range, including information about valence, modality, tense and evidentiality.

The following examples show modal and tense suffixes like /-aachii/ 'irrealis'(approximately equal to future), /-tok/ 'past tense', /-h/ 'default tenses':

Baliilih.
Baliili-h.
run-tns
`She runs.'

Baliilaachih.
Baliili-aachi-h.
run-irr-tns
`She will run.'

There are also suffixes that show evidentiality, or the source of evidence for a statement, as in the following pair:

Nipi’ awashlihli.
Nipi’ awashli-hli
meat fry-first:hand
`She fried the meat.' (I saw/heard/smelled her do it.)

Nipi’ awashlitokasha.
Nipi’ awashli-tok-asha
meat fry-pt-guess

`She fried the meat.' (I guess)

There are also suffixes of illocutionary force which may indicate that the sentence is a question, an exclamation, or a command:

Awashlitoko?
Awashli-tok-o
fry-pt-q
`Did she fry it?'

Chahta’ siahokii!
Chahta’ si-a-h-okii
Choctaw 1sII-be-tns-excl
`I'm Choctaw!' or `I certainly am a Choctaw!'

Verbal infixes
Choctaw verb stems have various infixes that indicate their aspect. These stem variants are traditionally referred to as `grades'. The table below shows the grades of Choctaw, along with their main usage.

Name of Grade How it is formed When it is used
n-grade infix n in the next to last (penultimate) syllable; put accent on this syllable to show that the action is durative (lasts some definite length of time)
l-grade put accent on next to last (penultimate) syllable; lengthen the vowel if the syllable is open before a few common suffixes, such as the negative /-o(k)/ and the switch-reference markers /-cha/ and /-na/
hn-grade insert a new syllable /-hV/ after the (original) next to last (penultimate) syllable. V is a nasalized copy of the vowel that precedes it. to show that the action of the verb repeats
y-grade insert -Vyy- before the next to last (penultimate) syllable to show delayed inception
g-grade formed by lengthening the penultimate vowel of the stem, accenting the antepenultimate vowel, and geminating the consonant that follows the antepenult. to show delayed inception
h-grade insert -h- after the penultimate vowel of the stem. to show sudden action

Some examples that show the grades follow:

In this example the l-grade appears because of the suffixes /-na/ 'different subject' and /-o(k)/ 'negative':

... lowat táahana falaamat akíiyokiittook.
lowa-t táaha-na falaama-t ak-íiya-o-kii-ttook
burn-ss complete-ds return-ss 1sN-go-neg-neg-dpast

`... (the school) burned down and I didn't go back.'

The g-grade and y-grade typically get translated into English as "finally VERB-ed":

Taloowah.
Taloowa-h
sing-tns
`He sang.'

Tálloowah.
Tálloowa-h
sing-tns
`He finally sang.'

The hn-grade is usually translated as 'kept on VERBing':

Ohóbana nittak pókkooli’ oshtattook.
Ohóba-na nittak pókkooli’ oshta-ttook
rain-ds day ten four-dpast

`It kept on raining for forty days.'

The h-grade is usually translated "just VERB-ed" or "VERB-ed for a short time":

.

sleep-tns
`He took a quick nap.

Nominal morphology

Noun prefixes
Nouns have prefixes that show agreement with a possessor. Agreement markers from class II are used on a lexically specified closed class of nouns, which includes many (but not all) of the kinship terms and body parts. This is the class that is generally labeled inalienable.

sanoshkobo’ `my head'
sa-noshkobo’
1sII-head

chinoshkobo’ `your head'
chi-noshkobo’
2sII-head

noshkobo’ `his/her/its/their head'
noshkobo’
head

sashki’ `my mother'
sa-ishki’
1sII-mother

chishki’ `your mother'
chi-ishki’
2sII-mother

Nouns that are not lexically specified for II agreement use the III agreement markers:

aki’ `my father'
a-ki’
1sIII-father

amofi’ `my dog'
am-ofi’
1sIII-dog

Although systems of this type are generally described with the terms alienable and inalienable, these term is not particularly appropriate for Choctaw, since alienability implies a semantic distinction between types of nouns. The morphological distinction between nouns taking II agreement and III agreement in Choctaw only partly coincides with the semantic notion of alienability.

Noun suffixes
Choctaw nouns can be followed by various determiner and case-marking suffixes, as in the following examples, where we see determiners such as /-ma/ `that', /-pa/ `this', and /-akoo/ `contrast' and case-markers /-(y)at/ 'nominative' and /-(y)a/ 'accusative':

alla’ naknimat
alla’ nakni-m-at
child male-that-nom
`that boy (nominative)'

Hoshiit itti chaahamako obiniilih.
Hoshi’-at itti’ chaaha-m-ako o-biniili-h
bird-nom tree tall-that-cntr:acc superessive-sit-tns
`The bird is sitting on that tall tree.' (Not on the short one.)

The last example shows that nasalizing the last vowel of the preceding N is a common way to show the accusative case.

Word order and case marking
The simplest sentences in Choctaw consist of a verb and a tense marker, as in the following examples:

Obatok.
Oba-tok
rain-pt
'It rained.'

Niyah.
Niya-h
fat-tns
'She/he/it is fat.'
'They are fat.'

Písatok.
Písa-tok
see-pt
'She/he/it/they saw her/him/it/them.'

As these examples show, there are no obligatory noun phrases in a Choctaw sentence, nor is there any verbal agreement that indicates a third person subject or object. There is no indication of grammatical gender, and for third person arguments there is no indication of number. (There are, however, some verbs with suppletive forms that indicate the number of a subject or object, e.g. iyah `to go (sg.)', ittiyaachih `to go (du.)', and ilhkolih `to go (pl)'.)

When there is an overt subject, it is obligatorily marked with the nominative case /-at/. Subjects precede the verb

Hoshiyat apatok.
Hoshi'-at apa-tok
bird-nom eat-pt
`The birds ate them.'

When there is an overt object, it is optionally marked with the accusative case /-a/:
Hoshiyat shoshi(-ya) apatok.
Hoshi'-at shoshi'(-a) apa-tok.
bird-nom bug-(acc) eat-pt
'The birds ate the bugs.'

The Choctaw sentence is normally verb-final, and so the head of the sentence is last.
Some other phrases in Choctaw also have their head at the end. Possessors precede the possessed noun in the Noun Phrase:

ofi' hohchifo
dog name
'the dog's name'

Choctaw has postpositional phrases with the postposition after its object:

tamaaha' bilika
town near
`near a town'

Examples
Some common Choctaw phrases (written in the "Modern" orthography):

Choctaw:
Hello!:
See you later!:
number:
Thank you:
What is your name?:
My name is...:
yes:
no:
okay:
I don't understand.:
I don't know.:
Do you speak Choctaw?:
What is that?:

Other Choctaw words:

Cherokee:
Chickasaw:
Seminole:
Creek/Muskogee:
today:
tonight:
tomorrow:
yesterday:
month:
year/2009:
house:
school:
cat:
dog:
cow:
horse:

Counting to twenty:

one:
two: toklo
three:
four:
five:
six:
seven:
eight:
nine:
ten:
eleven:
twelve:
thirteen:
fourteen:
fifteen:
sixteen:
seventeen:
eighteen:
nineteen:
twenty:

At " Native Nashville " web , there is an Online Choctaw Language Tutor, with Pronunciation Guide and four lessons: Small Talk, Animals, Food and Numbers.

See also
Code talkers

External links