Lakota language
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{{language |name=Lakota |nativename=Lakhota |states=United States, with a few speakers in Canada |region=Primarily North Dakota and South Dakota, but also northern Nebraska, southern Minnesota, and northern Montana |speakers=8,000–9,000 |familycolor=American |fam1=Siouan-Catawban |fam2=Siouan |fam3=Mississippi Valley |fam4=Dakotan |fam5=Sioux |iso2=sio|iso3=lkt}}
Lakota (also Lakhota, Teton, Teton Sioux) is the largest of the three languages of the Sioux, of the Siouan family. 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 8,000-9,000 speakers living mostly in northern plains states of North and South Dakota.
The language was first put into written form by missionaries around 1840 and has since evolved to reflect contemporary needs and usage.
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Regional variation
Lakota is predominantly associated with the Teton Sioux bands living west of the Missouri River. Lakota itself contains two major regional varieties, which is spoken by the following bands:
- Northern Lakota
- Minneconjou
- Two Kettles
- Sans Arcs
- Blackfoot
- Hunkpapa
- Southern Lakota
- Oglala
- Brule
Phonology
Vowels
Lakota has five oral vowels, Template:IPA, and three nasal vowels, Template:IPA (phonetically Template:IPA). Lakota Template:IPA and Template:IPA are said to be more open than the corresponding cardinal vowels, perhaps closer to Template:IPA and Template:IPA. Orthographically, the nasal vowels are sometimes written with a following <ƞ> or <N>, and sometimes with ogoneks underneath, <į ą ų>.
Consonants
The voiced plosives Template:IPA and Template:IPA should perhaps be considered allophones of Template:IPA and Template:IPA, since for almost all words they are in complementary distribution, with Template:IPA and Template:IPA occurring only before Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, and Template:IPA, as well as in certain morphophonemic situations. The voiceless aspirated plosives have two allophonic variants each: those with glottal friction Template:IPA, and those with velar friction Template:IPA, which occur before /a/, /ã/, /o/, /ĩ/, and /ű/ (thus, lakhóta, Template:IPA is phonetically Template:IPA; Template:IPA 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 velar fricatives Template:IPA and Template:IPA are commonly spelled <ȟ> (sometimes <ĥ>) and <ǧ>.
Prosody
All 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.
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 (Rood and Taylor 1996).
When two vowels of unequal height contract, or when feature contrasts exist between the vowels and the glide, two new phonetic vowels, Template:IPA and Template:IPA, result (Rood and Taylor 1996): iyæ̂:, "he left for there," from iyáye; mithɔ̂:, "it's mine," from mitháwa.
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...," Template:IPA (Rood and Taylor 1996).
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).
Grammar
Morphology
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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 etablished 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).
Bibliography
- 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. Sketch of Lakhota, a Siouan Language. In: Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 17 (Languages), pp. 440-482. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1996.
External links
- Our Languages: Lakota (Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre)
- Lakota Language Consortium
- Lakhota Language
- Sketch of Lakhota, a Siouan Language
- Lakota Iyapi
- Palatalization in Lakhotade:Lakota (Sprache)