Choctaw language

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Main article: Choctaw

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.

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. The Choctaw language does not contain any "r" based sounds.

Contents 1 Dialects 2 Phonology 2.1 Consonants 2.2 Vowels 3 Grammar 3.1 Verbal Morphology 3.1.1 Verb prefixes 3.1.1.1 Agreement prefixes 3.1.1.2 Negatives 3.1.1.3 Anaphoric prefixes 3.1.2 Verb suffixes 3.1.3 Verbal infixes 3.2 Nominal morphology 3.2.1 Noun prefixes 3.2.2 Noun suffixes 3.3 Word order and case marking 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 the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians near Philadelphia, Mississippi

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	Post- alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	p, b	t		k
Affricate			tʃ
Fricative	f	s	ʃ		h
Lateral		l
Lateral fricative		ɬ
Approximant			j	w

Some orthographies use <š> and <č> for /ʃ/ and /tʃ/; 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>. The traditional orthography (used in the Choctaw New Testament) uses <v> and <u> to represent the lax allophones of short /a/ and /o/--that is, [ə] and [ʊ]. This 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] Verbal Morphology

Choctaw verbs display a wide range of inflectional and derivational morphology. In Choctaw, the category of verb may also include words that would be categorized as adjectives or quantifiers in English. Verbs may be preceded by up to three prefixes and followed by as many as five suffixes. In addition, verb roots may contain infixes that convey aspectual information.

[edit] Verb prefixes

The verbal prefixes convey information about the arguments of the verb—how many there are and their person and number features. The prefixes can be divided into three sorts: agreement markers, applicative markers, and anaphors (reflexives and reciprocals). These prefixes occur in the following order:

Agreement-Anaphor-Applicative-Verb Stem

[edit] Agreement prefixes

The agreement prefixes are shown in the following chart

	I	II	III	N
1st sg.	(-li)	sa-	am-/a-	ak-
2nd sg	ish-	chi-	chim-/chi-	chik-
1st pl.	il-/ii-	pi-	pim-/pi-	kil-/kii-
2nd pl.	hash-	hachi-	hachim-/hachi-	hachik-
unmarked	Ø	Ø	im/i-	ik-

I, II, and III are neutral labels for the three person marking paradigms. Some authors have called them Actor/Patient/Dative or Nominative/Accusative/Dative.
The 1sg I agreement marker is /-li/, the only suffix among the agreement markers. It is discussed in this section along with the other agreement markers.
I, II, and III agreement are conditioned by various kinds of arguments. Transitive active verbs show the most predictable pattern. With a typical transitive active verb, the subject will take I agreement, the direct object will take II agreement, and the indirect object will take III agreement.
As the chart above shows, there is no person-number agreement for third person arguments. Consider the following paradigms:

Habli-li-tok. `I kicked him/her/it/them.'
Ish-habli-tok. `You kicked him/her/it/them.'
Habli-tok. `She/he/it/they kicked him/her/it/them.'
Ii-habli-tok. `We kicked him/her/it/them.'
Hash-habli-tok. `Y'all kicked him/her/it/them.'

Sa-habli-tok. `She/he/it/they kicked me.'
Chi-habli-tok. `She/he/it/they kicked you.'
Habli-tok. `She/he/it/they kicked him/her/it/them.'
Pi-habli-tok. `She/he/it/they kicked us.'
Hachi-habli-tok. `She/he/it/they kicked y'all.'

Am-anoli-tok. `She/he/it/they told me.'
Chim-anoli-tok. `She/he/it/they told you.'
Im-anoli-tok. `She/he/it/they told him/her/it/them.'
Pim-anoli-tok. `She/he/it/they told us.'
Hachim-anoli-tok. `She/he/it/they told y'all.'

When a transitive verb occurs with more than one agreement prefix, I prefixes precede II and III prefixes:

Iichipísatok.
Ii-chi-písa-tok.
1pI-2sII-see<ngr>-pt
‘We saw you.’

Ishpimanoolitok.
Ish-pim-anooli-tok.
2sI-1pIII-tell-pt
‘You told us.’

Intransitive verbs show more complicated patterns of agreement. For intransitive verbs, the subjects of active verbs typically trigger I agreement, the subjects of stative verbs typically trigger II agreement, and III agreement is found with the subjects of some psychological verbs.

Baliililitok.
Baliili-li-tok.
run-1sI-pt
`I ran.'

Saniyah.
Sa-niya-h.
1sII-fat-tns
`I am fat.'

Aponnah.
A-ponna-h.
1sIII-skilled-tns
`I am skilled.'

This type of morphology is generally referred to as active-stative.

[edit] Negatives

The set of agreement markers labelled N above is used with negatives. Negation is multiply marked, requiring that an agreement marker from the N set replace the ordinary I agreement, the verb appear in the lengthened grade (see discussion below), and that the suffix /-o(k)-/ follow the verb, with deletion of the preceding final vowel. The optional suffix /-kii/may be added after /-o(k)-/.
Consider the following example:

Akíiyokiittook.
Ak-íiya-o-kii-ttook.
1sN-go<lgr>-neg-neg-dpast
`I didn't go.'

Compare this with the affirmative counterpart:
Iyalittook
Iya-li-ttook.
go-1sI-dpast
`I went.'

To make this example negative, the 1sI suffix /-li/ is replaced by the 1sN prefix /ak-/; the verb root iya is lengthened and accented to yield íiya; the suffix /-o/ is added, the final vowel of iiya is deleted; and the suffix /-kii/ is added.

[edit] Anaphoric prefixes

Reflexives are indicated with the /ili-/ prefix, and reciprocals with /itti-/:

Ilipísalitok.
Ili-písa-li-tok.
refl-see<ngr>-1sI-pt
`I saw myself.'

[edit] Verb suffixes

While the verbal prefixes indicate relations between the verb and its arguments, the suffixes cover a wider semantic range, including information about valence, modality, tense and evidentiality.

The following examples show modal and tense suffixes like /-aachii/ 'irrealis'(approximately equal to future), /-tok/ 'past tense', /-h/ 'default tenses':

Baliilih.
Baliili-h.
run-tns
`She runs.'

Baliilaachih.
Baliili-aachi-h.
run-irr-tns
`She will run.'

There are also suffixes that show evidentiality, or the source of evidence for a statement, as in the following pair:

Nipi’ awashlihli.
Nipi’ awashli-hli
meat fry-first:hand
`She fried the meat.' (I saw/heard/smelled her do it.)

Nipi’ awashlitokasha.
Nipi’ awashli-tok-asha
meat fry-pt-guess
`She fried the meat.' (I guess)
There are also suffixes of illocutionary force which may indicate that the sentence is a question, an exclamation, or a command:

Awashlitoko?
Awashli-tok-o
fry-pt-q
`Did she fry it?'

Chahta’ siahokii!
Chahta’ si-a-h-okii
Choctaw 1sII-be-tns-excl
`I'm Choctaw!' or `I certainly am a Choctaw!'

[edit] Verbal infixes

Choctaw verb stems have various infixes that indicate their aspect. These stem variants are traditionally referred to as `grades'. The table below shows the grades of Choctaw, along with their main usage.

Name of Grade	How it is formed	When it is used
n-grade	infix n in the next to last (penultimate) syllable; put accent on this syllable	to show that the action is durative (lasts some definite length of time)
l-grade	put accent on next to last (penultimate) syllable; lengthen the vowel if the syllable is open	before a few common suffixes, such as the negative /-o(k)/ and the switch-reference markers /-cha/ and /-na/
hn-grade	insert a new syllable /-hV/ after the (original) next to last (penultimate) syllable. V is a nasalized copy of the vowel that precedes it.	to show that the action of the verb repeats
y-grade	insert -Vyy- before the next to last (penultimate) syllable	to show delayed inception
g-grade	formed by lengthening the penultimate vowel of the stem, accenting the antepenultimate vowel, and geminating the consonant that follows the antepenult.	to show delayed inception
h-grade	insert -h- after the penultimate vowel of the stem.	to show sudden action

Some examples that show the grades follow:

In this example the l-grade appears because of the suffixes /-na/ 'different subject' and /-o(k)/ 'negative':

... lowat táahana falaamat akíiyokiittook.
lowa-t táaha-na falaama-t ak-íiya-o-kii-ttook
burn-ss complete<lgr>-ds return-ss 1sN-go<lgr>-neg-neg-dpast

`... (the school) burned down and I didn't go back.'

The g-grade and y-grade typically get translated into English as "finally VERB-ed":

Taloowah.
Taloowa-h
sing-tns
`He sang.'

Tálloowah.
Tálloowa-h
sing<ggr>-tns
`He finally sang.'

The hn-grade is usually translated as 'kept on VERBing':

Ohóbana nittak pókkooli’ oshtattook.
Ohóba-na nittak pókkooli’ oshta-ttook
rain<hngr>-ds day ten four-dpast
`It kept on raining for forty days.'

The h-grade is usually translated "just VERB-ed" or "VERB-ed for a short time":

Nóhsih.
Nóhsi-h
sleep<hgr>-tns
`He took a quick nap.

[edit] Nominal morphology

[edit] Noun prefixes

Nouns have prefixes that show agreement with a possessor. Agreement markers from class II are used on a lexically specified closed class of nouns, which includes many (but not all) of the kinship terms and body parts. This is the class that is generally labeled inalienable.

sanoshkobo’ `my head'
sa-noshkobo’
1sII-head

chinoshkobo’ `your head'
chi-noshkobo’
2sII-head

noshkobo’ `his/her/its/their head'
noshkobo’
head

sashki’ `my mother'
sa-ishki’
1sII-mother

chishki’ `your mother'
chi-ishki’
2sII-mother

Nouns that are not lexically specified for II agreement use the III agreement markers:

aki’ `my father'
a-ki’
1sIII-father

amofi’ `my dog'
am-ofi’
1sIII-dog

Although systems of this type are generally described with the terms alienable and inalienable, these term is not particularly appropriate for Choctaw, since alienability implies a semantic distinction between types of nouns. The morphological distinction between nouns taking II agreement and III agreement in Choctaw only partly coincides with the semantic notion of alienability.

[edit] Noun suffixes

Choctaw nouns can be followed by various determiner and case-marking suffixes, as in the following examples, where we see

determiners such as /-ma/ `that', /-pa/ `this', and /-akoo/ `contrast' and case-markers /-(y)at/ 'nominative' and /-(y)a/ 'accusative':

alla’ naknimat
alla’ nakni-m-at
child male-that-nom
`that boy (nominative)'

Hoshiit itti chaahamako obiniilih.
Hoshi’-at itti’ chaaha-m-ako o-biniili-h
bird-nom tree tall-that-cntr:acc superessive-sit-tns
`The bird is sitting on that tall tree.' (Not on the short one.)

The last example shows that nasalizing the last vowel of the preceding N is a common way to show the accusative case.

[edit] Word order and case marking

The simplest sentences in Choctaw consist of a verb and a tense marker, as in the following examples:

Obatok.
Oba-tok
rain-pt
'It rained.'

Niyah.
Niya-h
fat-tns
'She/he/it is fat.'
'They are fat.'

Písatok.
Písa-tok
see<ngr>-pt
'She/he/it/they saw her/him/it/them.'

As these examples show, there are no obligatory noun phrases in a Choctaw sentence, nor is there any verbal agreement that indicates a third person subject or object. There is no indication of grammatical gender, and for third person arguments there is no indication of number. (There are, however, some verbs with suppletive forms that indicate the number of a subject or object, e.g. iyah `to go (sg.)', ittiyaachih `to go (du.)', and ilhkolih `to go (pl)'.)


When there is an overt subject, it is obligatorily marked with the nominative case /-at/. Subjects precede the verb

Hoshiyat apatok.
Hoshi'-at apa-tok
bird-nom eat-pt
`The birds ate them.'

When there is an overt object, it is optionally marked with the accusative case /-a/:
Hoshiyat shoshi(-ya) apatok.
Hoshi'-at shoshi'(-a) apa-tok.
bird-nom bug-(acc) eat-pt
'The birds ate the bugs.'

The Choctaw sentence is normally verb-final, and so the head of the sentence is last.
Some other phrases in Choctaw also have their head at the end. Possessors precede the possessed noun in the Noun Phrase:

ofi' hohchifo'
dog name
'the dog's name'

Choctaw has postpositional phrases with the postposition after its object:

tamaaha' bilika
town near
`near a town'

[edit] Examples

Some common Choctaw phrases (written in the traditional orthography):

• Choctaw: Chahta
• Hello!: Halito!
• See you later!: Chi pisa la chike!
• number: hohltina/hohltini
• Thank you: Yakoke
• What is your name?: Chi hohchifo yut nanta?
• My name is...: Sa hohchifo yut...
• yes: a̱
• no: keyu
• okay: omi
• I don't understand.: Ak akostinincho.
• I don't know.: Ak ikhano.
• Do you speak Choctaw?: Chahta imanumpa ish anumpola hinla ho̱?
• What is that?: Yummut nanta?

Other Choctaw words:

• Cherokee: Chalaki
• Chickasaw: Chickashaw
• Seminole: Seminuli
• Creek/Muskogee: Muskoki
• today: himak nittak
• tonight: himak ninak
• tomorrow: onnakma
• yesterday: pilashash
• month: hushi
• year/2008: affami/tahlepa sipokni tuklo akohcha untuchina
• house: chukka
• school: holisso apisa
• cat: katos
• dog: ofi
• cow: wak
• horse: issuba/suba

Counting to twenty:

• 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
• sixteen: auahhannali
• seventeen: auahuntuklo
• eighteen: auahuntuchina
• nineteen: abichakkali
• twenty: pokkoli tuklo

At " Native Nashville " web [1], there is an Online Choctaw Language Tutor, with Pronunciation Guide and four lessons: Small Talk, Animals, Food and Numbers.

[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.
• Haag, Marcia, and Willis, Henry. (2001). Choctaw Language & Culture: Chahta Anumpa, University of Oklahoma Press.
• Haag, Marcia, and Fowler, Loretta. (2001). Chahta Anumpa: A Choctaw Tutorial CD-ROM, University of Oklahoma Press.
• 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. (1991). 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