Tonkawa language

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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 
Pre-contact distribution of the Tonkawa language
Pre-contact distribution of the Tonkawa language
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

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 Coronal Dorsal Glottal
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 other coronals /t, n, l/ are consistently dental.
  • The dorsal obstruents are normally velar, but palatal before front vowels /i, iː, e, eː/:
    • /k, kʷ, x, xʷ/ → [c, cʷ, ç, çʷ]
  • The dorsal approximants /j, w/ are consistently palatal and labiovelar respectively.

[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

 Please help improve this section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.


[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 >. some of the examples of it would be like salt it is called mummun and peper is mummunchicew

[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