Shawnee language
The Shawnee language is a Central Algonquian language spoken in parts of central and northeastern Oklahoma by the Shawnee people. It was originally spoken in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. It is closely related to other Algonquian languages, such as Mesquakie-Sauk and Kickapoo. It has 260 speakers, according to a 2015 census, although the number is decreasing. It is a polysynthetic language with rather free word ordering.
Status
Shawnee is severely threatened, with speakers shifting to English. The approximately 200 remaining speakers are older adults. The decline in usage of Shawnee is largely the result of reform schools for Native American children that forced an education in English, causing some Native Americans to cease teaching their languages to children.Of the 2,000 members of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe around Shawnee town, more than 100 are speakers; of the 1,500 members of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe in Ottawa County, there are only a few elderly speakers; of the 8,000 members of the Loyal Shawnee in the Cherokee region of Oklahoma around Whiteoak there are fewer than 12 speakers. All of these low figures, in addition to the fact that most speakers are older adults, make Shawnee an endangered language. Additionally, development outside of the home is limited; apart from a dictionary and portions of the Bible from 1842 to 1929, it appears that there is little literature or technology support for Shawnee.
Language revitalization
Elder George Blanchard's Shawnee language classes were profiled on the PBS show "The American Experience" in 2009. The Eastern Shawnee have also taught language classes.Conversational Shawnee booklets and CDs, and a Learn Shawnee Language website are available.
Sounds
Vowels
Shawnee has six vowels, three of which are high, and three are low.| Front | Central | Back | |
| Close | i iː | ||
| Middle | e | o | |
| Open | a aː |
In Shawnee, /i/ tends to be realized as , and /e/ tended to be pronounced .
In and, a near minimal pair has been found for Shawnee /i/ and /ii/. In and, a minimal pair has been found for Shawnee /a/ and /aa/.
ho-wiisi'-ta 'he was in charge'
wi 'si 'dog'
caaki yaama 'all this'
caki 'small'
However, no quantitative contrasts have been found in the vowels /e/ and /o/.
Consonants
Shawnee consonants are shown in the chart below.| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
| Plosive | k k: | ||||
| Fricative | |||||
| Lateral | |||||
| Nasal | |||||
| Semivowel |
/k/ and /kk/ contrast in the verbal affixes -ki and -kki.
The Shawnee /θ/ is most often derived from Proto-Algonquian *s.
Some speakers of Shawnee pronounce /ʃ/ more like an alveolar . This pronunciation is especially common among Loyal Band Shawnee speakers near Vinita, Oklahoma.
// and /h/ are allophones of the same phoneme: // occurs in syllable final position, while /h/ occurs at the beginning of a syllable.
Stress
Stress in Shawnee falls on the final syllable of a word.Phonology
In Shawnee phonology, consonant length is contrastive. Words may not begin with vowels, and between a morpheme ending with a vowel and one starting with a vowel, a is inserted. Shawnee does not allow word-final consonants and long vowels.;Consonant length
ye-kkil-a-ki
SUB-hide-DIR-3sAO
when hide him
ye-kkil-a-kki
SUB-hide-DIR-3pAO
when hide them
These affixes are object markers in the transitive animate subordinate mode. The subject is understood.
Insertion
∅→/#____V
A word may not begin with a vowel. Instead, an on-glide is added. For example:
There are two variants of the article "-oci", meaning from. It can attach to nouns to form prepositional phrases, or it can also be a preverb. When it attaches to a noun, it is "-ooci," and when attached to a preverb it is "-hoci."
naamin-ooci
Norman-from
from Norman
oklahooma niila hoci-lenawe
Oklahoma 1 from-live
I'm from Oklahoma
/y/ Insertion
∅→/V_____ V
When one of the vowels is long, Shawnee allows for the insertion of .
ni-aay-a
I-REDUP-go
'I went '
Word-final Consonant Deletion
C# → 0
A consonant is deleted at the end of a word.
In, a noun ends in a consonant when a locative suffix follows, but in, the consonant is deleted at word end.
wiikiw55p~ski
house -LOC
'in the house'
wiikiwa ho-staa -ekw-a -li kapenalee-li
house 3 -build-INV-DIR-3sOBV governor ~3sOBV
'The governor built
Word-final Vowel Shortening
V:# → V#
A long vowel is shortened at the end of a word.
Morphology
Morpho-phonology
Rule 1
t/V____Vis inserted between two vowels at morpheme boundary.
As we know from the phonological rule stated above, a word may not begin with a vowel in Shawnee. From the morphophonological rule above, we can assume that ~.
example
"-eecini" meaning Indian agent appears as "hina heecini" or that Indian agent, and as "ho-eecinii-ma-waa-li, meaning he was their Indian agent. The of "ho--" fills the open slot that would otherwise have to be filled with .
Rule 2
V1-V2-----> V2A short vowel preceding another short vowel at a morpheme boundary is deleted.
example
hina + -ene
that + -Xtimes
at that time period, then
melo'kami -eke
spring -LOC
in spring
Rule 3
V:V------> V:When a long vowel and a short vowel come together at a morpheme boundary, the short vowel is deleted.
example
ho-staa-ekw-a -li
3-build-INV-DIR-3sOBV
he built
kaa -ki -noot-en -aa-maa-ekw-a
REDUP-PERF-hear-by.hand-TI-TA-INV-DIR
signed by hand
Shawnee shares many grammatical features with other Algonquian languages. There are two third persons, proximate and obviative, and two noun classes, 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.
Affixes
stem--transitivizing affix-object affixThe instrumental affix is not obligatory, but if it is present, it determines the type of transitivizing affix that can follow it, or by the last stem in the theme.
Instrumental affixes are as follows
| Instrumental suffix | |
| pw 'by mouth' | |
| n 'by hand' | |
| h 'by heat' | |
| hh 'by mechanical instrument' | |
| l 'by projectile' | |
| t 'by vocal noise' | |
| šk 'by feet in locomotion' | |
| hšk 'by feet as agent' | |
| lhk 'by legs' | |
Possessive paradigm: animate nouns
| Possessor | Singular noun | Plural noun |
| 1s | ni- + ROOT | ni- + ROOT + ki |
| 2s | ki- + ROOT | ki- + ROOT + ki |
| 3s | ho- + ROOT | ho- + ROOT + ki |
| 4s | ho- + ROOT + li | ho- + ROOT + waa + li |
| 1p | ni- + ROOT + na | ni- + ROOT + naa + ki |
| 2+1 | ki- + ROOT + na | ki- + ROOT + naa + ki |
| 2p | ki- + ROOT + wa | ki- + ROOT + waa + ki |
| 4p | ho- + ROOT + hi | ho- + ROOT + waa + hi |
Possessive paradigm: inanimate nouns
-tθani - 'bed'| Possessor | Singular noun | Plural noun |
| 1s | ni- + t0ani | ni- + t0aniw+ali |
| 2s | ki- + t0ani | ki- + t0aniw+ali |
| 3s | ho- + t0ani | ho- + t0aniw+ali |
| 1p | ni- + t0ane+na | ni- + t0ane+na |
| 2+1 | ki- + t0ane+na | ki- + t0ane+na |
| 2p | ki- + t0ani+wa | ki- + t0ani+wa |
| 3p | ho- + t0ani+wa | ho- + t0ani+wa |
| Locative | t0an + eki | |
| Diminutive | t0an + ehi |
Grammar and syntax
Word order
Shawnee has a fairly free word order, with VSO being the most common:teki koos -i -ma
NEG run.from-IMPER-AO
'run you from him'
'you mustn't run away from him'
SOV, SVO, VOS, and OVS are also plausible.
Grammatical categories
Parts of speech in the Algonquian languages, Shawnee included, show a basic division between inflecting forms, and non-inflecting invariant forms. Directional particles incorporate into the verb itself. Although particles are invariant in form, they have different distributions and meanings that correspond to adverbs postpositions and interjections.Case
Examples and below show the grammatical interaction of obviation and inverse. The narrative begins in in which grandfather is the grammatical subject in discourse-focus . In, grandfather remains in discourse-focus , but he is now the grammatical object . To align grammatical relations properly in, the inverse marker /-ekw-/ is used in the verb stem to signal that the governor is affecting grandfather..he-meci -naat-aw'ky-aa-ci hina ni-me'soom' -θa
SUB-COMPLETED-much-land -TA-3SUB that 1-grandfather-PERSON
'afterwards my grandfather received land'
wiikiwa ho-staa -ekw-a -li kapenalee-li
house 3-build-INV-DIR-3sOBV governor -3sOBV
'the governor built a house'
Since the person building the house is disjoint from the person who the house is being built for, this disjunction is marked by placing one participant in the obviative. Since grandfather is the focus in this narrative, the governor is assigned the obviative marking. Grammatically, 'kapenal-ee' is the subject who is not in discourse-focus, showing that grammatical relations and obviation are independent categories.
Similar interactions of inverse and obviation are found below. In Shawnee, third person animate beings participate in obviation, including grammatically animate nouns that are semantically inanimate.
we ni-cis-h -ekw-a hina weepikwa
then 1-fear-CAUSE-INV-DIR- that spider
'then that spider scared me'
ho-waap-am-aa-li kisa'θwa-li
3-look -TA-DIR-3sOBV- sun -3sOBV
'he looked at the sun'
Locative affix /-eki/
The Shawnee /-eki/ meaning "in" can be used with either gender. This locative affix cliticizes onto the preceding noun, and thus it appears to be a case ending.tekwakhwikan-eki
box -in
'in a box'
msi-wikiwaap-eki
big-house -in
'in a big house'
tθene melo'kami-eki
every spring -in
'every spring'
Modality
The independent and imperative orders are used in independent clauses. The imperative order involves an understood second person affecting first or third persons.teke ki-e' -memekw-i
NEG 2-FUT-run -IMPER
'you mustn't run'
teki-koos-i-ma
NEG run.from-IMPER-AO
'you mustn't run away from him'
teke-wi'θen-i kola'-waapaki
NEG eat -IMPER early-morning
'you mustn't eat early in the morning'
Independent Mode:
Inanimate Intransitive :
3s---> /-i/ ---> skwaaw-i 'it is red'
3p---> /-a/ ---> kinwaaw-a 'those are long'
Demonstrative pronouns
Refer to the examples below. 'Yaama' meaning 'this' in examples 1 and 2 refers to someone in front of the speaker. The repetition of 'yaama' in example 1 emphasizes the location of the referent in the immediate presence of the speaker.yaama-kookwe-nee -θa -yaama
this-strange-appearing-PERSON-this
'this stranger '
mata-yaama-ha' -pa-skoolii-wi
not this TIME-go-school- AI
ni-oosθe' -0a
1-grandchild-PERSON
'this grandchild of mine does not go to school'
Refer to the examples below. 'Hina' functions as a third-person singular pronoun.
hina-ha'θepati ni-e-si-naa-pe
3 racoon 1 -call-thus-IN.OBJ-1p
'we called him racoon'
we ha'θepati -si -θo -hina
now raccoon name-PASSIVE 3
'then he was named raccoon'
howe-si taakteli -hina
good-AI doctor 3
'he was a good doctor'
Refer to the examples below. 'Hini' fulfills the same functions as above for inanimate nouns. Locational and third-person singular pronominal uses are found in the following examples.
na'θaapi ni-aay-a hini
even 1-REDUP-go that
'I would even go there'
hini-h-i-si-ci-howe
that -say-thus-3-now
' he said that '
Person, number, and gender
Person
The choice of person affix may depend on the relative position of agent and object on the animacy hierarchy. According to Dixon the animacy hierarchy extends from first person pronoun, second person pronoun, third person pronoun, proper nouns, human common nouns, animate common nouns, and inanimate common nouns.The affixes in the verb will reflect whether an animate agent is acting on someone or something lower in the animacy scale, or whether he is being acted upon by someone or something lower in the animacy scale.
Number
Shawnee nouns can be singular or plural. Inflectional affixes in the verb stem that cross-reference objects are often omitted if inanimate objects are involved. Even if an inflectional affix for the inanimate object is present, it usually does not distinguish number. For example, in the TI paradigm when there is a second or third person plural subject, object markers are present in the verb stem, but they are number-indifferent. Overt object markers are omitted for most other subjects. In the inverse situation, the inanimate participants are not cross-referenced morphologically.Gender
The basic distinction for gender in Shawnee is between animate actors and inanimate objects. Nouns are in two gender classes, inanimate and animate; the latter includes all persons, animals, spirits, and large trees, and some other objects such as tobacco, maize, apple, raspberry, calf of leg, stomach, spittle, feather, bird's tail, horn, kettle, pipe for smoking, snowshoe.Grammatical gender in Shawnee is more accurately signaled by the phonology, not the semantics.
Nouns ending in /-a/ are animate, while nouns ending in /-i/ are inanimate. This phonological criterion is not absolute. Modification by a demonstrative and pluralization are conclusive tests.
In the singular, Shawnee animate nouns end in /-a/, and the obviative singular morpheme is /-li/.
Shawnee inanimate nouns are usually pluralized with stem +/-ali/.
This causes animate obviative singular and inanimate plural to look alike on the surface.
example
animate obviative singular
wiskilo'θa-li
bird
inanimate plural
niipit-ali
my teeth