Chickasaw language

The Chickasaw language is a Native American language of Muskogean stock. It is agglutinative and follows the pattern of Subject Object Verb. The language is closely related to, though perhaps not entirely mutually intelligible with, Choctaw. It is spoken by the Chickasaw tribe, now residing in Southeast Oklahoma, centered around Ada.

Sounds

Consonants

Chickasaw has 16 consonants:

	Labial		Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Velar	Glottal
	bilabial	labio- dental	central	lateral	Post- alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p b		t			k	ʔ
Affricate					ʧ
Fricative		f	s	ɬ	ʃ		h
Nasal	m		n
Approximant	w			l	j

/w/ is labial-velar.
Voiceless stops (p, t, k) are aspirated, especially at the beginning of words.

Vowels

Chickasaw has 9 vowels:

	Front						Back
	short (oral)	long, oral	long, nasal	short (oral)	long, oral	long, nasal	short (oral)	long, oral	long, nasal
High	i	iː	ĩː				o	oː	õː
Low				a	aː	ãː

Chickasaw vowels contrast in length and in oral/nasality. Short vowels are centralized: short is phonetically , short is phonetically , and short is phonetically .

Short vowels are also phonetically lengthened when they occur in the second syllable of a sequence of even-numbered open syllables. For example, the word sahashaa is phonetically . The lengthened short vowel is usually intermediate in length between a short vowel and long vowel. However, the phonetic realization varies depending on the individual speaker and also on phonetic environment. The lengthening does not occur at the end of words and is further restricted by certain morphological criteria. (See Gordon et al. 2000).

Syllable and phonotactics

Prosody

pitch accent

Grammar

Verb

		pisa	'she looks at him'
		chipisa	'she looks at you'
		chipisali	'I look at you'
		chipisalitok	'I looked at you'

verb grades (gemination, epenthesis)

		foyopa	'to breathe'
		fóyyo'pa	'to give a sigh of relief'
		foyohómpa	'to be breathing'
		foyámpa	'breathing' (at same time as another action)

External links

References

Gordon, Matthew. (2004). A phonological and phonetic study of word-level stress in Chickasaw. International Journal of American Linguistics, 70 (1), 1-32.
Gordon, Matthew; Munro, Pamela; & Ladefoged, Peter. (2000). Some phonetic structures of Chickasaw. Anthropological Linguistics, 42, 366-400.
Gordon, Matthew; Munro, Pamela; & Ladefoged, Peter. (2001). Chickasaw (Illustrations of the IPA). Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 31 (2), 287-290.
Munro, Pamela; & Willmond, C. (1994). Chickasaw: An analytical dictionary. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Chickasaw tribe | Muskogean languages | Languages of the United States | Indigenous languages of the North American Southeast

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