Pawnee language

Pawnee language

language
name=Pawnee
familycolor=lightblue
states=United States
region=North-central Oklahoma
speakers=20
fam1=Caddoan languages
fam2=Northern Caddoan
fam3=Pawnee-Kitsai
fam4=Pawnee
iso1=
iso2b=|iso2t=
iso3=paw

The Pawnee language is a Caddoan language spoken by Pawnee Native Americans located in North central Oklahoma. Once the language of thousands of Pawnees, today Pawnee is spoken by a shrinking number of elderly speakers, and as more young people continue to learn English as their first language, the status of Pawnee declines towards extinction.

Dialects

Two important dialect divisions are evident in Pawnee: South Band and Skiri. The distinction between the two dialects rests on differences in their respective phonetic inventory and lexicon.

ounds

The sounds described in this section belong to the South Band dialect of Pawnee.

Consonants

Pawnee has eight consonant phonemes, and according to one analysis of medial- and final-position glottal stops, one may posit a ninth consonant phoneme.

* IPA|/ʔ/ is predictable when it occurs in the middle of words. However, since IPA|/ʔ/ is not completely predictable at the ends of words, it may also need to be considered as a (phonemic) consonant.

Vowels

Pawnee has four short vowel phonemes and four long counterparts (also phonemic).

Grammar

Pawnee is a polysynthetic language and displays ergativity between nouns and verbs.

References

*American Indian Studies Research Institute. (2008). Dictionary Database: Pawnee (Skidi and Southband dialects). http://zia.aisri.indiana.edu/~dictsearch/
* Mithun, Marianne. (1999). "The languages of Native North America". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
* Parks, Douglas R. (1976). "A grammar of Pawnee". New York: Garland.
* Taylor, Allan R. (1978). [Review of "A grammar of Pawnee" by D. Parks] . "Language", "54" (4), 969-972.

External links

* [http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=paw Ethnologue report for Language]
* [http://www.rosettaproject.org Rosetta Project Archive]


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