Tonkawa language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Tonkawa | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | United States | |
| Region: | Western Oklahoma, South-central Texas and into New Mexico | |
| Language extinction: | 20th century | |
| Language family: | language isolate Tonkawa |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | nai | |
| ISO 639-3: | tqw | |
 |
||
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
The Tonkawa language was spoken in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico by the Tonkawa people. A language isolate, with no known related languages, Tonkawa is now extinct, and the members of the Tonkawa tribe now speak only English.
Contents |
[edit] Sounds
[edit] Vowels
Tonkawa has 10 vowels:
| Front | Back | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| High | i | iː | u | uː | ||
| Mid | e | eː | o | oː | ||
| Low | a | aː | ||||
- The vowels occur in five pairs that have differing vowel lengths (i.e. short vowels vs. long vowels).
- In the front and the mid back vowel pairs, the short vowels are phonetically lower than their high counterparts: /i/ → near-close [ɪ], /e/ → open-mid [ɛ], /o/ → open-mid [ɔ].
- The low vowels /a, aː/ vary between central and back articulations: [a~ɑ, aː~ɑː].
[edit] Consonants
Tonkawa has 15 consonants:
| Bilabial | Dental | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | plain | labial | ||||
| Plosive | p | t | k | kʷ | ʔ | ||
| Affricate | ʦ | ||||||
| Fricative | s | x | xʷ | h | |||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | ||||
- The affricate /ʦ/ and fricative /s/ vary freely between dental and postalveolar articulations, i.e. [ʦ~ʧ] and [s~ʃ]. There is a tendency for [ʃ] to occur at the end of words (but no tendency for [ʧ]).
- The velar obstruents are palatal before front vowels /i, iː, e, eː/:
- /k, kʷ, x, xʷ/ → [c, cʷ, ç, çʷ]
[edit] Phonological processes
An interesting feature of Tonkawan phonology is that the vowels in even-numbered syllables are reduced. That is, long vowels are shortened, while short vowels disappear.
[edit] Grammar
 |
This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it. |
[edit] Writing system
The orthography used on the Tonkawa Tribe's website is very similar to Americanist phonetic notation.
| Alphabet | Pronunciation | Alphabet | Pronunciation |
| c | /ʦ/ | a | /a/ |
| h | /h/ | a• | /aː/ |
| k | /k/ | e | /e/ |
| kʷ | /kʷ/ | e• | /eː/ |
| l | /l/ | i | /i/ |
| m | /m/ | i• | /iː/ |
| n | /n/ | o | /o/ |
| p | /p/ | o• | /oː/ |
| s | /s/ | u | /u/ |
| t | /t/ | u• | /uː/ |
| w | /w/ | ||
| x | /x/ | ||
| xʷ | /xʷ/ | ||
| y | /j/ | ||
| ' or ? | /ʔ/ |
Long vowels are indicated with a following middle dot < • >. The affricate /ʦ/ is written as < c >. The glottal stop /ʔ/ is written as either an apostrophe < ' > or with a superscript question mark < ? >. The palatal glide /j/ is written as < y >.
The phonemic orthography used in Hoijer's Tonkawa Texts is a later version of Americanist transcription. It uses a colon for long vowels < : > and the traditional glottal stop symbol < ʔ >.
[edit] Example
The following text is the first four sentences of Coyote and Jackrabbit, from Hoijer's Tonkawa Texts.
- ha•csokonayla ha•nanoklakno?o xam?al?a•y?ik. ?e•kʷa tanmaslakʷa•low hecne•laklakno?o lak. ha•csokonayla "?o•c!" noklakno?o. "?ekʷanesxaw sa•ken nenxales!" noklakno?o. ?e•ta tanmaslakʷa•lowa•?a•lak hewleklakno?o.
Gloss:
- Coyote / he was going along, S / on the prairie. When he did so / Jackrabbit / he was lying, S / (accus.). Coyote / "Oho!" / he said, S. "Horse /my / I have found it!" / he said, S. And then / that Jackrabbit afm / he caught him, S.
In this gloss, S is an abbreviation for "it is said", and afm for "the aforementioned".
[edit] References
- Hoijer, Harry. (1933). Tonkawa: An Indian language of Texas. New York: Columbia University. (Extract from Handbook of American Indian languages, Vol. 3).
- Hoijer, Harry. (1946). Tonkawa. in Harry Hoijer et al., Linguistic Structures of Native America, 289-311.
- Hoijer, Harry. (1949). An Analytical Dictionary of the Tonkawa Language. Berkeley, CA: University of California Publications in Linguistics 5.
- Hoijer, Harry. (1972). Tonkawa Texts. Berkeley, CA: University of California Publications in Linguistics 73.
- Mithun, Marianne. The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
- "The Tonkawa Language: Pronunciation Key." Internet: <http://www.tonkawatribe.com/culture/language.htm> October 12, 2005.
[edit] External links
- Ethnologue report for Tonkawa
- Tonkawa resources at the Rosetta Project
- The Tonkawa Language — Includes online Tonkawa dictionary
