NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Nez Percé

The Nez Perce or Nez Percé ( Symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet. ...pronounced /nɛz pɝs/, or /ne pɛr'se/ as in French) are a This article is on the social structure. ...tribe of Native Americans who inhabited the Darker red states are always part of the Pacific Northwest. ...Pacific Northwest region of World map showing location of North America A satellite composite image of North America North America is the third largest continent in area and in population after Eurasia and Africa. ...North America and adjoining regions at the time of the The Lewis and Clark expedition (1804_1806) was the first American overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back. ...Lewis and Clark Expedition. Nez Perce is a misnomer given by the interpreter of the Lewis and Clark expedition at the time they first encountered the tribe in Events January 11 _ Michigan Territory is created. ...1805. It is from the French (français, langue française) is one of the most important Romance languages, outnumbered in speakers only by Spanish and Portuguese. ...French, "pierced nose." This is an inaccurate description of the tribe. They did not practice nose piercing or wearing ornaments. The "pierced nose" tribe, though related to the Nez Perce, actually lived on and around the lower Columbia River Gorge, Washington or North side Geography The Columbia River is the largest river in volume flowing into the Pacific Ocean from North America. ...Columbia River, and in other areas of the Darker red states are always part of the Pacific Northwest. ...Pacific Northwest.

Nez Perce baby, 1911

The Nez Perce's name for themselves was Nee-me-poo, which means simply "the People." This is perhaps the most common self-designation of Indigenous peoples are: Peoples living in an area prior to colonization by a state Peoples living in an area within a nation-state, prior to the formation of a nation-state, but who do not identify with the dominant nation. ...aboriginal peoples the world over.

Traditional lands

Nez Perce couple (Spokane, WA abt 1900) Title: Nez Perce man and woman pose in front of tepee, with mountain behind them Photographer: Palmer, Frank, 1864-1920 Studio Location: United States--Washington (State)--Spokane Notes: Woman in full length dress over blouse, with long necklace & beaded belt stands beside man...

Nez Perce couple (c. 1900 is a common year starting on Monday. ...1900)
University of Washington Digital Collections

The Nez Perce territory at the time of Lewis and Clark was approximately 17,000,000 acres (69,000 km&sup2). It covered parts of This article deals with the U.S. state. ...Washington, State nickname: Beaver State Other U.S. States Capital Salem Largest city Portland Governor Ted Kulongoski Official languages None Area 255,026 km² (9th) - Land 248,849 km² - Water 6,177 km² (2. ...Oregon, and State nickname: Gem State Other U.S. States Capital Boise Largest city Boise Governor Dirk Kempthorne Official languages none Area 216,632 km² (14th) - Land 214,499 km² - Water 2,133 km² (0. ...Idaho, in an area surrounding the This article is about the Snake River in the northwestern United States. ...Snake River and the For the river in New Zealand, see Clearwater River, New Zealand For the river in Alberta, Canada, see Clearwater River, Alberta For the river in Saskatchewan, Canada, see Clearwater River, Saskatchewan The Clearwater River is a river in northern Idaho that flows from the Idaho-Montana border westward to join...Clearwater River. The Nez Perce, like many western Native Americans (also Indians, Aboriginal Peoples, American Indians, First Nations, Alaskan Natives, Amerindians, or Indigenous Peoples of America) are the indigenous inhabitants of The Americas prior to the European colonization, and their modern descendants. ...Native American tribes, were migratory and would travel with the seasons, according to where the most abundant food was to be found at a given time of year. They were known go as far east as the The Great Plains states. ...Great Plains, hunting Binomial name Bison bison Linnaeus, 1758 The American Bison (Bison bison), also called Buffalo, is a bovine mammal that is the largest terrestrial mammal in North America. ...American Bison and fishing for This article is about the fish. ...salmon at Dipnet Fishing at Celilo Falls Located between the states of Oregon and Washington, Celilo Falls was a unique natural feature formed by the relentless push of the Columbia River through basalt-laden narrows east of the Cascade Mountains, onward towards the Pacific Ocean—the final leg of the rivers...Celilo Falls on the Columbia River Gorge, Washington or North side Geography The Columbia River is the largest river in volume flowing into the Pacific Ocean from North America. ...Columbia River. They relied heavily on Species Camassia quamash Quamash, also known as Small camas, is a perennial herb of the family Agavaceae. ...quamash or Species See text Camassia is a genus that historically used to belong to the lily family (Liliaceae), the Scilloideae family, or the Hyacinthinaceae family. ...camas gathered in the region between the Salmon and Clearwater River drainages as a food source.

Notable people

Probably the best known leader of the Nez Perce was Chief Joseph (1840 - September 21, 1904) was a Nez Perce Chief, humanitarian, and peacemaker, best known for his principled resistance to the U.S. governments attempts to force the Nez Perce onto a reservation. ...Chief Joseph, who led his people in their struggle to retain their identity in the face of The United States of America — also referred to as the United States, the U.S.A., the U.S., America¹, the States, or (archaically) Columbia — is a federal republic of 50 states located primarily in central North America (with the exception of two states: Alaska and Hawaii). ...American encroachments on their land.

The Nez Perce language

The Nez Perce language is a branch of the Sahaptin is a language of several Native American tribes on the Columbia Plateau region of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in the northwestern United States. ...Sahaptian family, which also includes several dialects of Sahaptin (note the spellings, -ian vs. -in). Together, these languages are grouped into the larger Penutian family, which also includes languages such as Cayuse, Klamath, and Chinookan. The organization of this linguistic family can be compared to often more familiar examples such as the Indo-European or The Romance languages, also called Romanic languages, are a subfamily of the Italic languages, specifically the descendants of the Vulgar Latin dialects spoken by the common people evolving in different areas after the break-up of the Roman Empire. ...Romance families, though presumably Penutian is in no way historically related to Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies The Indo-European languages include some 443 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects spoken by about three billion people, including most of the major language families of Europe and western Asia, which belong to a single superfamily. ...Indo-European languages.

Chief Joseph (Nez Perce) North Dakota 1877 Title: Nez Perce Chief Joseph poses with decorated sash, Bismark, North Dakota, 1877 Photographer: Goff, O. S. (Orlando Scott), 1843-1917 Studio Location: United States--South Dakota--Bismark Original Creator: Haynes, F. Jay (Frank Jay), 1853-1921 Date: 1877 Notes: Head shot of...

Chief Joseph (1877)
University of Washington Digital Collections

The grammar of Nez Perce has been described in the dissertations of Noel Rude (University of Oregon, 1985) and Harold David Crook (UCLA, 1999), in a grammar by Haruo Aoki (University of California Press, 1975) and a dictionary by Haruo Aoki (University of California Press, 1994).

In Nez Perce, the subject of a sentence, and the object when there is one, can each be marked with for In linguistics, declension is a feature of inflected languages: generally, the alteration of a noun to indicate its grammatical role. ...grammatical case, a In Linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a given language. ...morpheme that shows the function of the word (compare to English he vs. him). Nez Perce employs a three-way case-marking strategy: a transitive subject, a transitive object, and an intransitive subject are each marked differently. Nez Perce is thus an example of the very rare type of A tripartite language is one that marks the agent, experiencer, and patient verb arguments each in different ways. ...tripartite languages (see In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish arguments of transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. ...morphosyntactic alignment).

Nez Perce Chiefs (1899 - Camas Prairie Idaho) Title: Nez Perce chiefs in war dress, Camas Prairie, Idaho, ca. ...

Nez Perce chiefs
University of Washington Digital Collections

Because of this case marking, the word order can be quite free. A specific word order tells the hearer what is new information (focus) versus old information ( In linguistics, the topic (or theme) is the part of the proposition that is being talked about (predicated). ...topic), but it does not mark the subject and the object (in English, unlike this, word order is fixed — In linguistic typology, subject_verb_object (SVO) is the sequence subject verb object in neutral expressions: Sam ate oranges. ...Subject Verb Object).

As it happens in many other Native American languages, a Nez Perce verb can have the meaning of an entire sentence in English. (This manner of providing a great deal of information in one word is called Polysynthetic languages are highly synthetic languages, i. ...polysynthesis.) Verbal morphemes provide information about the person and number of the subject and object, as well as tense and In linguistics, grammatical aspect is a property of a verb that defines the nature of temporal flow (or lack thereof) in the described event or state. ...aspect (e. g. whether or not an action has been completed).

The Phonology (Greek phone = voice/sound and logos = word/speech) is a subfield of grammar (see also linguistics). ...phonology of Nez Perce includes a phenomenon known as This article is in need of attention. ...vowel harmony, as well as a complex stress system described by Crook (1999).

Nez Perce is a highly endangered language. While sources differ on the exact number of fluent speakers, it is almost definitely under 100. The Nez Perce tribe is endeavoring to reintroduce the language into native usage through a revitalization program, though at present the future of the Nez Perce language is far from assured.

Nez Perce horse breeding program

The Nez Perce tribe began a breeding program in 1995 based on crossbreeding the The Appaloosa is a horse breed, one of the color breeds, in which the breed has one of several distinct patterns of spots. ...Appaloosa and a Central Asian breed called The Akhal-Teke horse breed (pronounced Ah-cull Tek-y) is a breed from Turkmenistan, where they are the national emblem. ...Akhal-Teke to produce the The Nez Perce Horse is a horse breed of the Nez Perce tribe of Idaho. ...Nez Perce Horse. This is a program to re-establish the horse culture of the Nez Perce, a proud tradition of selective breeding and horsemanship that was destroyed in the 19th century. The breeding program was financed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the Nez Perce tribe and a nonprofit group called the First Nations Development Institute, which promotes such businesses in Indian country.

Traditional lands GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

Notable people

The Nez Perce language

Nez Perce horse breeding program

External links

Traditional lands