Seri language

infobox language
name=Seri
nativename="Cmiique Iitom"
pronunciation= [kw̃ĩkˈiːtom]
familycolor=isolate
region=Sonora, Mexico
speakers=Slightly below 1,000. [La situación sociolingüística de la lengua seri en 2006.]
family=Language isolate
iso2=nai
iso3=sei

Seri (referred to as cmiique iitom by the Seri people) is a language isolate spoken by the Seri people in two villages on the coast of Sonora, Mexico.

Classification

The term "Serian family" may be used to refer to a language family with Seri as its only living member; related languages have disappeared in the last couple of centuries. Attempts have been made to link it to the Yuman family, to the now-extinct Salinan language of California, and to the much larger hypothetical Hokan family. [For discussion of the Hokan question, see Marlett (2007). For discussion of the relationship with Salinan, see Marlett (2008).] These hypotheses came out of a period when attempts were being made to group all of the languages of the Americas into families. In the case of Seri, however, very little evidence has ever been produced. Until such evidence is presented and evaluated, the language is most appropriately considered an isolate.

The name of the language

The name "Seri" is an exonym for this people that has been used since the first contacts with the Spaniards (sometimes written differently, as "ceres"). Gilg reported in 1692 that it was a Spanish name, but surely it was the name used by another group of the area to refer to the Seris. Nevertheless, modern claims that it is a Yaqui or Opata name that means something like "people of the sand" or "people who run fast" are lacking in factual basis; no substantiation has been presented.

The name used within the Seri community itself, for the language, is "cmiique iitom", which contrasts with "cocsar iitom" ("Spanish language") and "maricaana iitom" ("English language"). The expression is a noun phrase that is literally "(that) with which a Seri person speaks". The word "cmiique" (phonetically IPA| [ˈkw̃ĩːkːɛ] ) is the singular noun for "Seri person". The word "iitom" is the oblique nominalization of the intransitive verb "caaitom" ("talk"), with the prefix "i-" (third person possessor) and the null prefix for the nominalizer with this class of root. Another similar expression that one hears occasionally for the language is "cmiique iimx", which is a similar construction based on the transitive verb "quimx" ("tell") (root = "amx").

The name chosen by the Seri committee for the name of the language used in the title of the recent dictionary was "comcaac quih yaza", which is the plural version of "cmiique iitom". It was appropriate for a project of that type, although it is not a commonly used term. "Comcaac" (phonetically IPA| [koŋˈkɑːk] ) is the plural form of "cmiique" and "yaza" is the plural nominalized form corresponding to "iitom". ("ooza" is the plural root, "y-" (with an accompanying vowel ablaut) is the nominalizer; the prefix for third person possessor elides before the "y". The word "quih" is a singular article (which combines with the plural noun to refer to the Seri community).

Phonology

Vowels

There are several different definite articles ("the"), depending on the position and movement of the object:
*"Quij" (singular) and "coxalca" (plural) are used with seated objects.
*"Cap"/"cop" (sg.) and "coyolca" (pl.) are used with standing objects. "Cap" and "cop" are dialectal variants.
*"Com" (sg.) and "coitoj" (pl.) are used with objects lying down.
*"Hipmoca" (sg.) and "hizmocat" (pl.) are used with close, approaching objects.
*"Hipintica" (sg.) and "hipinticat" (pl.) are used with close objects going away.
*"Timoca" (sg.) and "tamocat" (pl.) is used with distant, approaching objects.
*"Tintica" (sg.), "tanticat" (pl.), "himintica" (sg.), and "himinticat" (pl.) are used with distant objects going away.
*"Hac" (sg. & pl.) are used with locations and verbal nouns. "Hac" is pronounced IPA| [ʔɑk] after vowels and IPA| [ɑk] after consonants.
*"Quih" (sg.) and "coi" (pl.) are unspecified. "Quih" is pronounced IPA| [kiʔ] before consonants, IPA| [kʔ] before vowels, and IPA| [k] at the end of an utterance.These articles are derived historically from nominalized forms (as appear in relative clauses in Seri) of verbs: "quiij" ("that which sits"), "caap" ("that which stands"), "coom" ("that which lies"), "quiih" ("that (especially soft item like cloth) which is located"), "moca" ("that which comes"), "contica" ("that which goes"), and "caahca" ("that which is located"; root "-ahca")

Demonstratives

Four simple demonstrative pronouns occur, plus a large set of compound demonstrative adjectives and pronouns. The simple demonstratives are "tiix" ("that one"), "taax" ("those, that (mass)"), "hipíix" ("this one"), and "hizáax" ("these, this (mass)").

The compound demonstratives are formed by added a deictic element to an article. Examples include "himcop" ("that (standing far off)"), "ticop" ("that (standing closer)"), "hipcop" ("this (standing)"), "himquij" ("that (sitting far off)"), "himcom" ("that (lying far off)"), etc. These compound demonstratives may be used either as adjectives (at the end of the noun phrase) or as pronouns.

Personal Pronouns

Two personal nonreflexive pronouns are in common use: "he" (first person, "I", "we") and "me" (second person, "you" (singular or plural). These pronouns may have singular or plural referents; the difference in number is indicated in the verb stem. The reflexive pronouns are "hisoj" "myself", "misoj" "yourself", "isoj" "herself, himself, itself", "hisolca" "ourselves", "misolca" "yourselves" and "isolca" "themselves".

Lexicon

The Seri language has a rich basic lexicon. The usefulness of the lexicon is multiplied many times over by the use of idiomatic expressions. The expression for 'I am angry' is "hiisax cheemt iha", literally 'my.spirit stinks (Declarative)', for example. (The kinship terminology is among the most extensive and complicated that has been documented in the world. [Mary B. Moser and Stephen A. Marlett (1999) Seri kinship terminology. SIL Electronic Working Papers (1999-005). [http://www.sil.org/silewp/1999/005/] . See Moser and Marlett (2005) for corrections.] Seri has a small number of loanwords, most ultimately from Spanish, but via other languages such as O'odham. [Stephen A. Marlett (2007) Loanwords in Seri: the data. [http://lengamer.org/admin/language_folders/seri/user_uploaded_files/links/File/Loanwords_in_Seri.pdf] ]

Many ideas are expressed not with single words, but with fixed expressions consisting of several words. For example, "newspaper" is "hapaspoj cmatsj" (literally, "paper that tells lies"), "compass" is "ziix hant iic iihca quiya" (literally, "thing that knows where places are"), and "radio" is "ziix haa tiij coos" (literally, "thing that sitting there sings"). This kind of phrase formation is deeply ingrained in the lexicon; it has been used in the past to create new terms for lexical items that became taboo due to the death of a person whose nickname was based on that word.

Writing system

Seri is written in the Latin alphabet. represents IPA|/k/ before the vowels "e" and "i", while "c" is used elsewhere, as in Spanish. Long vowels are indicated by doubling the vowel letter. The voiced lateral IPA|/l/ is indicated by placing an underline under , i.e. <Unicode|Ḻ ḻ>. Stress is generally not indicated, but can be marked by placing an acute accent <´> over the stressed vowel. The representation of the rounded back consonants using a digraph which includes o-dieresis serves to visually unite morphemes that have allomorphs containing the full vowel o, the historical source of the rounded consonants. Example: "xeecoj" IPA|/χɛːkox/ ("wolf"), "xeecöl" IPA|/χɛːkʷɬ/ ("wolves").

The letters B, D, G, Gü, and V occur in some loanwords.

The Seri alphabet was developed in the 1950s by Edward W. and Mary B. Moser, and later revised by Stephen Marlett. [Stephen A. Marlett. (2006) La evolución del alfabeto seri. Octavo Encuentro Internacional de Lingüística en el Noroeste, tomo 3, pp. 311-329. Hermosillo, Sonora: Universidad de Sonora. ] In particular:
*The rounded velar stop IPA|/kʷ/ was written both and , but is now only written .
*The diphthongs IPA| [aŏ] [iŭ] [eŏ] were written respectively, but are now considered to be allophones occurring before rounded consonants, e.g. "Tahéojc" → "Tahejöc".
*The velar nasal IPA| [ŋ] was written , but is now considered an allophone of IPA|/m/ and written , e.g. "congcáac" → "comcaac".
*Nasalized vowels were marked with an underline, but are now considered allophones occurring after IPA|/km/, e.g. unicode|"cuá̱am" → "cmaam".
*Lengthening of vowels and consonants that follow a stressed syllable were written double, but are now considered allophonic, e.g. "hóoppaatj" → "hóopatj". Long vowels and consonants in other situations are still written double.
*Word boundaries sometimes changed, with clitics being often originally written solid with the adjacent words, but now written separately.

Literature

A growing body of Seri literature is being published. Some of the stories that were recorded, transcribed and published earlier [For example Chico Romero y otros. (1975) Zix ctám barríil hapáh cuitzaxö, zix quihmáa táax mos czáxöiha (El hombre llamado barril y otras historias). México: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. and Roberto Herrera T., Jesús Morales y Juan Topete. (1976) Zix anxö cóohhiit hapáh quih czáxö zix quihmáa táax mos czaxöiha (El gigante llamado comelón y otras historias). México: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.] are now being re-edited and published. [Stephen A. Marlett, compiler. (2007) Ziix haptc iiha comcaac quih ocoaaj quih ano yaii. [http://www.lengamer.org/admin/language_folders/seri/user_uploaded_files/links/File/Acervo_de_Textos/acervo_de_textos.htm] ] New material is also being prepared by several writers. [ René Montaño Herrera, Francisco Xavier Moreno Herrera and Stephen A. Marlett, editors. Comcaac quih ziix quih ocoaaj hac. (Enciclopedia seri.) [http://www.lengamer.org/admin/language_folders/seri/user_uploaded_files/links/File/Enciclopedia/EncicloSeri.htm] ]

Trivia

The Seri word for "shark", which is "hacat", was chosen by ichthyologist Juan Carlos Pérez Jiménez to name a newly discovered species of smooth-hound shark in the Gulf of California ("Mustelus hacat").

Notes

References

*cite book |last=Campbell |first=Lyle |year=1997 |title=American Indian languages: the historical linguistics of Native America |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford
*cite book |last=Marlett |first=Stephen A. |year=1981 |title=The Structure of Seri |others=Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. University of California, San Diego
*cite journal |last=Marlett |first=Stephen A. |year=1988 |month=July |title=The Syllable Structure of Seri |journal=International Journal of American Linguistics |volume=54 |issue=3 |pages=245–278 |doi=10.1086/466086
*cite journal |last=Marlett |first=Stephen A. |year=1994 |title=One Less Crazy Rule |journal=Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session |volume=38 |pages=57–58
*cite journal |last=Marlett |first=Stephen A. |year=2002 |title=Reanalysis of Passive and Negative Prefixes in Seri |journal=Linguistic Discovery |volume=1 |issue=1 |url=http://journals.dartmouth.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Journals.woa/2/xmlpage/1/article/1 |doi=10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.1
*cite journal |last=Marlett |first=Stephen A. |year=2005 |title=A Typological Overview of the Seri Language |journal=Linguistic Discovery |volume=3 |issue=1 |url=http://journals.dartmouth.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Journals.woa/2/xmlpage/1/article/282 |doi=10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.282
*cite conference |last=Marlett |first=Stephen A. |year=2006 |title=El acento, la extrametricalidad y la palabra mínima en seri |booktitle=Encuentro de Lenguas Indígenas Americanas, Santa Rosa, La Pampa, Argentina
*cite book |last=Marlett |first=Stephen A. |year=2006 |chapter=La situación sociolingüística de la lengua seri en 2006 |title=Situaciones sociolingüísticas de lenguas amerindias |editor=Stephen A. Marlett, ed. |publisher=SIL International y Universidad Ricardo Palma |location=Lima [http://lengamer.org/publicaciones/trabajos/seri_socio.pdf]
*cite book |last=Marlett |first=Stephen A. |year=2007 |chapter=Las relaciones entre las lenguas hokanas en México: ¿cuál es la evidencia? |title=Memorias del III Coloquio Internacional de Lingüística Mauricio Swadesh, |editor=Cristina Buenrostro et al, eds., |pages=165-192 |publisher=Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas.|location=Mexico City
*cite journal |last=Marlett |first=Stephen A. |year=2008 |title=The Seri and Salinan connection revisited. |journal=International Journal of American Linguistics |volume=74 |issue=3 |pages=393–99. |doi=10.1086/590087
*cite journal |last=Marlett |first=Stephen A. |coauthors=F. Xavier Moreno Herrera, Genaro G. Herrera Astorga |year=2005 |title=Illustrations of the IPA: Seri |journal=Journal of the International Phonetic Association |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=117–121 |doi=10.1017/S0025100305001933 |url=http://www.und.nodak.edu/instruct/smarlett/Documents/Seri-IPA-2005.pdf
*cite journal |last=Moser |first=Mary B. |year=1978 |title=Articles in Seri |journal=Occasional papers on linguistics |volume=2 |pages=67–89
*cite book |last=Moser |first=Mary B. |coauthors=Stephen A. Marlett |title=Comcáac quih yaza quih hant ihíip hac: Diccionario seri-español-inglés |url=http://lengamer.org/admin/language_folders/seri/user_uploaded_files/links/File/DiccionarioSeri2005.pdf |year=2005 |publisher=Universidad de Sonora and Plaza y Valdés Editores |location=Hermosillo, Sonora |language=Spanish and English

External links

* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=sei Ethnologue]
* [http://lengamer.org/admin/language_folders/seri/user_uploaded_files/links/File/BibliografiaElectronicaSeri.htm Seri bibliography]
* [http://lengamer.org/asoc/language.php?language=seri Seri page at Lengamer.org]
* [http://www.und.nodak.edu/instruct/smarlett/ Stephen Marlett's home page]
* [http://www.sil.org/mexico/seri/00i-seri.htm SIL Mexico]
* [http://lengamer.org/admin/language_folders/seri/user_uploaded_files/links/File/Textos/SeriTexts.htm Seri texts and recordings]