Koasati language

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Koasati
Spoken in:	United States
Region:	Elton, Louisiana and Livingston, Texas.
Total speakers:	200
Language family:	Muskogean  Eastern Muskogean   Koasati
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	nai
ISO 639-3:	cku
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Koasati (usually Coushatta) is a Native American language of Muskogean origin. The language is spoken by the Coushatta people, most of whom live in Allen Parish north of the town of Elton, Louisiana, though a smaller number share a reservation near Livingston, Texas with the Alabama people. Linguist Geoffrey Kimball has estimated the number of speakers of the language at around 400 people, of whom approximately 350 live in Louisiana (Kimball 1991).

Koasati is most closely related to the Alabama language, but though the Coushatta and Alabama have historically lived near each other, their languages are no longer mutually intelligible without extensive exposure. The language is also related to the Mikasuki language and some native speakers of Coushatta report they can understand Mikasuki without previous exposure to the language.

One notable feature of the language is that men and women use slightly different grammatical forms of verbs.

[edit] References

• Kimball, Geoffrey D. (1991). Koasati Grammar. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2725-6. 

• Kimball, Geoffrey D. (1994). Koasati Dictionary. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2726-4. 

[edit] External links

• Sovereign Nation of The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana
• Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Koasati entry