Kitsai language
| Kitsai | |
|---|---|
| Native to | United States |
| Region | previously west-central Oklahoma and eastern Texas |
| Ethnicity | Kichai |
| Extinct | 1940, with the death of Kai Kai[1] |
Caddoan
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | kii |
| Glottolog | kits1249 |
| ELP | Lua error in Module:Endangered_Languages_Project at line 21: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). |
| Linguasphere | 64-BAB-a |
Kitsai (also Kichai) is an extinct member of the Caddoan language family.[2] The French first record the Kichai people's presence along the upper Red River in 1701.[3] By the 1840s Kitsai was spoken in southern Oklahoma, but by 1940 no native speakers remained. It is thought to be most closely related to Pawnee.[4][5] The Kichai people today are enrolled in the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes (Wichita, Keechi), Waco and Tawakonie), headquartered in Anadarko, Oklahoma.
Phonology
[edit | edit source]Consonants
[edit | edit source]Kitsai's consonant inventory consists of the phonemes shown in the chart below.[6] The phoneme /c/ is analyzed below as a palatal stop, even though its typical realization is alveolar with delayed release, so as to not have an affricate "series" consisting of only one phoneme. Similarly, /w/ is analyzed as a velar (i.e. labio-velar) rather than a labial so as to not be the only labial consonant.
| Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | t | k | ʔ | |
| Affricate | c [t͡s] | |||
| Fricative | s | h | ||
| Nasal | n | |||
| Sonorant | r | y [j] | w |
Vowels
[edit | edit source]Kitsai has the following vowel phonemes:
| Short | Long | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Back | Front | Back | |
| High | i | u | iː | uː |
| Mid | e | (o) | eː | (oː) |
| Low | a | aː | ||
When adjacent to /k/, the vowels /o/ and /oː/ appear to mostly exist in free variation with /u/ and /uː/ respectively. There are a few instances where /o(ː)/ does not occur next to /k/, like the word for "owl" (pronounced /oːs/), but this is rare. Ultimately, the phonemic status of /o(ː)/ is unclear.[6]
Documentation
[edit | edit source]Kitsai is documented in the still mostly-unpublished field notes of anthropologist Alexander Lesser, of Hofstra University. Lesser discovered five speakers of Kitsai in 1928 and 1929, none of whom spoke English. Communicating to the Kitsai speakers through Wichita/English bilingual translators, he filled 41 notebooks with Kitsai material.[7]
Kai Kai was the last fluent speaker of Kitsai. She was born around 1849 and lived eight miles north of Anadarko. Kai Kai worked with Lesser to record vocabulary and oral history and prepare a grammar of the language.[8]
In the 1960s, Lesser shared his materials with Salvador Bucca of the Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, and they published scholarly articles on Kitsai.[7]
Vocabulary
[edit | edit source]Some Kitsai words include the following:[9]
- wari:ni 'bear'
- kotay 'corn'
- 'taxko 'coyote'
- a'tsi'u 'grass'
- wí:ta 'man'
- 'ihts 'sweet potato'
- kaxtsnu 'white'
- ho'tonu 'wind'
- tsakwákt 'woman'
Notes
[edit | edit source]- ^ Kitsai at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009) Closed access icon
- ^ Sturtevant and Fogelson, 616
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Sturtevant and Fogelson, 68
- ^ Kitsai language at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009) Closed access icon (retrieved 3 May 2010)
- ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ "Kitsai and Caddoan Word Set." Native Languages. (retrieved 3 May 2010)
References
[edit | edit source]- Sturtevant, William C., general editor, and Raymond D. Fogelson, volume editor. Handbook of North American Indians: Southeast. Volume 14. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2004. Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)..
External links
[edit | edit source]- Kitsai, Native Languages
- Caddoan languages and peoples