Muskogean languages

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Muskogean languages

Muskogean (also Muskhogean, Muskogee
Muskogee

Muskogee or Muscogee can refer to:*The Creek people, an American Indian people originally from Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama, later relocated to Oklahoma...
) is an indigenous language family of the Southeastern United States

Southeastern United States

The US Southeast is the eastern portion of the Southern United States, but the Census Bureau does not provide a standard definition of a "Southeast" region of the United States, and organizations that need to subdivide the US are free to define a "Southeast" region to fit their needs....
. The Muskogean languages are generally divided into two rough branches, Eastern and Western, though these distinctions are the subject of some debate. They are agglutinative language

Agglutinative language

An agglutinative language is a language that uses agglutination extensively: most words are formed by joining morphemes together. This term was introduced by Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1836 to classify languages from a morphology point of view....
s.

Family division
The Muskogean family has been subdivided into two competing genetic trees. The traditional classification is from Mary Haas

Mary Haas

Mary Rosamund Haas was an United States linguistics who specialized in Native Americans in the United States languages, Thai language, and historical linguistics....
and her students.

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Southeastern United States

Agglutinative language

Family division

The Muskogean family has been subdivided into two competing genetic trees. The traditional classification is from Mary Haas

Mary Haas

Mary Rosamund Haas was an United States linguistics who specialized in Native Americans in the United States languages, Thai language, and historical linguistics....
and her students. A more recent and controversial classification has been proposed by Pamela Munro

Pamela Munro

Pamela Munro is an United States Linguistics who specializes in Native Americans in the United States Indigenous languages of the Americas. She teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles....
.

A vocabulary of the Houma

Houma Tribe

The Houma Tribe of Indians, or more properly, The United Houma Nation are native to the Louisiana parishes of East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana and West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, and Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, about 100 miles north of the town of Houma, Louisiana named for them....
may be another under-documented Western Muskogean language or a version of Mobilian Jargon

Mobilian Jargon

Mobilian Jargon was a pidgin used as a lingua franca among Native Americans in the United States groups living along the Gulf of Mexico around the time of European settlement of the region....
. Mobilian Jargon is a pidgin based on Western Muskogean.

Haas

I. Western Muskogean

1. 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....

2. 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....
(a.k.a. Chahta, Chacato)

II. Eastern Muskogean

A. Central Muskogean

i. Apalachee-Alabama-Koasati group a. Alabama-Koasati 3. Alabama
Alabama language

Alabama is a Native American languages, spoken by the Alabama-Coushatta tribe of Texas. It was once spoken by the Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town of Oklahoma, but there are no more Alabama speakers in Oklahoma....
4. Koasati

Koasati language

Koasati is a Native American languages of Muskogean languages 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....
b. Apalachee 5. Apalachee

Apalachee

The Apalachee are an Native Americans in the United States that lived in Apalachee Province, Florida, until the tribe was largely destroyed and dispersed in the 18th century....
ii. Hitchiti-Mikasuki 6. Hitchiti-Mikasuki

Mikasuki language

The Mikasuki language is a Muskogean languages spoken by around 500 people in southern Florida. It is spoken by the Miccosukee tribe as well as many Seminoles....

B. Creek
7. Creek

Creek language

1. Creek

Creek language

II. Southern Muskogean
A. Southwestern Muskogean group
i. Apalachee 2. Apalachee

Apalachee

Alabama language

Alabama is a Native American languages, spoken by the Alabama-Coushatta tribe of Texas. It was once spoken by the Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town of Oklahoma, but there are no more Alabama speakers in Oklahoma....
4. Koasati
Koasati language

Koasati is a Native American languages of Muskogean languages 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....
iii. Western Muskogean 5. 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....
6. 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....

B. Hitchiti-Mikasuki group

7. Hitchiti
Hitchiti

The Hitchiti was a Muskogean tribe formerly residing chiefly in a town of the same name on the east bank of the Chattahoochee River, 4 miles below Chiaha, and possessing a narrow strip of good land bordering on the river, in west Georgia ....
/Mikasuki
Mikasuki language

The Mikasuki language is a Muskogean languages spoken by around 500 people in southern Florida. It is spoken by the Miccosukee tribe as well as many Seminoles....

Relationships with other languages

Haas (1951, 1952) suggested that Muskogean languages were part of a larger group she labeled Gulf, composed of Muskogean, Atakapa, Chitimacha, Tunica, and Natchez. These relationships are controversial, however. Sources such as Campbell (1997) reject the Gulf group. Some people have suggested a relationship with the language of the Yamasee

Yamasee

The Yamasee were a Native Americans in the United States tribe that lived in coastal region of present-day northern Florida and southern Georgia near the Savannah River....
. Little is known about the Yamasee language. It is possible that the Yamasee were an amalgamation of several different ethnic groups and did not speak a single language. Chester B. DePratter describes the Yamasee as consisting mainly of speakers of Hitchiti

Hitchiti

The Hitchiti was a Muskogean tribe formerly residing chiefly in a town of the same name on the east bank of the Chattahoochee River, 4 miles below Chiaha, and possessing a narrow strip of good land bordering on the river, in west Georgia ....
and Guale

Guale

Guale was a Native Americans in the United States chiefdom that became part of Spanish Florida's missionary system in the late 16th century. They lived along the coast of present-day Georgia and the Sea Islands....
. The historian Oatis also describes the Yamasee as an ethnically mixed group that included people from Muskogean-speaking regions such as the early colonial-era towns of Hitchiti, Coweta, and Cussita.

Family features

Phonology

Muskogean languages have relatively simple phonologies compared to many other Native American languages. Proto-Muskogean is reconstructed as having the 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)....
		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....		Plain	Labialized Labialisation Labialisation is a Secondary articulation feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the mouth produces another sound....
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.... s	*p	*t			*k
Affricate Affricate consonant Affricate consonants begin as stop consonants but release as a fricative consonant rather than directly into the following vowel.... s		*ts
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... s		*s			*x
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.... s	*m	*n
Approximants			*l	*j		*w
Other		*?

The phonemes reconstructed by Mary Haas as */x/ and *// show up as /h/ and /f/ (or ), respectively, in all Muskogean languages; they are therefore reconstructed by some as */h/ and *. * appears as /b/ in all the daughter languages except Creek

Creek language

The Creek language, also known as Muscogee , is a Muskogean language spoken by the Creek , Thlopthlocco Tribal Town, Kialegee Tribal Town, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and other Muscogeean peoples....
, where it is /k/ initially and /p/ medially. The value of the proto-phoneme written is unknown; it appears as /n/ in Western Muskogean languages and as in Eastern Muskogean languages. Mary Haas reconstructed it as a voiceless /n/, that is, *.

Nouns

Most family languages display lexical accent on nouns, as well as grammatical case

Grammatical case

In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject , of direct object, or of possession ....
which distinguishes the nominative from the oblique. Nouns do not obligatorially inflect for gender or number.

Verbs

Muskogean verbs have a complex ablaut system wherein the verbal stem changes depending on aspect (almost always), and less commonly depending on tense or modality. In Muskogean linguistics, the different forms are known as "grades".

Verbs mark for first and second person, as well as agent and patient (Choctaw also marks for dative). Third-persons (he, she, it) have a null-marker.

Plurality of a noun agent is marked by either 1) affixation on the verb or 2) an innately plural verbal stem.

Example (pluralization via affixation, Choctaw):

ishimpa

ish-impa

2SG.NOM-eat

"you [sg.] eat"

hashimpa

hash-impa

2PL.NOM-eat

"you [pl.] eat"

Example (innately-numbered verbal stems, Mikasuki):

liniik

run. SG

"to run (singular)"

palaak

run. PAUCAL

"to run (several)"

mataak

run. PL

"to run (many)"

External links

(discusses classifications)

Bibliography

Booker, Karen. (2005). "Muskogean Historical Phonology." In Hardy and Scancarelli 2005, pp. 246-298.
Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
Goddard, Ives (Ed.). (1996). Languages. Handbook of North American Indians (W. C. Sturtevant, General Ed.) (Vol. 17). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-048774-9.
Haas, M. (1951). The Proto-Gulf word for water (with notes on Siouan-Yuchi). International Journal of American Linguistics 17: 71-9.
Haas, Mary. (1952). The Proto-Gulf word for 'land' (with notes on Proto-Siouan). International Journal of American Linguistics 18:238-240.
Haas, Mary. (1973). The southeast. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Linguistics in North America (part 2, pp. 1210-1249). The Hague: Mouton.
Hardy, Heather, and Janine Scancarelli. (2005). Native Languages of the Southeastern United States. University of Nebraska Press.
Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
Sebeok, Thomas A. (Ed.). (1973). Linguistics in North America (parts 1 & 2). Current trends in linguistics (Vol. 10). The Hague: Mouton. (Reprinted as Sebeok 1976).
Sturtevant, William C. (Ed.). (1978-present). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 1-20). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. (Vols. 1-3, 16, 18-20 not yet published).