Choctaw language

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Choctaw Chahta
Spoken in:	United States
Region:	Southeastern Oklahoma and east central Mississippi, and into Louisiana and Tennessee
Total speakers:	About 9,200
Language family:	Muskogean  Western Muskogean   Choctaw
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	cho
ISO 639-3:	cho
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

The Choctaw language, traditionally spoken by the Native American Choctaw people of the southeastern United States, is a member of the Muskogean family. The Choctaw language was well known as a lingua franca of the frontiersmen of the early 19th Century, including eventual American Presidents Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison. The language is very closely related to Chickasaw and some linguists consider the two dialects of a single language, although recent reports indicate that speakers of Choctaw find Chickasaw to be unintelligible.

Contents 1 Dialects 2 Phonology 2.1 Consonants 2.2 Vowels 3 Grammar 4 Examples 5 See also 6 External links 7 References

[edit] Dialects

There are three dialects of Choctaw (Mithun 1999):

1. "Native" Choctaw on the Choctaw Nation in southeastern Oklahoma
2. Mississippi Choctaw of Oklahoma on Chickasaw Nation of south central Oklahoma (near Durwood)
3. Choctaw of Mississippi near Philadelphia

Other speakers live near Tallahassee, Florida and with the Koasati in Louisiana, and also a few speakers live in Texas and California

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p, b	t		k
Affricate			ʧ
Fricative	f	s	ʃ		h
Nasal	m	n
Lateral		l
Lateral fricative		ɬ
Semivowel	w		j

Some orthographies use <š> and <č> for /ʃ/ and /ʧ/; others use the digraphs <sh> and <ch>. /j/ is spelled <y>, and most modern orthographies use <lh> to represent the lateral fricative.

[edit] Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i, iː, ĩː
Close-mid			o, oː, õː
Open		a, aː, ãː

In closed syllables, [ɪ], [ʊ], and [ə] occur as allophonic variants of /i/, /o/, and /a/. In the orthography, nasalized vowels are usually indicated by underlining the vowel (e.g., o̱ represents /õː/), and the allophonic [ʊ] is often written <u>. Some orthographies use <v> and <u> to represent the lax allophones of short /a/ and /o/--that is, [ə] and [ʊ]. These orthographies also use <e> to represent some cases of /iː/, and <i> for others, and also use <a>, <i>, and <o> to represent both the long and short phonemes of /a/, /i/, and /o/.

[edit] Grammar

[edit] Examples

Some common Choctaw phrases:

• Choctaw: Chahta
• Hello!: Halito!
• See you later!: Chi pisa la chike!
• number: hohltina/hohltini
• Thank you: Yokoke
• What is your name?: Chi hohchifo yut nanta?
• My name is...: Sa hohchifo yut...
• yes: a̱
• no: keyu
• okay: omi
• today: himak nittak
• tomorrow: onnakma
• yesterday: yushkololi
• month: hushi
• year/2007: affami/tahlepa sipokni tuklo akohcha untuklo
• I don't understand.: Ak akostinincho.
• I don't know.: Akkikano.
• Do you speak Choctaw?: Chahta imanumpa ish anumpola hinla ho̱?
• What is that?: Yummut nanta?
• house: chukka
• school: holisso apisa
• cat: katos
• dog: ofi
• cow: wak
• horse: issuba/suba

Counting to fifteen:

• one: achuffa
• two: tuklo
• three: tuchina
• four: ushta
• five: tahlapi
• six: hannali
• seven: untuklo
• eight: untuchina
• nine: chakkali
• ten: pokkoli
• eleven: auahachuffa
• twelve: auahtuklo
• thirteen: auahtuchina
• fourteen: auahushta
• fifteen: auahtahlapi

[edit] See also

Code talkers

[edit] External links

• Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians
• Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma
• Choctaw

[edit] References

• Broadwell, George Aaron. (2006). A Choctaw reference grammar. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
• Broadwell, George Aaron. (1991). Speaker and self in Choctaw. International Journal of American Linguistics, 57, 411-425.
• Byington, Cyrus. (1915). A dictionary of the Choctaw language. J. R. Swanton & H. S. Halbert (Eds.). Bureau of American Ethnology bulletin 46. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. (Reprinted 1973 & 1978).
• Downing, Todd. (1974). Chahta anompa: An introduction to the Choctaw language (3rd ed.). Durant, OK: Choctaw Bilingual Education Program, Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
• Heath, Jeffrey. (1977). Choctaw cases. Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, 3, 204-213.
• Heath, Jeffrey. (1980). Choctaw suppletive verbs and derivational morphology.
• Howard, Gregg; Eby, Richard; Jones, Charles G. (19991). Introduction to Choctaw: A primer for learning to speak, read and write the Choctaw language. Fayetteville, AR: VIP Pub.
• Jacob, Betty. (1980). Choctaw and Chickasaw. Abstract of paper delivered at the 1978 Muskogean conference. International Journal of American Linguistics, 46, 43.
• Jacob, Betty; Nicklas, Thurston Dale; & Spencer, Betty Lou. (1977). Introduction to Choctaw. Durant, OK: Choctaw Bilingual Education Program, Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
• Munro, Pamela. (1987). Some morphological differences between Chickasaw and Choctaw. In P. Munro (Ed.), Muskogean linguistics (pp. 119-133). Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, Department of Linguistics.
• Munro, Pamela (Ed.). (1987). Muskogean linguistics. UCLA occasional papers in linguistics (No. 6). Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, Department of Linguistics.
• Nicklas, Thurston Dale. (1974). The elements of Choctaw. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor).
• Nicklas, Thurston Dale. (1975). Choctaw morphophonemics. In J. Crawford (Ed.), Studies in southeastern Indian languages (pp. 237-249). Athens: University of Georgia.
• Nicklas, Thurston Dale. (1979). Reference grammar of the Choctaw language. Durant, OK: Choctaw Bilingual Education Program, Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
• Pulte, William. (1975). The position of Chickasaw in Western Muskogean. In J. Crawford (Ed.), Studies in southeastern Indian languages (pp. 251-263). Athens: University of Georgia.
• Ulrich, Charles H. (1986). Choctaw morphophonology. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles).
• Ulrich, Charles H. (1987). Choctaw g-grades and y-grades. In P. Munro (Ed.), Muskogean linguistics (pp. 171-178). Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, Department of Linguistics.
• Ulrich, Charles H. (1987). Choctaw verb grades and the nature of syllabification. In A. Bosch, B. Need, & E. Schiller (Eds.), Papers from the 23rd annual regional meeting. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
• Ulrich, Charles H. (1988). The morphophonology of Choctaw verb roots and valence suffixes. In W. Shipley (Ed.), In honor of Mary Haas: From the Haas Festival conference on Native American linguistics (pp. 805-818). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN