Muscogee language
Muscogee | |
---|---|
Creek ( Exonym) | |
Mvskoke | |
Native to | United States |
Region | East central Oklahoma, Muscogee and Seminole, south Alabama Creek, Florida, Seminole of Brighton Reservation. |
Ethnicity | 52,000 Muscogee people (1997)[1] |
Native speakers | 4,500 (2015 census)[1] |
| |
Official status | |
Official language in | United States Muscogee Nation |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | mus |
ISO 639-3 | mus |
Glottolog | cree1270 |
ELP | Muskogee |
Current geographic distribution of the Creek language | |
Distribution of Native American languages in Oklahoma | |
The Muscogee language (Muskogee, Mvskoke IPA: , when it is spoken by the Seminole, it is known as Seminole.
Historically, the language was spoken by various constituent groups of the Muscogee or Maskoki in what are now Alabama and Georgia. It is related to but not mutually intelligible with the other primary language of the Muscogee confederacy, Hitchiti-Mikasuki, which is spoken by the kindred Mikasuki, as well as with other Muskogean languages.
The Muscogee first brought the Muscogee and Miccosukee languages to Florida in the early 18th century. Combining with other ethnicities there, they emerged as the Seminole. During the 1830s, however, the US government forced most Muscogee and Seminole to relocate west of the Mississippi River, with most forced into Indian Territory.
The language is today spoken by around 5,000 people, most of whom live in
Current status
Muscogee is widely spoken among the Muscogee people. The Muscogee Nation offers free language classes and immersion camps to Muscogee children.[5]
Language programs
The
Phonology
The phoneme inventory of Muscogee consists of thirteen
Consonants
Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Central | Lateral | |||||
Nasal | m | n
|
||||
Plosive | p | t
|
tʃ | k | ||
Fricative | f | s | ɬ
|
h | ||
Approximant | w | l
|
j |
Plosives
There are four voiceless stops in Muscogee: /p t t͡ʃ k/. /t͡ʃ/ is a voiceless palatal affricate and patterns as a single consonant and so with the other voiceless stops. /t͡ʃ/ has an alveolar allophone [t͡s] before /k/.[16] The obstruent consonants /p t t͡ʃ k/ are voiced to [b d d͡ʒ ɡ] between sonorants and vowels but remain voiceless at the end of a syllable.[17]
Between instances of [o], or after [o] at the end of a syllable, the velar /k/ is realized as the uvular [q] or [ɢ]. For example:[18]
in-coko 'his or her house' [ɪnd͡ʒʊɢo] tokná:wa 'money' [toqnɑːwə]
Fricatives
There are four voiceless fricatives in Muscogee: /f s ɬ h/. /f/ can be realized as either labiodental [
Like /k/, the glottal /h/ is sometimes realized as the uvular [χ] when it is preceded by [o] or when syllable-final:[18]
oh-leyk-itá 'chair' [oχlejɡɪdə] ohɬolopi: 'year' [oχɬolobiː]
Sonorants
The sonorants in Muscogee are two nasals (/m/ and /n/), two semivowels (/w/ and /j/), and the lateral /l/, all voiced.[20] Nasal assimilation occurs in Muscogee: /n/ becomes [ŋ] before /k/.[18]
Sonorants are devoiced when followed by /h/ in the same syllable and results in a single voiceless consonant:[21]
camhcá:ka 'bell' [t͡ʃəm̥t͡ʃɑːɡə] akcáwhko 'a type of water bird' [ɑkt͡ʃəw̥ko]
Geminates
All plosives and fricatives in Muscogee can be geminated (lengthened). Some sonorants may also be geminated, but [hh] and [mm] are less common than other sonorant geminates, especially in roots. For the majority of speakers, except for those influenced by the Alabama or Koasati languages, the geminate [ww] does not occur.[22]
Vowels
The vowel phonemes of Muscogee are as follows:[15]
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i iː | ||
Close-mid | o oː | ||
Open | ɑ ɑː |
There are three short vowels /i ɑ o/ and three long vowels /iː ɑː oː/. There are also the nasal vowels /ĩ ɑ̃ õ ĩː ɑ̃ː õː/ (in the linguistic orthography, they are often written with an ogonek under them or a following superscript "n"). Most occurrences of nasal vowels are the result of nasal assimilation or the nasalizing grade, but there are some forms that show contrast between oral and nasal vowels:[23]
pó-ɬki 'our father' opónɬko 'cutworm'
Short vowels
The three short vowels /i ɑ o/ can be realized as the lax and centralized ([ɪ ə ʊ]) when a neighboring consonant is coronal or in closed syllables. However, /ɑ/ will generally not centralize when it is followed by /h/ or /k/ in the same syllable, and /o/ will generally remain noncentral if it is word-final.[22] Initial vowels can be deleted in Muscogee, mostly applying to the vowel /i/. The deletion will affect the pitch of the following syllable by creating a higher-than-expected pitch on the new initial syllable. Furthermore, initial vowel deletion in the case of single-morpheme, short words such as ifa 'dog' or icó 'deer' is impossible, as the shortest a Muscogee word can be is a one-syllable word ending in a long vowel (fóː 'bee') or a two-syllable word ending with a short vowel (ací 'corn').[24]
Long vowels
There are three long vowels in Muscogee (/iː ɑː oː/), which are slightly longer than short vowels and are never centralized.
Long vowels are rarely followed by a sonorant in the same syllable. Therefore, when syllables are created (often from suffixation or contractions) in which a long vowel is followed by a sonorant, the vowel is shortened:[25]
in-ɬa:m-itá 'to uncover, open' in-ɬam-k-itá 'to be uncovered, open'
Diphthongs
In Muscogee, there are three diphthongs, generally realized as [əɪ ʊj əʊ].[26]
Nasal vowels
Both long and short vowels can be nasalized (the distinction between acces and ącces
Tones
There are three phonemic tones in Muscogee; they are generally unmarked except in the linguistic orthography: high (marked in the linguistic orthography with an acute accent: á, etc.), low (unmarked: a, etc.), and falling (marked with a circumflex: â, etc.).
Orthography
The traditional Muscogee alphabet was adopted by the tribe in the late 1800s[28] and has 20 letters.
Although it is based on the Latin alphabet, some sounds are vastly different from those in English like those represented by c, e, i, r, and v. Here are the (approximately) equivalent sounds using familiar English words and the IPA:
Spelling | Sound (IPA) | English equivalent |
---|---|---|
a | aː ~ a | like the "a" in father |
c | tʃ ~ ts | like the "ch" in such or the "ts" in cats |
e | ɪ | like the "i" in hit |
ē | iː | like the "ee" in seed |
f | f | like the "f" in father |
h | h | like the "h" in hatch |
i | ɛ ~ ɛj | like the "ay" in day |
k | k | like the "k" in skim |
l | l | like the "l" in look |
m | m | like the "m" in moon |
n | n | like the "n" in moon |
o | oː ~ ʊ ~ o | like the "o" in bone or the "oo" in book |
p | p | like the "p" in spot |
r | ɬ | a sound that does not occur in English but is often represented as "hl" or "thl" in non-Muscogee texts. The sound is made by blowing air around the sides of the tongue while pronouncing English l and is identical to Welsh ll.
|
s | s | like the "s" in spot |
t | t | like the "t" in stop |
u | ʊ ~ o | like the "oo" in book or the "oa" in boat |
v | ə ~ a | like the "a" in about |
w | w | like the "w" in wet |
y | j | like the "y" in yet |
There are also three vowel sequences whose spellings match their phonetic makeup:[29]
Spelling | Sound (IPA) | English equivalent |
---|---|---|
eu | iʊ | similar to the exclamation "ew!". A combination of the sounds represented by e and u |
ue | oɪ | like the "oy" in boy |
vo | aʊ ~ əʊ | like the "ow" in how |
Consonants
As mentioned above, certain consonants in Muscogee, when they appear between two
- c can sound like [dʒ], the "j" in just
- k can sound like [ɡ], the "g" in goat
- p can sound like [b], the "b" in boat
- s can sound like [z], the "z" in zoo
- t can sound like [d], the "d" in dust
In addition, certain combinations of consonants sound differently from English, giving multiple possible transcriptions. The most prominent case is the second person singular ending for verbs. Wiketv means "to stop:" the verb for "you are stopping" may be written in Muscogee as wikeckes or wiketskes. Both are pronounced the same. The -eck- transliteration is preferred by Innes (2004), and the -etsk- transliteration has been used by Martin (2000) and Loughridge (1964).
Vowel length
While vowel length in Muscogee is distinctive, it is somewhat inconsistently indicated in the traditional orthography. The following basic correspondences can be noted:
- The short vowel v with the long vowel a (/a/ vs. /aː/)
- The short vowel e with the long vowel ē (/i/ vs. /iː/)
- The short vowel u with the long vowel o (/o/ vs. /oː/)
However, the correspondences do not always apply,[30] and in some words, short /a/ is spelled a, long /iː/ is spelled e, and short /o/ is spelled o.
Nonstandard orthography
Muscogee words carry distinctive tones and nasalization of their vowels. These features are not marked in the traditional orthography, only in dictionaries and linguistic publications. The following additional markers have been used by Martin (2000) and Innes (2004):
- Falling tone in a syllable is shown using a circumflex. In English, falling tone is found in phrases such as "uh-oh" or commands such as "stop!" In Muscogee, however, changing a verb such as acces ("she is putting on (a dress)") to âcces alters the meaning from one of process to one of state ("she is wearing (a dress)").
- Nasalization of a vowel is shown with an ogonek under the vowel. Changing the verb acces to ącces adds the imperfective aspect, a sense of repeated or habitual action ("she kept putting on (that same dress)").
- The key syllable of a word is often shown with an accent and is the last syllable that has normal (high) tone within a word; the following syllables are all lower in pitch.
Grammar
Word order
The general
Grammatical case
Case is marked on noun phrases using the clitics -t for subjects, and -n for non-subjects. The clitic -n can appear on multiple noun phrases in a single sentence at once, such as the direct object, indirect object, and adverbial nouns. Despite the distinction in verbal affixes between the agent and patient of the verb, the clitic -t marks subject of both transitive and intransitive verbs.
In some situations, case marking is omitted. This is especially true of sentences with only one noun where the role of the noun is obvious from the personal marking on the verb. Case marking is also omitted on fixed phrases that use a noun, e.g. "go to town" or "build a fire".
Verbs
In Muscogee, a single verb can translate into an entire English sentence. The root infinitive form of the verb is altered for:
- Person of agent. Letketv = to run.
- Lētkis. = I am running.
- Lētketskes. = You are running.
- Lētkes. = He / She is running.
- Plural forms can be a bit more complicated (see below).
- Person of patient and/or indirect object. That is accomplished with prefixes. Hecetv = to see.
- Cehēcis = I see you.
- Cvhēcetskes. = You see me.
- Hvtvm Cehēcares. = I will see you again.
- Tense. Pohetv = to hear.
- Pohis. = I am hearing (present).
- Pohhis. = I just heard (first or immediate past; within a day ago).
- Pohvhanis. = I am going to hear.
- Pohares. = I will hear.
- Pohiyvnks. = I heard recently (second or middle past, within a week ago).
- Pohimvts. = I heard (third or distant past, within a year ago).
- Pohicatēs. = Long ago I heard (fourth or remote past, beyond a year ago).
- There are at least ten more tenses, including perfect versions of the above, as well as future, indefinite, and pluperfect.
- Mood. Wiketv = to stop.
- Wikes. = He / She is stopping (indicative).
- Wikvs. = Stop! (imperative)
- Wike wites. = He / She may stop (potential).
- Wiken omat. = If he / she stops (subjunctive).
- Wikepices. = He / She made someone stop (causative).
- Aspect. Kerretv = to learn.
- Kērris. = I am learning (progressive, ongoing or in progress).
- Kêrris. = I know (resulting state).
- Kęrris. = I keep learning (imperfect, habitual or repeated action).
- Kerîyis. = I just learned (action completed in the past).
- Voice.
- Wihkis. = I just stopped (active voice, 1st past).
- Cvwihokes. = I was just stopped (passive voice, 1st past).
- Negatives.
- Wikarēs. = I will stop (positive, future tense).
- Wikakarēs. = I will not stop (negative, future tense).
- Questions. Hompetv = to eat; nake = what.
- Hompetskes. = You are eating.
- Hompetskv? = Are you eating? (expecting a yes or no answer)
- Naken hompetska? = What are you eating? (expecting a long answer)
Verbs with irregular plurals
Some Muscogee verbs, especially those involving motion, have highly irregular plurals: letketv = to run, with a singular subject, but tokorketv = to run of two subjects and pefatketv = to run of three or more.
Stative verbs
Another entire class of Muscogee verbs is the
- enokkē = to be sick;
- enokkēs = he / she is sick;
- cvnokkēs = I'm sick;
- cenokkēs = you are sick.
Locative prefixes
Prefixes are also used in Muscogee for shades of meaning of verbs that are expressed, in English, by adverbs in
Example:
- vyetv = to go (singular subjects only, see above);
- ayis = I am going;
- ak-ayis = I am going (in water / in a low place / under something);
- tak-ayis = I am going (on the ground);
- oh-ayis = I am going (on top of something).
However, for verbs of motion, Muscogee has a large selection of verbs with a specific meaning: ossetv = to go out; ropottetv = to go through.
Switch-reference
Clauses in a sentence use switch-reference clitics to co-ordinate their subjects. The clitic -t on a verb in a clause marks that the verb's subject is the same as that of the next clause. The clitic -n marks that verb's subject is different from the next clause.
Possession
In some languages, a special form of the noun, the genitive case, is used to show possession. In Muscogee this relationship is expressed in two quite different ways, depending on the nature of the noun.
Nouns in fixed relationships (inalienable possession)
A body part or family member cannot be named in Muscogee without mentioning the possessor, which is an integrated part of the word. A set of changeable prefixes serves this function:
- enke = his / her hand
- cvnke = my hand
- cenke = your hand
- punke = our hand
Even if the possessor is mentioned specifically, the prefix still must be part of the word: Toskē enke = Toske's hand. It is not redundant in Muscogee ("Toske his_hand").
Transferable nouns
All other nouns are possessed through a separate set of pronouns.
- efv = dog;
- vm efv = my dog;
- cem efv = your dog;
- em efv = his / her dog;
- pum efv = our dog.
Again, even though the construction in English would be redundant, the proper way to form the possessive in Muscogee must include the correct preposition: Toskē em efv = Toske's dog. That is grammatically correct in Muscogee, unlike the literal English translation "Toske his dog".
Locative nouns
A final distinctive feature, related to the above, is the existence of locational nouns. In English, speakers have prepositions to indicate location, for example, behind, around, beside, and so on. In Muscogee, the locations are actually nouns. These are possessed just like parts of the body and family members were above.
- cuko = house; yopv = noun for "behind"; cuko yopv = behind the house; cvyopv = behind me; ceyopv = behind you.
- lecv = under; eto = tree; eto lecv = under the tree.
- tempe = near; cvtempe = near me; cetempe = near you; putempe = near us.
Examples
- Family.
- Erke. = Father.
- Ecke. = Mother.
- Pauwv. = Maternal Uncle.
- Erkuce. = Paternal Uncle.
- Eckuce. = Aunt.
- Puca. = Grandpa.
- Puse. = Grandma.
- Cēpvnē. = Boy.
- Hoktuce. = Girl.
Male vs. female speech
Claudio Saunt, writing about the language of the later 18th century, said that there were different feminine and masculine versions, which he also calls dialects, of the Muscogee language. Males "attach[ed] distinct endings to verbs", while Females "accent[ed] different syllables". These forms, mentioned in the first (1860) grammar of the Muscogee language, persisted in the Hichiti, Muscogee proper, and Koasati languages at least into the first half of the 20th century.[31]: 141
Seminole dialects
The forms of Muscogee used by the Seminoles of Oklahoma and Florida are separate dialects from the ones spoken by Muscogee people. Oklahoma Seminole speak a dialect known as Oklahoma Seminole Creek. Florida Seminole Creek is one of two languages spoken among Florida Seminoles; it is less common than the Mikasuki language. The most distinct dialect of the language is said to be that of the Florida Seminole, which is described as "rapid", "staccato" and "dental", with more loan words from Spanish and Mikasuki as opposed to English. Florida Seminole Creek is the most endangered register of the Muscogee language.[4]
See also
- Muscogee people
- Creek mythology
- Muskogean languages
- Mikasuki language
References
Citations
- ^ a b Muscogee at Ethnologue (21st ed., 2018)
- ^ "About Creek". Creek Language Archive. Archived from the original on 2009-06-09. Retrieved 2009-04-26.
- ^ Census Table 1 census.gov [dead link]
- ^ a b Brown, Keith, and Sarah Ogilvie (2008). Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world, pp. 738–740. Elsevier. Retrieved September 27, 2011.
- ^ "Muscogee (Creek) Nation". Archived from the original on 2015-07-15. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
- ^ "Academics." College of the Muscogee Nation. (retrieved 27 Dec 2010)
- ^ Pratt, Stacey (2013-04-15). "Language vital part of cultural identity". Tahlequah Daily Press. Retrieved 2013-04-17.
- ^ "Creek," Archived 2011-02-24 at the Wayback Machine University of Oklahoma: The Department of Anthropology.(retrieved 27 Dec 2010)
- ^ "Library Presents Mvskoke (Creek) Language Class." Native American Times. 8 Sept 2009 (retrieved 27 Dec 2010)
- ^ "Holdenville Indian Community." Muscogee (Creek) Nation. (retrieved 27 Dec 2010)
- ^ "Thunder Road Theater Company to perform plays in the Mvskoke (Creek) Language." Archived 2015-07-15 at the Wayback Machine Muscogee (Creek) Nation. (retrieved 27 Dec 2010)
- ^ Brock, John (2013-08-17). "Creek language class graduates 14". Sapulpa Herald Online. Sapulpa, Oklahoma. Archived from the original on 2013-08-23. Retrieved 2013-08-23.
- ^ Hardy 2005:211-12
- ^ Martin, 2011, p. 50–51
- ^ a b Martin, 2011, p. 47
- ^ Martin, 2011, p.48-49
- ^ Martin, 2011, p. 62
- ^ a b c Martin, 2011, p. 63
- ^ Martin, 2011, p. 49
- ^ Martin, 2011, p.49-50
- ^ Martin, 2011, p.64
- ^ a b Martin, 2011, p. 51
- ^ a b Martin, 2011, p. 53
- ^ Martin, 2011, pp. 64, 72-23
- ^ Martin, 2011, p. 64–65
- ^ Martin, 2011, pp. 54–55
- ^ Martin, 2011, pp. 53–54, 95
- ^ a b Innes 2004
- ^ Hardy 2005, pg. 202
- ^ Hardy 2005, pp. 201-2
- ISBN 0521660432.
Bibliography
- Brown, Keith, and Sarah Ogilvie (2008). Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world, pp. 738–740. Elsevier. Retrieved September 27, 2011.
- Haas, Mary R. and James H. Hill. 2014. Creek (Muskogee) Texts.[1] Edited and translated by Jack B. Martin, Margaret McKane Mauldin, and Juanita McGirt. UC Publications in Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Hardy, Donald E. (January 2005). "Creek". In Hardy, Heather K.; Scancarelli, Janine (eds.). Native Languages of the Southeastern United States. Lincoln, NE: ISBN 0803242352.
- Johnson, Keith; Martin, Jack (2001). "Acoustic Vowel Reduction in Creek: Effects of Distinctive Length and Position in the Word" (PDF). Phonetica. 58 (1–2): 81–102. S2CID 38872292. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2010-06-26. Retrieved 2009-04-26.
- Innes, Pamela; Linda Alexander; Bertha Tilkens (2004). Beginning Creek: Mvskoke Emponvkv. Norman, OK: ISBN 0-8061-3583-2.
- Loughridge, R.M.; David M. Hodge (1964). Dictionary Muskogee and English. Okmulgee, OK: Baptist Home Mission Board.
- Martin, Jack B. (2011). A Grammar of Creek (Muskogee). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803211063.
- Martin, Jack B.; Margaret McKane Maudlin (2000). A Dictionary of Creek/Muskogee. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-8302-4.
External links
- The Creek Language Archive. This site includes a draft of a Creek textbook, which may be downloaded in .pdf format (Pum Opunvkv, Pun Yvhiketv, Pun Fulletv: Our Language, Our Songs, Our Ways by Margaret Mauldin, Jack Martin, and Gloria McCarty).
- The official website for the Muskogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma
- Acoustic vowel reduction in Creek: Effects of distinctive length and position in the word (pdf)
- Mvskoke Nakcokv Eskerretv Esvhokkolat. Creek Second Reader. (1871)
- Muskogee Genesis Translation
- OLAC resources in and about the Creek language
- ^ "Haas/Hill texts - Muskogee (Seminole/Creek) Documentation Project". Muskogee (Seminole/Creek) Documentation Project. Retrieved 2017-12-22.