The Chickasaw language (Chikashshanompa', IPA [tʃikaʃːanompaʔ]) is a Native American language of Muskogean family. 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. Official language(s) None Capital Oklahoma City Largest city Oklahoma City Area  Ranked 20th  - Total 69,960 sq mi (181,196 km²)  - Width 230 miles (370 km)  - Length 298 miles (480 km)  - % water 1. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... Pre-contact distribution of Muskogean languages Muskogean (also Muskhogean, Muskogee) is a language family of the U.S. Southeast. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code Twenty-two of the languages have two three-letter codes: a code for bibliographic use (ISO 639-2/B) a code for terminological use (ISO 639-2/T). ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words see here. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of sounds and the human voice. ... Because of technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... This is a concise version of the International Phonetic Alphabet for English sounds. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words see here. ... Native American languages are the indigenous languages of the Americas, spoken by Native Americans from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland. ... Pre-contact distribution of Muskogean languages Muskogean (also Muskhogean, Muskogee) is a language family of the U.S. Southeast. ... An agglutinative language is a language in which the words are formed by joining morphemes together. ... In linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb (SOV) is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence appear (usually) in that order. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The Choctaw language, traditionally spoken by the Native American Choctaw people of the southeastern United States, is a member of the Muskogean family. ... The Chickasaws are a Native American people of the United States, originally from present-day Mississippi, now mostly living in Oklahoma. ... Official language(s) None Capital Oklahoma City Largest city Oklahoma City Area  Ranked 20th  - Total 69,960 sq mi (181,196 km²)  - Width 230 miles (370 km)  - Length 298 miles (480 km)  - % water 1. ... Ada is a city in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, United States. ...

Sounds

Consonants

Chickasaw has 16 consonants. In the table below, the consonants are written in orthography. The phonetic symbolization of each consonant is written in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to the right of each orthographic letter when the orthography differs from the IPA symbol. In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words see here. ...

• w is labial-velar.
• Voiceless stops p, t, k are aspirated [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ], especially at the beginning of words.

Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips (bilabial articulation) or with the lower lip and the upper teeth (labiodental articulation). ... Alveolars are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, the internal side of the upper gums (known as the alveoles of the upper teeth). ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... The vocal cords, also known as vocal folds, are composed of twin infoldings of mucous membrane stretched horizontally across the human larynx. ... In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lips and the upper teeth, or viceversa. ... A central or medial consonant is a consonant sound that is produced when air flows across the center of the mouth over the tongue. ... Laterals are L-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... An affricate is a consonant that begins like a stop (most often an alveovelar, such as [t] or [d]) and that doesnt have a release of its own, but opens directly into a fricative (or, in one language, into a trill). ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... Labial-velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips. ... In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies the release of some obstruents. ...

Vowels

Chickasaw has 9 vowels: Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

Chickasaw vowels contrast in length and in oral/nasality. Short vowels are centralized: short i is phonetically [ɪ], short o is phonetically [o̟], and short a is phonetically [ə]. Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... An oral vowel is a vowel that is produced by air that escapes through the mouth only (as opposed to nasal vowels, in which air also goes out through the nose). ... A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through the mouth and the nose. ... An oral vowel is a vowel that is produced by air that escapes through the mouth only (as opposed to nasal vowels, in which air also goes out through the nose). ... A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through the mouth and the nose. ... An oral vowel is a vowel that is produced by air that escapes through the mouth only (as opposed to nasal vowels, in which air also goes out through the nose). ... A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through the mouth and the nose. ... A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. ... An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. ... In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. ... In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that air escapes partially or wholly through the nose during the production of the sound. ...

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 [sahaˑʃaː]. 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). A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of speech that is made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with one or more optional phones (single sounds or phonetic segments). Syllables are often considered the phonological building blocks of words. ...

Syllable and phonotactics

Prosody

• pitch accent

Pitch accent is a kind of accent system employed in many languages around the world. ...

Grammar

Verb

Pronominal affixes

Verb arguments (i.e. subject, direct object, indirect object) are indicated with pronominal affixes (both prefixes and suffixes) which are added to verb stems. The pronominal affixes are inflected according to number (singular, plural) and person (1st, 2nd). See subject (grammar) for the linguistic definition of subject. ... The accusative case of a noun is, generally, the case used to mark the direct object of a verb. ... The dative case is a grammatical case for nouns and/or pronouns. ... Look up affix in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In-Silico Modeling and Conformational Mobility of String Pointer Reduction System (SPRS) Based on DNA Computers ... This article is in need of attention. ... In linguistics, the term grammatical number refers to ways of expressing quantity by inflecting words. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Narrator. ...

Chickasaw has an active-stative pronominal system with two basic series of pronominal sets: an active series (I) and a stative series (II). Additionally, Chickasaw also has dative (III), negative (N), and reciprocal (IR) series. In linguistics, an active language or active-stative language is one where the only argument of an intransitive verb is marked sometimes in the same way as the agent of a transitive verb (that is, like a subject in English), and sometimes in the same way as the direct object... A reciprocal is a linguistic structure that marks a particular kind of relationship between grammatical agents. ...

The active series is used for active intransitive subjects and active transitive subjects. (An active subject, simply put, is a subject that is in control of the action while a stative subject does not have control of the action. This is the difference between She fell on purpose vs. She fell accidentally where the first she controlled the falling while the second she did not control the falling.) The active series is in the table below: In grammar, an intransitive verb is an action verb that takes no object. ... In grammar, a verb is transitive if it takes an object. ...

The third person lacks an affix and usually does not distinguish between singular and plural. The first person singular affix is a suffix while the other affixes are prefixes. The first person plural has two forms: il- which is used before vowels and ii- which is used before consonants — thus, il-iyya "we go", ii-malli "we jump". An example inflectional paradigm of the verb malli "to jump" is below (with the pronominal affixes underlined): An inflectional paradigm is a table illustrating the forms of an inflected word. ...

The stative series (II) is below. This series is used to indicate stative intransitive subjects and direct objects.

Example with stative intransitive subjects, lhinko "to be fat":

Example with direct objects, pisa "to look at (someone)" (the subject in the paradigm below is unmarked because it is in the third person): Markedness is a linguistics concept that developed out of the Prague School (also known as the Prague linguistic circle). ...

Both active and stative affixes can occur together in which case the active affix indicates the active subject and the stative affix indicates the direct object. Active prefixes occur before stative prefixes. When ish- "active second person singular" occurs before sa- "stative first person singular", it results in issa- (the sh assimilates to s). Likewise, hash- "active second person plural" + sa- is realized as hassa-. The full paradigm of pisa "to look at" is below: Assimilation is a regular and frequent sound change process by which a phoneme changes to match an adjacent phoneme in a word. ...

In morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest lingual unit that carries a semantic interpretation. ...

Verb grades

• verb grades (gemination, epenthesis)

Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-07-20, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... In poetry and phonetics, epenthesis (Greek epi, on × en, in + thesis, putting) is the insertion of a phoneme or syllable into a word, usually to facilitate pronunciation. ...

External links

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Chickasaw
• A phonological and phonetic study of word-level stress in Chickasaw (pdf)
• The phonology of pitch accents in Chickasaw (pdf)

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.