Shawnee language
Encyclopedia
The Shawnee language is a Central Algonquian language
spoken in parts of central and northeastern Oklahoma
by only around 200 Shawnee
, making it an endangered language. It was originally spoken in Ohio
, West Virginia
, Kentucky
, and Pennsylvania
. It is closely related to the Algonquian languages Mesquakie-Sauk
(Sac and Fox
) and Kickapoo.
The Shawnee /θ/ is most often derived from Proto-Algonquian *s.
Some speakers of Shawnee pronounce /ʃ/ more like an alveolar [s]. This pronunciation is especially common among Loyal Band Shawnee speakers near Vinita
, Oklahoma.
and obviative
, and two noun class
es (or genders), animate
and inanimate
. It is primarily agglutinating
typologically
, and is polysynthetic, resulting in a great deal of information being encoded on the verb. The most common word order
is Verb-Subject.
. It was never widely used. Later, native Shawnee speaker Thomas 'Wildcat' Alford devised a highly phonemic and accurate orthography for his 1929 Shawnee translation of the four gospels of the New Testament, but it, too, never attained wide usage.
Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...
spoken in parts of central and northeastern Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
by only around 200 Shawnee
Shawnee
The Shawnee, Shaawanwaki, Shaawanooki and Shaawanowi lenaweeki, are an Algonquian-speaking people native to North America. Historically they inhabited the areas of Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Western Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, and Pennsylvania...
, making it an endangered language. It was originally spoken in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
, Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
, and Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. It is closely related to the Algonquian languages Mesquakie-Sauk
Fox language
Fox is an Algonquian language, spoken by around 1000 Fox, Sauk, and Kickapoo in various locations in the Midwestern United States and in northern Mexico...
(Sac and Fox
Sac and Fox Nation
The Sac and Fox Nation is the largest of three federally recognized tribes of Sac and Meskwaki Native Americans. They are located in Oklahoma and are predominantly Sac....
) and Kickapoo.
Vowels
Shawnee has four short vowels, /i e a o/ (where /i/ and /e/ are phonetically [ɪ] and [ɛ]) and four long vowels, /iː eː aː oː/.Consonants
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
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 alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal | 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 velum).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | t | tʃ | k | ʔ |
| Fricative | θ | ʃ | h | ||
| Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l | ||||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | |||
| Semivowel Semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:... |
w | j |
The Shawnee /θ/ is most often derived from Proto-Algonquian *s.
Some speakers of Shawnee pronounce /ʃ/ more like an alveolar [s]. This pronunciation is especially common among Loyal Band Shawnee speakers near Vinita
Vinita
Vinita is another name for the city Ayodhya, which is located in Uttar Pradesh, India. It is also a name used for referring to several places in the United States:*Vinita in Uttar Pradesh, India*Vinita Township in Kansas*Vinita in Oklahoma...
, Oklahoma.
Grammar
Shawnee shares many grammatical features with other Algonquian languages. There are two third persons, proximateProximate
Proximates are used in the analysis of biological materials as a decomposition of a human-consumable good into its major constituents.What people consider proximates may vary, but usually includes:* Water* Carbohydrates* Proteins* Dietary fibres...
and obviative
Obviative
Obviate third person person is a grammatical person marking that distinguishes a non-salient third person referent from a more salient third person referent in a given discourse context...
, and two noun class
Noun class
In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
es (or genders), animate
Animacy
Animacy is a grammatical and/or semantic category of nouns based on how sentient or alive the referent of the noun in a given taxonomic scheme is...
and inanimate
Animacy
Animacy is a grammatical and/or semantic category of nouns based on how sentient or alive the referent of the noun in a given taxonomic scheme is...
. It is primarily agglutinating
Agglutination
In contemporary linguistics, agglutination usually refers to the kind of morphological derivation in which there is a one-to-one correspondence between affixes and syntactical categories. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative languages...
typologically
Linguistic typology
Linguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages...
, and is polysynthetic, resulting in a great deal of information being encoded on the verb. The most common word order
Word order
In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
is Verb-Subject.
Orthography
During the nineteenth century a short-lived roman-based alphabet was designed for Shawnee by the missionary Jotham MeekerJotham Meeker
Jotham Meeker was a Baptist missionary, printer, who lived and proselytized among various Native American peoples, including the Delaware, Ottawa, and Shawnee...
. It was never widely used. Later, native Shawnee speaker Thomas 'Wildcat' Alford devised a highly phonemic and accurate orthography for his 1929 Shawnee translation of the four gospels of the New Testament, but it, too, never attained wide usage.
Further reading
- Alford, Thomas Wildcat. 1929. The Four Gospels of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Shawnee Indian Language. Xenia, Ohio: Dr. W. A. Galloway.
- Andrews, Kenneth. 1994. Shawnee Grammar. Unpublished Dissertation, University of South Carolina, Columbia.
- Costa, David J. 2001. Shawnee Noun Plurals. Anthropological Linguistics 43: 255-287.
- Costa, David J. 2002. Preverb Usage in Shawnee Narratives. In H. C. Wolfart, ed., Papers of the 33rd Algonquian Conference, 120-161. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba.
- Voegelin, Carl F. 1935. Shawnee Phonemes. Language 11: 23-37.
- Voegelin, Carl F. 1936. Productive Paradigms in Shawnee. Robert H. Lowie, ed., Essays in Anthropology presented to A. L. Kroeber 391-403. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Voegelin, Carl F. 1938-40. Shawnee Stems and the Jacob P. Dunn Miami Dictionary. Indiana Historical Society Prehistory Research Series 1: 63-108, 135-167, 289-323, 345-406, 409-478 (1938–1940). Indianapolis.