Lakota language

Lakota
Lakȟótiyapi
Pronunciation	[laˈkˣota]
Native to	United States, with some speakers in Canada
Region	Primarily North Dakota and South Dakota, but also northern Nebraska, southern Minnesota, and northern Montana
Native speakers	6,000 [1]
Language family	Siouan-Catawban Siouan Mississippi Valley Dakotan Sioux Lakota
Language codes
ISO 639-2	sio
ISO 639-3	lkt
ELP	Lakota

Lakota (also Lakhota, Teton, Teton Sioux) is a Siouan languages spoken by the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes. While generally taught and considered by speakers as a separate language, Lakota is mutually understandable with the other two languages, and is considered by most linguists one of the three major varieties of the Sioux language. The Lakota language represents one of the largest Native American language speech communities left in the United States, with approximately 6,000 speakers living mostly in northern plains states of North and South Dakota.[2]

The language was first put into written form by missionaries around 1840 and has since evolved to reflect contemporary needs and usage.

Vowels

Lakota has five oral vowels, /i e a o u/, and three nasal vowels, /ĩ ã ũ/ (phonetically [ɪ̃ ə̃ ʊ̃]). Lakota /e/ and /o/ are said to be more open than the corresponding cardinal vowels, perhaps closer to [ɛ] and [ɔ]. Orthographically, the nasal vowels are sometimes written with a following <ƞ>, <ŋ>, or <n>, and sometimes with ogoneks underneath, <į ą ų>.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m		n
Plosive	unaspirated	p	t		tʃ	k		ʔ
	voiced	(b)				(g)
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		tʃʰ	kʰ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ		tʃʼ	kʼ
Fricative	voiceless			s	ʃ		χ
	voiced			z	ʒ		ʁ
	ejective			sʼ	ʃʼ		χʼ
Approximant		w		l	j			h

The voiced plosives /b/ and /g/ should perhaps be considered allophones of /p/ and /k/, since for almost all words they are in complementary distribution, with [b] and [g] occurring only before /l/, /m/, /n/, /enwiki/w/, and /j/, as well as in certain morphophonemic situations. The voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/ becomes a uvular trill ([ʀ]) before /i/. The voiceless aspirated plosives have two allophonic variants each: those with a delay in voicing ([pʰ tʰ ʧʰ kʰ]), and those with velar friction ([pˣ tˣ kˣ]), which occur before /a/, /ã/, /o/, /ĩ/, and /ũ/ (thus, lakhóta, /la'kʰota/ is phonetically [laˈkˣota]; [ʧˣ] does not occur). For some speakers, there is a phonemic distinction between the two, and both occur before /e/. Some orthographies mark this distinction; others do not. The uvular fricatives /χ/ and /ʁ/ are commonly spelled <ȟ> (sometimes <ĥ>) and <ǧ>.

The spelling used in modern texts is often written without diacritics, resulting in the failure to mark stress and the confusion of numerous consonants: /s/ and /ʃ/ are both written s, /h/ and /χ/ are both written h, and the aspirate stops are written like the unaspirates, as p, t, c, k.

All monomorphemic words have one vowel which carries primary stress and has a higher tone than all other vowels in the word. This is generally the vowel of the second syllable of the word, but often the first syllable can be stressed, and occasionally other syllables as well. Stress is generally indicated with an acute accent: <á>, etc. Compound words will have stressed vowels in each component; proper spelling will write compounds with a hyphen. Thus máza-ská, literally "metal-white", i.e. "silver, money" has two stressed vowels, the first a in each component. If it were written without the hyphen, as maza ska, it could only have one stress.

Orthography

A standard phonemic orthography is used in Lakota schools.

The vowels are a, e, i, o, u; nasal vowels are aŋ, iŋ, uŋ. Stress is marked with an acute accent: á, é, í, ó, ú, áŋ, íŋ, úŋ.

The following consonants approximate their IPA values: b, g, h, k, l, m, n, p, s, t, w, z. Y has its English value of /j/. An apostrophe, ’, is used for glottal stop.

A caron is used for sounds which are not written with Latin letters in the IPA: č /tʃ/, ǧ /ʁ/, ȟ /χ/, š /ʃ/, ž /ʒ/. Aspirates are written with h: čh, kh, ph, th, and velar frication with ȟ: kȟ, pȟ, tȟ. Ejectives are written with an apostrophe: č’, ȟ’, k’, p’, s’, š’, t’.

Phonological processes

A common phonological process which occurs in rapid speech is vowel contraction, which generally results from the loss of an intervocalic glide. Vowel contraction results in phonetic long vowels (phonemically a sequence of two identical vowels), with falling pitch if the first underlying vowel is stressed, and rising pitch if the second underlying vowel is stressed: kê: (falling tone), "he said that," from kéye; hǎ:pi (rising tone), "clothing," from hayápi. If one of the vowels is nasalized, the resulting long vowel is also nasalized: čhą̌:pi, "sugar," from čhąhą́pi.

When two vowels of unequal height contract, or when feature contrasts exist between the vowels and the glide, two new phonetic vowels, [æː] and [ɔː], result: iyæ̂:, "he left for there," from iyáye; mitɔ̂:, "it's mine," from mitáwa.

The plural enclitic =pi is frequently changed in rapid speech when preceding the enclitics =kte, =kį, =kštó, or =na. If the vowel preceding =pi is high, =pi becomes [u]; if the vowel is non-high, =pi becomes [o] (if the preceding vowel is nasalized, then the resulting vowel is also nasalized): hí=pi=kte, "they will arrive here," [hiukte]; yatką́=pi=na, "they drank it and...," [jatkə̃õna].

Lakota also exhibits some traces of sound symbolism among fricatives, where the point of articulation changes to reflect intensity: zí, "it's yellow," ží, "it's tawny," ǧí, "it's brown" (Mithun 1999:33). (Compare with the similar examples in Mandan.)

Grammar

Word order

The basic word order of Lakota is Subject Object Verb, although the order can be changed for expressive purposes (placing the object before the subject to bring the object into focus or placing the subject after the verb to emphasize its status as established information). It is postpositional, with adpositions occurring after the head nouns: mas'óphiye él, "at the store" (literally 'store at'); thípi=kį ókšą, "around the house" (literally 'house=the around') (Rood and Taylor 1996).

Rood and Taylor (1996) suggest the following template for basic word order. Items in parenthesis are optional; only the verb is required. It is therefore possible to produce a grammatical sentence that contains only a verb.

(interjection) (conjunction) (adverb(s)) (nominal) (nominal) (nominal) (adverb(s)) verb (enclitic(s)) (conjunction)

Interjections

When interjections appear, they begin the sentence. Buechel (1983) suggests that the interjection ma is used by women, while men use wa or hohʔ (see also Men's and women's speech below).

Conjunctions

It is common for a sentence to begin with a conjunction. Both chake and yukha can be translated as and; kʔeyas is similar to English but. Each of these conjunctions joins clauses. In addition, the conjunction na joins nouns or phrases.

Adverbs and Postpositions

Lakota uses postpositions, which are similar to English prepositions, but follow their noun complement. Adverbs or postpositional phrases can describe manner, location, or reason. There are also interrogative adverbs, which are used to form questions.

Nouns and Pronouns

As mentioned above, nominals are optional in Lakota, but when nouns appear the basic word order is Subject-Object-Verb. Pronouns are not common, but may be used contrastively or emphatically.

Lakota has four articles: wa is indefinite, similar to English a or an, and ki is definite, similar to English the. In addition, wazi is an indefinite article used with hypothetical or irrealis objects, and kʔu is a definite article used with nouns that have been mentioned previously.

There are also five demonstratives, which can function either as pronouns or as determiners. The demonstratives are lé (this), hé (that) hena (those), henáos (those two) and é. This last, é, is less specific, and is usually translated as this.

Verbs

Verbs are the only word class that are obligatory in a Lakota sentence. Verbs can be active, naming an action, or stative, describing a property. (Note that in English, such descriptions are usually made with adjectives.)

Verbs are inflected for first-, second- or third person, and for singular, dual or plural grammatical number.

Morphology

Verb Inflection

There are two paradigms for verb inflection. One set of morphemes indicates the person and number of the subject of active verbs. The other set of morphemes agrees with the object of transitive action verbs or the subject of stative verbs.

Most of the morphemes in each paradigm are prefixes, but plural subjects are marked with a suffix and third-person plural objects with an infix.

First person arguments may be singular, dual, or plural; second or third person arguments may be singular or plural.

Subject of active verbs

	singular	dual	plural
first person	wa-	ʔųk-	ʔųk- … -pi
second person	ya-		ya- … -pi
third person	unmarked		-pi

Examples: ya "He goes." yápi "They go."

Object or subject of stative verbs

	singular	dual	plural
first person	wa-	ʔųk-	ʔųk- … -pi
second person	ni-		ni- … -pi
third person	unmarked		-pi (subject) -wicha- (object)

Example: wawíchayaka "He looked at them."

Enclitics

Lakota has a number of enclitic particles which follow the verb, many of which differ depending on whether the speaker is male or female.

Some enclitics indicate the aspect, mood, or number of the verb they follow. There are also various interrogative enclitics, which in addition to marking an utterance as a question show finer distinctions of meaning. For example, while he is the usual question-marking enclitic, hųwó is used for rhetorical questions or in formal oratory, and the dubitative wa functions somewhat like a tag question in English (Rood and Taylor 1996; Buchel 1983). (See also Men and women's speech below.)

Men and women's speech

There are a number of enclitics which differ in form based on the gender of the speaker. Yeló (men) marks mild assertions, and kšt (men) marks stronger assertions. K(i)štó is the version used by women corresponding to men's yeló and kšt. For men, wą marks a mild opinion and yewą́ marks stronger opinions. The corresponding women's forms are ma and yemá, respectively. Yo (men) and ye (women) mark neutral commands, yethó (men) and nithó / įthó (women) mark familiar, and ye (both men and women) and na mark requests. He is used by both genders to mark direct questions, but men also use hųwó in more formal situations. So (men) and se (women) mark dubitative questions (where the person being asked is not assumed to know the answer).

While many native speakers and linguists agree that certain enclitics are associated with particular genders, such usage may not be exclusive. That is, individual men sometimes use enclitics associated with women, and vice versa (Trechter 1999).

Examples of enclitic usage

Enclitic	Meaning	Example	Translation
ha	continuous	yáha	"was going"
pi	plural	iyáyapi	"they went"
la	diminutive	záptala	"only five"
ke	attenuative	waste`lake	"pretty good"
kte	irrealis	uyíkte	"we will go" (future)
sni	negative	hiyu`sni	"not come out"
sʔa	repeating	eyápi sʔa	"they always say"
séca	conjecture	híla séca	"it seems like he came"
ló	assertion (masc)	b.léló	"(I hereby assert) I go"
yé	assertion (fem)	híla yé	"(I hereby assert) he came"
he	interrogative	khoyákiphela he?	"what do you fear?"
hųwó	interrogative (masc. formal)	tókhiya lá hųwó?	"where, I ask?"
hųwé	interrogative (fem. formal)	Tákula hųwé?	"What is it?"
wa	dubative question	séca wa	"can it be as it seems?"
skheʔe	evidential	yáha skheʔe	"he was going, I understand"
kʔeʔe	evidential (hearsay)	yapi kʔeʔe	"they went, they say"

Phrases

"Hokahe!" is a phrase used by traditional Lakota people during battle. It means "let's go". Crazy Horse was known to use it to mean "charge!" It can be contracted to just "ho!". According to a Lakota Holy Man, Eagle Voice, as recounted by Nebraska poet John Neihardt, it is literally translated as "Hold fast. There is more!"

"Háu kola", literally, "Hello, friend," is the most common greeting, and was transformed into the generic motion picture American Indian "How!", just as the traditional feathered headdress of the Teton was "given" to all movie Indians. As "háu" is the only word in Lakhota which contains a diphthong, /au/, it may be a loanword from a non-Siouan language, possibly from the English "How do you do?"

Learning Lakota

Few resources are available for self-study of Lakota by a person with no or limited access to native speakers of Lakota. Here is a collection of some resources currently available:

• Lakhótiya Wóglaka Po! - Speak Lakota! : Level 1 & Level 2 Textbooks and Audio CDs by Lakota Language Consortium. (elementary/secondary school level)
• New Lakota Dictionary. (ISBN 0-9761082-9-1)
• Lakota: A Language Course for Beginners by Oglala Lakota College (ISBN 0-88432-609-8) (The companion 15 CDs/Tapes (11 hours) (high school/college level)
• Reading and Writing the Lakota Language by Albert White Hat Sr. (ISBN 0-87480-572-4) (high school/college level)
• University of Colorado Lakhota Project: Beginning Lakhota, vol. 1 & 2, Elementary Bilingual Dictionary and Graded Readings, (high school/college level)
• Lakota Dictionary: Lakota-English/English-Lakota, New Comprehensive Edition by Eugene Buechel, S.J. & Paul Manhart (ISBN 0-8032-6199-3)
• A Grammar of Lakota by Eugene Buechel, S.J. (ASIN B000AO4ZCK) (professional level)
• The article by Rood & Taylor, in #References (professional level)

Bibliography

• Buechel, Eugene. (1983). A Dictionary of Teton Sioux. Pine Ridge, SD: Red Cloud Indian School.
• DeMallie, Raymond J. (2001). Sioux until 1850. In R. J. DeMallie (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 2, pp. 718-760). W. C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-050400-7.
• Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Parks, Douglas R.; & Rankin, Robert L. (2001). The Siouan languages. In Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 1, pp. 94-114). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
• de Reuse, Willem J. (1987). One hundred years of Lakota linguistics (1887-1987). Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 12, 13-42. (Online version: https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/509).
• de Reuse, Willem J. (1990). A supplementary bibliography of Lakota languages and linguistics (1887-1990). Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 15 (2), 146-165. (Studies in Native American languages 6). (Online version: https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/441).
• Rood, David S. and Allan R. Taylor. (1996). Sketch of Lakhota, a Siouan Language. Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 17 (Languages), pp. 440-482. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution. (Online version: http://lakxotaiyapi.freecyberzone.com/sk0.htm)
• Trechter, Sarah. (1999). Contextualizing the Exotic Few: Gender Dichotomies in Lakhota. In M. Bucholtz, A.C. Liang, and L. Sutton (Eds) Reinventing Identities (pp. 101-122). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN:0195126297
• Ullrich, Jan. (2008). New Lakota Dictionary. (Lakota Language Consortium). ISBN 0-9761082-9-1.

External links

• Lakhota Language
• Lakota Iyapi
• Lakota Language Consortium
• The official Lakota language forum
• Omniglot
• Our Languages: Lakota (Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre)
• Palatalization in Lakhota
• Sketch of Lakhota, a Siouan Language
• Some Reflections on Laḱota Syntax