Mikasuki language

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Mikasuki language

The Mikasuki language (also Miccosukee or Hitchiti-Mikasuki) is a Muskogean language

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....
spoken by around 500 people in southern 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....
. It is spoken by the Miccosukee

Miccosukee

The Miccosukee are a Native Americans in the United States tribe living in Florida. They are descendants of the Lower Chiaha, a Creek people tribe and have had centuries of relations with the Seminole but maintain a separate identity today, largely on linguistic grounds....
tribe as well as many Seminoles. The now-extinct Hitchiti language was mutually intelligible with Mikasuki.

Sounds

There are three tones, high, low and falling.

Discussion

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Encyclopedia

The Mikasuki language (also Miccosukee or Hitchiti-Mikasuki) is a Muskogean language

Muskogean languages

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....
. It is spoken by the Miccosukee

Miccosukee

Sounds

	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	i?	i
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....							o	o?	õ
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	a?	ã

There are three tones, high, low and falling. Vowel length is distinctive, for example eche ('mouth') vs eeche ('deer'), ete ('eye') vs eete ('fire').

		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....
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		?
Stop Stop consonant A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms....	voiceless	p	t	t?	k
	voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sound, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced....	b
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	?	?		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	j	w

Grammar

Nouns are marked with suffixes for various functions, some examples:

Suffix	Function	Example	Meaning
		embaache	battery
ot	subject marker	embaachot hampeepom	the battery has gone bad
on	object marker	embaachon aklomle	I need a battery
ee	question marker	embachee cheméèlo?	do you have a battery?

Free pronouns exist (aane "I", chehne "you", pohne "we") but are rarely used. Verb suffixes are the usual way of marking person.

Writing System

Mikasuki is written using the Latin alphabet. The vowels are pronounced as follows:

Letter	Sound
a, aa
a, aa
e, ee
e, ee
o, oo
o, oo
ay
ao

The consonants are:

Letter	Sound
b
ch
f
h
k
l
l
m
n
ng
p
sh
t
w
y

High tone is indicated with an acute, low tone with a grave and falling tone with an acute (on a long vowel this is typographically split over both vowels, otherwise the grave is placed over the next consonant):

High Tone	Low Tone	Falling Tone
á, áa	à, àa	á?, áà

An epenthetic [?] vowel appears in kl, kw and kn clusters in careful speech.

Examples

Verbs

bochonkom	he/she/it touches
chaolom	he/she/it writes
chayahlom	he/she/it walks
eelom	he/she/it arrives
empom	he/she/it eats
eshkom	he/she/it drinks
faayom	he/she/it hunts
ommom	he/she/it makes

Numerals

1	láàmen
2	toklan
3	tocheenan
4	shéetaaken
5	chahkeepan
6	eepaaken
7	kolapaaken
8	toshnapaaken
9	oshtapaaken
10	pokoolen

Kinship Terms

nakne	man, male
ooche	son
ooshtayke	daughter
táàte	father
tayke	woman, female
wáàche	mother
yaate	person
yaatooche	infant

Mikasuki language

Sounds

Grammar

Writing System

Examples

Verbs

Numerals

Kinship Terms

External links