- Shawnee language
language
name=Shawnee
nativename=Shaawanwa?
familycolor=American
states=United States
region=Oklahoma
speakers=200
fam1=Algic
fam2=Algonquian
iso2=alg|iso3=sjwThe Shawnee language is a Central Algonquian language spoken in parts of central and northeastern
Oklahoma by only around 200Shawnee , making it very endangered. It was originally spoken inOhio , West Virginia,Kentucky , andPennsylvania . It is closely related to the other Algonquian languages Mesquakie-Sauk (Sac and Fox) andKickapoo .ounds
Stress in Shawnee falls on the final syllable of a word.
Vowels
Shawnee has four short vowels, IPA|/i e a o/ (where IPA|/i/ and IPA|/e/ are phonetically IPA| [ɪ] and IPA| [ɛ] ) and four long vowels, IPA|/iː eː aː oː/.
Consonants
Some speakers of Shawnee pronounce /ɕ/ more like an alveolar /s/. This pronunciation is especially common among
Loyal Band Shawnee speakers nearVinita , Oklahoma.Grammar
Shawnee shares many grammatical features with other Algonquian languages. There are two third persons,
proximate andobviative , 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.External links
* [http://www.fantasy-epublications.com/shawnee-traditions/Language/Language.html Shawnee Language]
* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=sjw Ethnologue Report for Shawnee]
* [http://www.shawnee-bluejacket.com/shawnee/Gatschet_Shawnee_MS_615.htm Albert Gatschet's notes on the Shawnee language]References
*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 Unpublished Dissertation, University of South Carolina, Columbia.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.
*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.
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