Nakota
Encyclopedia
The term Nakota is the endonym used by the native peoples
of North America
who usually go by the name of Assiniboine (or Hohe), in the United States
, and of Stoney, in Canada
.
They are Dakotan-speaking tribes that broke away from the main branches of the Sioux
nation in earlier times. They moved farther from the original territory of present-day Minnesota
into the northern and northwestern regions: Montana
and North Dakota
of the present-day United States and Manitoba
, Saskatchewan
, and Alberta
of present-day Canada. Later they became competitors for resources and enemies of their former language-family "allies". (In each of the dialects, nakota, dakota and lakota means "friend" or "ally".)
The Assiniboine had separated from what would be called the Nakota grouping at an early time. Their language, called Nakota, became more distinct and unintelligible
to Lakota and Dakota speakers.
For a long time few scholars criticized this classification.
In 1978, Douglas R. Parks, David S. Rood, and Raymond J. DeMallie engaged in systematic linguistic
research at the Sioux and Assiniboine reservations to establish the precise dialectology of the Sioux language. As a result, they ascertained that both the Santee and the Yankton/Yanktonai referred (and refer) to themselves by the autonym "Dakota". The name of Nakota (or Nakoda) was (and is) exclusive usage of the Assiniboine and of their Canadian relatives, the Stoney. The subsequent academic literature, however, especially if not produced by linguistic
specialists, has seldom reflected Parks and DeMallie’s work.
Their conclusions, however, have been fully confirmed by the 23-year-long research carried out in the field by Jan Ullrich. From that he compiled his 2008 Lakota dictionary. According to Ullrich, the misnomer of the Yankton-Yanktonai,
The change cannot be regarded as a subsequent terminological regression caused by the Yankton-Yanktonai people’s living together with the Santee in the same reserves. The oldest texts that document the Sioux dialects are devoid of historic references to Nakota. Ullrich notes particularly that John P. Williamson's English-Dakota Dictionary (1902) lists Dakota as the proper name for the Dakota people. Williamson does not mention Nakota, although he had worked extensively with the Yankton. In his dictionary, Williamson frequently included Yankton variants for Santee entries. Moreover, Ullrich notes that the Yankton scholar Ella Cara Deloria
(born in 1888) was among the first to point out “the fallacy of designating the Yankton-Yanktonai groups as Nakota.”.
Currently, the groups concerned refer to themselves as follows in their mother tongues:
's Stoney official Internet sites, for example, in the self-designation of the Alexis Nakota Sioux First Nation
, or in the claim of the Nakoda First Nation to their Sioux ancestry and the value of their native language:
"As descendants of the great Sioux nations, the Stoney tribal members of today prefer to conduct their conversation and tribal business in the Siouan mother tongue.". Saskatchewan
’s Assiniboine and Stoney tribes also claim identification with the Sioux tradition.
The Assiniboine-Stoney tribes have supported recent "pan-Sioux" attempts to revive the native languages. Their representatives attend the annual "Lakota, Dakota, Nakota Language Summits". Since 2008, these have been sponsored by the Lakota non-profit organization for the promotion and strengthening of the language, Tusweca Tiospaye (Dragonfly Community). They promote a mission of "Uniting the Seven Council Fires to Save the Language".
The long separation of the peoples means their languages have grown more diverse. Lakota and Dakota speakers cannot understand Assiniboine readily. They cannot understand Stoney at all, and it is unintelligible to Assiniboine speakers, too. The tribes' goal to revive (or create) a unitary Sioux language may be extremely difficult to achieve.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
who usually go by the name of Assiniboine (or Hohe), in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and of Stoney, in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
They are Dakotan-speaking tribes that broke away from the main branches of the Sioux
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
nation in earlier times. They moved farther from the original territory of present-day Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
into the northern and northwestern regions: Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
and North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
of the present-day United States and Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
, Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
, and Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
of present-day Canada. Later they became competitors for resources and enemies of their former language-family "allies". (In each of the dialects, nakota, dakota and lakota means "friend" or "ally".)
History of a misnomer
Historically, scholars classified the tribes belonging to the Sioux nation (or Dakota in a broad sense) into three large language groups:- Dakota (proper), who were the eastern-most group (the original one) and were called Isáŋyathi or Isáŋathi (whence the Europeanized name of Santee);
- Nakota, who were said to comprise the two central tribes of the Yankton and the Yanktonai, and
- Lakota, who formed the western-most group and were called Thítȟuŋwaŋ (term Europeanized into Teton).
The Assiniboine had separated from what would be called the Nakota grouping at an early time. Their language, called Nakota, became more distinct and unintelligible
Mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort...
to Lakota and Dakota speakers.
For a long time few scholars criticized this classification.
In 1978, Douglas R. Parks, David S. Rood, and Raymond J. DeMallie engaged in systematic linguistic
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
research at the Sioux and Assiniboine reservations to establish the precise dialectology of the Sioux language. As a result, they ascertained that both the Santee and the Yankton/Yanktonai referred (and refer) to themselves by the autonym "Dakota". The name of Nakota (or Nakoda) was (and is) exclusive usage of the Assiniboine and of their Canadian relatives, the Stoney. The subsequent academic literature, however, especially if not produced by linguistic
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
specialists, has seldom reflected Parks and DeMallie’s work.
Their conclusions, however, have been fully confirmed by the 23-year-long research carried out in the field by Jan Ullrich. From that he compiled his 2008 Lakota dictionary. According to Ullrich, the misnomer of the Yankton-Yanktonai,
gaining such influence that even some Lakota and Dakota people have been influenced by it."began with the mid-nineteenth century missionaries among the Santee who over-applied a rule of phonetic distribution. Because the Yankton-Yanktonai dialect uses the suffix -na where Santee uses -da and Lakota -la, the missionaries thought that the l-d-n distribution applied to all word positions. Thus, they believed the Yankton-Yanktonai people called themselves Nakota instead of Dakota. Unfortunately, the inaccurate assumption of a Lakota-Dakota-Nakota division has been perpetuated in almost every publication since then",
The change cannot be regarded as a subsequent terminological regression caused by the Yankton-Yanktonai people’s living together with the Santee in the same reserves. The oldest texts that document the Sioux dialects are devoid of historic references to Nakota. Ullrich notes particularly that John P. Williamson's English-Dakota Dictionary (1902) lists Dakota as the proper name for the Dakota people. Williamson does not mention Nakota, although he had worked extensively with the Yankton. In his dictionary, Williamson frequently included Yankton variants for Santee entries. Moreover, Ullrich notes that the Yankton scholar Ella Cara Deloria
Ella Cara Deloria
Ella Cara Deloria , also called Ąnpétu Wašté Wįn , was an educator, anthropologist, ethnographer, linguist, and novelist of Yankton Sioux background...
(born in 1888) was among the first to point out “the fallacy of designating the Yankton-Yanktonai groups as Nakota.”.
Currently, the groups concerned refer to themselves as follows in their mother tongues:
- Dakhóta (or Dakhód) – the Santee
- Dakȟóta (or Dakȟód) – the Yankton and the Yanktonai
- Lakȟóta (or Lakȟól) – the Teton (this reference has fallen into disuse. Now they simply call themselves the Lakȟóta)
- Nakhóta (Nakhóda or Nakhóna) – the Assiniboine
- Nakhóda (or Nakhóta) – the Stoney
Present trends
Recently the Assiniboine and, especially, the Stoney have begun to minimize the historic separation from the Dakota. They have claimed some identity with the Sioux nation, although such a centralized unit does not exist any longer. Historically the Siouan tribes were quite decentralized as well and operated independently in bands. This tendency can be seen on AlbertaAlberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
's Stoney official Internet sites, for example, in the self-designation of the Alexis Nakota Sioux First Nation
Alexis Nakota Sioux First Nation
The Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation no. 437 is a Nakoda First Nation which reserves near Edmonton, Hinton, and Whitecourt, in the Canadian province of Alberta, and headquartered at 54° N and 114°, about west of Edmonton...
, or in the claim of the Nakoda First Nation to their Sioux ancestry and the value of their native language:
"As descendants of the great Sioux nations, the Stoney tribal members of today prefer to conduct their conversation and tribal business in the Siouan mother tongue.". Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
’s Assiniboine and Stoney tribes also claim identification with the Sioux tradition.
The Assiniboine-Stoney tribes have supported recent "pan-Sioux" attempts to revive the native languages. Their representatives attend the annual "Lakota, Dakota, Nakota Language Summits". Since 2008, these have been sponsored by the Lakota non-profit organization for the promotion and strengthening of the language, Tusweca Tiospaye (Dragonfly Community). They promote a mission of "Uniting the Seven Council Fires to Save the Language".
The long separation of the peoples means their languages have grown more diverse. Lakota and Dakota speakers cannot understand Assiniboine readily. They cannot understand Stoney at all, and it is unintelligible to Assiniboine speakers, too. The tribes' goal to revive (or create) a unitary Sioux language may be extremely difficult to achieve.
Sources
- Curtis, Edward S., The North American Indian : being a series of volumes picturing and describing the Indians of the United States, and Alaska (written, illustrated, and published by Edward S. Curtis ; edited by Frederick Webb Hodge), Seattle, E. S. Curtis [Cambridge, Mass. : The University Press], 1907–1930, 20 v. (Northwestern University)
- DeMallie, Raymond J. , “Sioux until 1850”; in Raymond J. DeMallie (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 2, p. 718–760), William C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.), Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 2001 (ISBN 0-16-050400-7)
- Guy E. Gibbon, The Sioux: the Dakota and Lakota nations, Malden, Blackwell Publishers, 2003 (ISBN 1557865663)
- Howard, James H., The Canadian Sioux, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1984 (ISBN 0-8032-2327-7)
- Lewis, M. Paul (a cura di), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/
- Palmer, Jessica D., The Dakota peoples: a history of the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota through 1863. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2008 (ISBN 0786431776)
- Parks, Douglas R., DeMallie, Raymond J., "Sioux, Assiniboine and Stoney Dialects: A Classification", Anthropological Linguistics, Special Issue, Florence M. Voegelin Memorial Volume, Vol. 34:1-4, 1992.
- Parks, Douglas R. & Rankin, Robert L., "The Siouan languages", in Raymond J. DeMallie (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 1, p. 94–114), William C. Sturtevant (gen. ed.), Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 2001.
- Ullrich, Jan, New Lakota Dictionary : Lakhótiyapi-English / English-Lakhótiyapi & Incorporating the Dakota Dialects of Santee-Sisseton and Yankton-Yanktonai, Bloomington, Lakota Language Consortium, 2008 (ISBN 0-9761082-9-1).
- Christopher Westhorp, Pocket guide to native Americans, Salamander Books, Londra, 1993 (ISBN 1856000230) – Italian edition consulted: Indiani. I Pellerossa Tribù per Tribù, Idealibri, Milan, 1993 (ISBN 88-7082-254-0).
- This article is a substantial translation from Nakota in the Italian Wikipedia.