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Koasati language
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Koasati (usually Coushatta) is a Native American language of Muskogean origin. The language is spoken by the Coushatta people, most of whom live in Allen Parish north of the town of Elton, Louisiana, though a smaller number share a reservation near Livingston, Texas with the Alabama people. Linguist Geoffrey Kimball has estimated the number of speakers of the language at around 400 people, of whom approximately 350 live in Louisiana (Kimball 1991).
Koasati is most closely related to the Alabama language, but though the Coushatta and Alabama have historically lived near each other, their languages are no longer mutually intelligible without extensive exposure.
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Encyclopedia
Koasati (usually Coushatta) is a Native American language of Muskogean origin. The language is spoken by the Coushatta people, most of whom live in Allen Parish north of the town of Elton, Louisiana, though a smaller number share a reservation near Livingston, Texas with the Alabama people. Linguist Geoffrey Kimball has estimated the number of speakers of the language at around 400 people, of whom approximately 350 live in Louisiana (Kimball 1991).
Koasati is most closely related to the Alabama language, but though the Coushatta and Alabama have historically lived near each other, their languages are no longer mutually intelligible without extensive exposure. The language is also related to the Mikasuki language and some native speakers of Coushatta report they can understand Mikasuki without previous exposure to the language.
One notable feature of the language is that men and women use slightly different grammatical forms of verbs. Muskogean verbal roots are often discontinuous.
Verbal number
Muskogean languages such as Koasati have a three-way distinction number distinction in their verbs, with singular, dual, and plural forms. Some of these forms are suppletive. For example,
‘To dwell’, in the first person, with full suppletion (singular aat, dual asw, plural is):
| áata-l | | a›lí‹sw | | ís-tílka | | | | | | | ‘I dwell’ | | ‘we two dwell’ | | ‘we all dwell’ |
(The angle braces › ‹ separate the two parts of the root.)
‘To smell’ is non-suppletive hofn:
| hófna-l | | ho›lí‹fn | | | | | ‘I smell’ | | ‘we smell’ |
‘To go about’, partially suppletive ( aay, yomahl):
| aaya-l | | a›lí‹iy | | yomah-híl | | | | | | | ‘I go about’ | | ‘we two go about’ | | ‘we-all go about’ |
‘To run’, partially suppletive ( waliik, tolk):
| walíika-l | | tól-hílk | | | | | ‘I run’ | | ‘we run’ |
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