Shawnee language
| Shawnee | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Native to | United States | |||
| Region | Oklahoma | |||
| Native speakers | 200 (date missing) | |||
| Language family |
Algic
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | sjw | |||
Distribution of the Shawnee language around 1650
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The Shawnee language is a Central Algonquian language spoken in parts of central and northeastern Oklahoma by only around 200 Shawnee, making it an endangered language. It was originally spoken in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. It is closely related to the Algonquian languages Mesquakie-Sauk (Sac and Fox) and Kickapoo.
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Language revitalization efforts [edit]
Absentee-Shawnee Elder George Blanchard's Shawnee language classes were profiled on the PBS show "The American Experience" in 2009.[1] The Eastern Shawnee have also taught language classes.[2]
Conversational Shawnee booklets and CDs, and a Learn Shawnee Language website are available.[3][4]
Sounds [edit]
Stress in Shawnee falls on the final syllable of a word.
Vowels [edit]
Shawnee has four short vowels, /i e a o/ (where /i/ and /e/ are phonetically [ɪ] and [ɛ]) and four long vowels, /iː eː aː oː/.
Consonants [edit]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | t | tʃ | k | ʔ |
| Fricative | θ | ʃ | h | ||
| Lateral | l | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||
| Semivowel | w | j |
The Shawnee /θ/ is most often derived from Proto-Algonquian *s.[5]
Some speakers of Shawnee pronounce /ʃ/ more like an alveolar [s]. This pronunciation is especially common among Loyal Band Shawnee speakers near Vinita, Oklahoma.
Grammar [edit]
Shawnee shares many grammatical features with other Algonquian languages. There are two third persons, proximate and obviative, and two noun classes (or genders), animate and inanimate. It is primarily agglutinating typologically, and is polysynthetic, resulting in a great deal of information being encoded on the verb. The most common word order is Verb-Subject.
Orthography [edit]
During the nineteenth century a short-lived roman-based alphabet was designed for Shawnee by the missionary Jotham Meeker. It was never widely used.[5] Later, native Shawnee speaker Thomas 'Wildcat' Alford devised a highly phonemic and accurate orthography for his 1929 Shawnee translation of the four gospels of the New Testament, but it, too, never attained wide usage.
References [edit]
- ^ "Shawnee: A Matter of Funding". PBS. 2009-04-13. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/native_now/language_shawnee. Retrieved 2013-04-26.
- ^ "Shawnee Language Classes". Eastern Shawnee of Oklahoma. Retrieved 2013-04-26.
- ^ "Say it in Shawnee!". Retrieved 2013-04-26.
- ^ "Learn Shawnee - Learn Shawnee Language". Retrieved 2013-04-26.
- ^ a b Mithun, Marianne (2001). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 16. ISBN 978-0-521-29875-9.
Further reading [edit]
- Alford, Thomas Wildcat. 1929. The Four Gospels of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Shawnee Indian Language. Xenia, Ohio: Dr. W. A. Galloway.
- Andrews, Kenneth. 1994. Shawnee Grammar. Unpublished Dissertation, University of South Carolina, Columbia.
- Costa, David J. 2001. Shawnee Noun Plurals. Anthropological Linguistics 43: 255-287.
- Costa, David J. 2002. Preverb Usage in Shawnee Narratives. In H. C. Wolfart, ed., Papers of the 33rd Algonquian Conference, 120-161. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba.
- Gatschet, Albert S. "Shawnee words, phrases, sentences and texts 1890-1892". Retrieved 2013-04-26.
- Voegelin, Carl F. 1935. Shawnee Phonemes. Language 11: 23-37.
- Voegelin, Carl F. 1936. Productive Paradigms in Shawnee. Robert H. Lowie, ed., Essays in Anthropology presented to A. L. Kroeber 391-403. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Voegelin, Carl F. 1938-40. Shawnee Stems and the Jacob P. Dunn Miami Dictionary. Indiana Historical Society Prehistory Research Series 1: 63-108, 135-167, 289-323, 345-406, 409-478 (1938–1940). Indianapolis.
External links [edit]
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