Natchez language
Encyclopedia
Natchez was a language of Louisiana
. Its two last fluent speakers, Watt Sam and Nancy Raven, died in the late 1930s. The Natchez nation is now working to revive it as a spoken language.
. Mary Haas
studied the language with Sam and Raven in the 1930s, and posited that Natchez was distantly related to the Muskogean languages
. In 1941 she also proposed grouping Natchez with the Atakapa
, Chitimacha
, and Tunica
languages in a language family to be called Gulf
.
Neither of these theories is widely accepted today by linguists, but the Gulf proposal has not been entirely rejected. (It is followed by Ethnologue
, for example.) A modern sketch of the Natchez language, including its assessment as an isolate, written by Geoffrey Kimball and based on Haas's notes, was published in a 2005 survey of Southeastern languages.
As of 2011 six members of the Natchez tribe in Oklahoma speak the language, out of about 10,000.
in its sonorants but not in its obstruent
s, the opposite of most languages in the world.
There were five vowels which occurred long and short, /a aː e eː i iː o oː u uː/. Watt Sam had a sixth vowel, "ö", of secondary origin, which also occurred long and short.
Stress was penultimate if that vowel was long, otherwise ante-penultimate.
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
. Its two last fluent speakers, Watt Sam and Nancy Raven, died in the late 1930s. The Natchez nation is now working to revive it as a spoken language.
Classification
The Natchez language is generally believed by scholars to be a language isolateLanguage isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
. Mary Haas
Mary Haas
Mary Rosamund Haas was an American linguist who specialized in North American Indian languages, Thai, and historical linguistics.-Early work in linguistics:...
studied the language with Sam and Raven in the 1930s, and posited that Natchez was distantly related to the Muskogean languages
Muskogean languages
Muskogean is an indigenous language family of the Southeastern United States. Though there is an ongoing debate concerning their interrelationships, the Muskogean languages are generally divided into two branches, Eastern Muskogean and Western Muskogean...
. In 1941 she also proposed grouping Natchez with the Atakapa
Atakapa language
Atakapa is an extinct language isolate native to southwestern Louisiana and nearby coastal eastern Texas. It was spoken by the Atakapa people .-Geographic variation:There were two varieties of Atakapa Atakapa is an extinct language isolate native to southwestern Louisiana and nearby coastal eastern...
, Chitimacha
Chitimacha language
The Chitimacha language is a language isolate historically spoken by the Chitimacha people of Louisiana, United States. It went extinct in 1940 with the death of the last fluent speaker, Delphine Ducloux....
, and Tunica
Tunica language
The Tunica language was a language isolate spoken in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valley by in the United States by Native American Tunica peoples. There are no known speakers of the Tunica language remaining.When the last known fluent speaker Sesostrie Youchigant died, the language became...
languages in a language family to be called Gulf
Gulf languages
Gulf is a proposed native North American language family composed of the Muskogean languages, along with four extinct language isolates: Natchez, Tunica, Atakapa, and Chitimacha....
.
Neither of these theories is widely accepted today by linguists, but the Gulf proposal has not been entirely rejected. (It is followed by Ethnologue
Ethnologue
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...
, for example.) A modern sketch of the Natchez language, including its assessment as an isolate, written by Geoffrey Kimball and based on Haas's notes, was published in a 2005 survey of Southeastern languages.
As of 2011 six members of the Natchez tribe in Oklahoma speak the language, out of about 10,000.
Phonology
The Natchez inventory is typical of the Gulf languages. It had a voicing distinctionVoice (phonetics)
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...
in its sonorants but not in its obstruent
Obstruent
An obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing airflow, causing increased air pressure in the vocal tract, such as [k], [d͡ʒ] and [f]. In phonetics, articulation may be divided into two large classes: obstruents and sonorants....
s, the opposite of most languages in the world.
| labial | alveolar | palatal | velar | labial-velar | glotal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| stop | p | t | k | kʷ | ʔ | |
| affricate | ts | |||||
| fricative | s | h | ||||
| nasal | m̥, m | n̥, n | ||||
| approximant | l̥, l | ȷ̊, j | w̥, w |
There were five vowels which occurred long and short, /a aː e eː i iː o oː u uː/. Watt Sam had a sixth vowel, "ö", of secondary origin, which also occurred long and short.
Stress was penultimate if that vowel was long, otherwise ante-penultimate.