Chickasaw language
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The Chickasaw language (Chikashshanompa', IPA [tʃikaʃːanompaʔ]) is a Native American language of Muskogean family. It is agglutinative and follows the pattern of Subject Object Verb. The language is closely related to, though perhaps not entirely mutually intelligible with, Choctaw. It is spoken by the Chickasaw tribe, now residing in Southeast Oklahoma, centered around Ada.
Sounds
Consonants
Chickasaw has 16 consonants. In the table below, the consonants are written in orthography. The phonetic symbolization of each consonant is written in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to the right of each orthographic letter when the orthography differs from the IPA symbol.
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bilabial | labio- dental |
central | lateral | ||||
| Stop | p b | t | k | ' [ʔ] | |||
| Affricate | ch [tʃ] | ||||||
| Fricative | f | s | lh [ɬ] | sh [ʃ] | h | ||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Approximant | w | l | y [j] | ||||
- w is labial-velar.
- Voiceless stops p, t, k are aspirated [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ], especially at the beginning of words.
Vowels
Chickasaw has 9 vowels:
| Front | Back | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short (oral) |
long, oral |
long, nasal |
short (oral) |
long, oral |
long, nasal |
short (oral) |
long, oral |
long, nasal | |
| High | i | ii [iː] | i̱ [ĩː] | o | oo [oː] | o̱ [õː] | |||
| Low | a | aa [aː] | a̱ [ãː] | ||||||
Chickasaw vowels contrast in length and in oral/nasality. Short vowels are centralized: short i is phonetically [ɪ], short o is phonetically [o̟], and short a is phonetically [ə].
Short vowels are also phonetically lengthened when they occur in the second syllable of a sequence of even-numbered open syllables. For example, the word sahashaa is phonetically [sahaˑʃaː]. The lengthened short vowel is usually intermediate in length between a short vowel and long vowel. However, the phonetic realization varies depending on the individual speaker and also on phonetic environment. The lengthening does not occur at the end of words and is further restricted by certain morphological criteria. (See Gordon et al. 2000).
Syllable and phonotactics
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Prosody
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Grammar
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Verb
Pronominal affixes
Verb arguments (i.e. subject, direct object, indirect object) are indicated with pronominal affixes (both prefixes and suffixes) which are added to verb stems. The pronominal affixes are inflected according to number (singular, plural) and person (1st, 2nd).
Chickasaw has an active-stative pronominal system with two basic series of pronominal sets: an active series (I) and a stative series (II). Additionally, Chickasaw also has dative (III), negative (N), and reciprocal (IR) series.
The active series is used for active intransitive subjects and active transitive subjects. (An active subject, simply put, is a subject that is in control of the action while a stative subject does not have control of the action. This is the difference between She fell on purpose vs. She fell accidentally where the first she controlled the falling while the second she did not control the falling.) The active series is in the table below:
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | -li | il- / ii- |
| 2nd | ish- | hash- |
| 3rd | - | |
The third person lacks an affix and usually does not distinguish between singular and plural. The first person singular affix is a suffix while the other affixes are prefixes. The first person plural has two forms: il- which is used before vowels and ii- which is used before consonants — thus, il-iyya "we go", ii-malli "we jump". An example inflectional paradigm of the verb malli "to jump" is below (with the pronominal affixes underlined):
| singular | plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | mallili | "I jump" | iimalli | "we jump" |
| 2nd | ishmalli | "you jump" | hashmalli | "you all jump" |
| 3rd | malli "he/she/it/they jump" | |||
The stative series (II) is below. This series is used to indicate stative intransitive subjects and direct objects.
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | sa- | po- |
| 2nd | chi- | hachi- |
| 3rd | - | |
Example with stative intransitive subjects, lhinko "to be fat":
| singular | plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | salhinko | "I am fat" | polhinko | "we are fat" |
| 2nd | chilhinko | "you are fat" | hachilhinko | "you all are fat" |
| 3rd | lhinko "he/she/it/they is/are fat" | |||
Example with direct objects, pisa "to look at (someone)" (the subject in the paradigm below is unmarked because it is in the third person):
| singular | plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | sapisa | "he/she/it/they look at me" | popisa | "he/she/it/they look at us" |
| 2nd | chipisa | "he/she/it/they look at you" | hachipisa | "he/she/it/they look at you all" |
| 3rd | pisa "he/she/it/they look at him/her/it/them" | |||
Both active and stative affixes can occur together in which case the active affix indicates the active subject and the stative affix indicates the direct object. Active prefixes occur before stative prefixes. When ish- "active second person singular" occurs before sa- "stative first person singular", it results in issa- (the sh assimilates to s). Likewise, hash- "active second person plural" + sa- is realized as hassa-. The full paradigm of pisa "to look at" is below:
| verb form | translation | morpheme segmentation |
|---|---|---|
| hachipisali | "I look at you all" | hachi-pisa-li |
| pisali | "I look at her" | pisa-li |
| iichipisa | "we look at you" | ii-chi-pisa |
| iihachipisa | "we look at you all" | ii-hachi-pisa |
| iipisa | "we look at her" | ii-pisa |
| issapisa | "you look at me" | ish-sa-pisa |
| ishpopisa | "you look at us" | ish-po-pisa |
| ishpisa | "you look at her" | ish-pisa |
| hassapisa | "you all look at me" | hash-sa-pisa |
| hashpopisa | "you all look at us" | hash-po-pisa |
| hashpisa | "you all look at her" | hash-pisa |
| sapisa | "she looks at me" | sa-pisa |
| popisa | "she looks at us" | po-pisa |
| chipisa | "she looks at you" | chi-pisa |
| hachipisa | "she looks at you all" | hachi-pisa |
| pisa | "she looks at her" | pisa |
Verb grades
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- verb grades (gemination, epenthesis)
| foyopa | 'to breathe' | ||
| fóyyo'pa | 'to give a sigh of relief' | ||
| foyohómpa | 'to be breathing' | ||
| foyámpa | 'breathing' (at same time as another action) |
External links
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Chickasaw
- A phonological and phonetic study of word-level stress in Chickasaw (pdf)
- The phonology of pitch accents in Chickasaw (pdf)
References
- Gordon, Matthew. (2004). A phonological and phonetic study of word-level stress in Chickasaw. International Journal of American Linguistics, 70 (1), 1-32.
- Gordon, Matthew; Munro, Pamela; & Ladefoged, Peter. (2000). Some phonetic structures of Chickasaw. Anthropological Linguistics, 42, 366-400.
- Gordon, Matthew; Munro, Pamela; & Ladefoged, Peter. (2001). Chickasaw (Illustrations of the IPA). Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 31 (2), 287-290.
- Munro, Pamela; & Willmond, C. (1994). Chickasaw: An analytical dictionary. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.