Muskogean languages

Muskogee or " Muskogean " is a Native American language family from the southeastern United States. The language code according to ISO 639-2 is mus

  • 2.1 Phonology
  • 2.2 Nouns
  • 2.3 verbs

Distribution of language family

The Muskogean languages ​​are divided into two main branches, the eastern and the western. These distinctions are currently still debated. They belong to the agglutinative languages ​​. The traditional classification of Mary Haas and her students. A more recent and controversial classification was proposed by Pamela Munro.

In the vocabulary of Houma it could be another undocumented Western Muskogean language or a version of Mobilian Pidgin. Mobilian Pidgin is a pidgin language based on the Western Muskogean (list of pidgin ).

Some linguists have summarized the Muskogean languages ​​along with some isolated individual languages ​​to a hypothetical family of golf languages.

Haas

I. Western Muskogean

II Eastern Muskogean

Munro

I. Northern Muskogean

II Southern Muskogean

Relations

The Muskogean languages ​​are possibly related to the Natchez language of Louisiana.

Features of the language family

Phonology

The Muskogean languages ​​have a relatively simple phonology compared to other Indian languages ​​. Proto - Muskogean containing the phonemes / pt tS kg K shmnlwy / (in X - Sampa notation). The Western Muskogean languages ​​distinguish / s / and / S /. Many of the languages ​​distinguish the unvoiced / p / from the voiced / b /; voiced labials are rare in the Indian languages. The Muskogean languages ​​have pitch accents.

Nouns

Most languages ​​of the family have lexical accents on nouns, as well as on grammatical cases that distinguish subject from object. The nouns show not necessarily to gender and number.

Verbs

Muskogean verbs have a complex ablaut system, changes the word stem of the verb with the aspect (almost always) or depends also on the voltage or modality. In the Muskogean linguistics, the different forms are referred to as " grade".

The verbs indicate the first and second person, as well as active and passive ( Choctaw also shows the indirect object to ). Third person (he, she, it) have a zero marker.

Plurality of a subject is indicated by either 1) affixation of the verb or 2) an already original plural word stem of the verb. The latter is a very significant feature of the Muskogean languages.

Example ( pluralization by affixation, Choctaw )

Ishimpa      ish - impa      2SG.NOM - eat      " you eat"           hashimpa      hash- impa      2PL.NOM - eat      " you eat " Example ( originally -fold root words, Mikasuki )

łiniik      rennen.SG      " race (singular ) "           palaak      rennen.PAUCAL      " race ( more ) "      mataak      rennen.PL      " run (a lot ) " Web Links

  • Paper on Roots of Muskogean languages ​​( discusses classifications, PDF file, 1.03 MB)
  • Ethnologue: Muskogean
  • Indian languages
  • North and Mesoamerican languages
  • Ethnologue: Languages ​​of the World English

Bibliography

  • Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
  • Goddard, Ives ( Ed. ). (1996). Languages ​​. Handbook of North American Indians (WC Sturtevant, General Ed. ) (Vol. 17). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-048774-9.
  • Haas, Mary. (1973). The southeast. In TA Sebeok ( Ed. ), Linguistics in North America (part 2, pp. 1210-1249 ). The Hauge: Mouton.
  • Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages ​​of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 ( hbk ); ISBN 0-521-29875- X.
  • Sebeok, Thomas A. ( Ed. ). (1973). Linguistics in North America (parts 1 & 2). Current trends in linguistics (Vol. 10). The Hauge: Mouton. ( Reprinted as Sebeok 1976).
  • Sturtevant, William C. ( Ed. ). (1978 -present). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 1-20). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. ( Vols. 1-3, 16, 18-20 not yet published).
Houma people Gulf languages Chickasaw language Choctaw language Koasati language Mikasuki language Voiceless Voice (phonetics) Labial consonant Apophony Integrated Authority File
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