Wichita is a moribund Caddoan language spoken in Oklahoma. Only one fluent speaker remains, and the language is spoken very rarely, even among those who can still hold conversations in Wichita. Wichita will probably become extinct sometime in the future. 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 A language family is a group of related languages said to have descended from a common proto-language. ... The Caddoan languages are a family of Native American languages. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ... Unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. ... This does not cite its references or sources. ... The Caddoan languages are a family of Native American languages. ... 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. ... An extinct language (also called a dead language) is a language which no longer has any native speakers. ...

Sounds

Wichita has been claimed to be unusually asymmetrical at a phonemic level, though this is less apparent at a phonetic level. In human language, a phoneme is the theoretical representation of a sound. ...

Consonants

Wichita has 10 consonants. In the Americanist orthography generally used when describing Wichita, [ts] is spelled <c>, and [j] <y>. 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. ... Americanist phonetic notation (variously called [North] American[ist] Phonetic Alphabet, or APA) is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and Euro-American anthropologists and language scientists (students of Neo-grammarians) for the phonetic and phonemic transcription of Native American and European languages. ...

• Labials are generally absent, occurring in only two roots: kammac to grind corn and camma:ci to hoe, to cultivate.
• Nasals are allophonic. The allophones r and n are in complementary distribution, and the bilabial nasal m occurs in the two verb roots mentioned above.

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). ... Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). ... 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. ... Labialisation is a secondary articulatory feature of phonemes in a language, most usually used to refer to consonants. ... A stop or 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. ... In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips (bilabial articulation) or with the lower lip and the upper teeth (labiodental articulation). ... 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. ... Complementary distribution in linguistics refers to the relationship between two elements where one element can be found only in a particular environment and the other element can be found only in the opposite environment. ...

Vowels

Wichita has 4 clusters of vowel-quality allophones: In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. ...

These are transcribed as i, e, a, o. 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. ... A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. ... A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. ...

Word-final vowels are devoiced. In phonetics, phonation is the use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ...

Rood argues that [o] is not phonemic, as it is often equivalent to any vowel + /w/ + any vowel. For example, [awa] is frequently contracted to [ó:] (the high tone is an effect of the elided consonant). There are relatively few cases where speakers will not accept a substitution of vowel + /w/ + vowel for [o]; one of them is [kó:s] 'eagle'.

Rood also proposes that, with three vowels that are arguably high, mid, and low, the front-back distinction is not phonemic, and that one may therefore speak of a 'vertical' vowel inventory (see below). This also has been claimed for relatively few languages, such as the Northwest Caucasian languages and the Ndu languages of Papua New Guinea. Vertical vowel system refers to a system of vowels in a language which uses just one vowel dimension to phonemically distinguish vowels. ... The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Pontic or Abkhaz-Adyg/Circassian, are a group of languages spoken in Caucasian Russia, Turkey, Jordan, Kabardino-Balkaria (an autonomous republic in Russia) and Abkhazia ( de facto independent formally an autonomous republic in Georgia). ... The Ndu languages are the best known family of the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea. ...

There is clearly at least a two-way contrast in vowel length. Rood proposes that there is a three-way contrast, which is quite rare among the world's languages, although well attested for Mixe. However, in Wichita, for each of the three to four vowels qualities, one of the three lengths is rare, and in addition the extra-long vowels frequently involve either an extra morpheme, or suggest that prosody may be at work. For example, In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. ... The Mixe languages are languages of the Mixean branch of the Mixe-Zoquean language family indigenous to southern Mexico. ... In morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest lingual unit that carries a semantic interpretation. ... Prosody may mean several things: Prosody consists of distinctive variations of stress, tone, and timing in spoken language. ...

niːchíːːʔih 'the strong one' ('ch' is pronounced [tsh])

niːːchíːːʔih 'the strong ones'

heːhirʔíːras 'let him find you'

heːːhirʔíːras 'let him find it for you'

hárah 'there'

háːrih 'here it is' (said when handing something over)

háːːrih 'that one'

(Note that it is common in many languages to use prosodic lengthening with demonstratives such as 'there' or 'that'.)

This contrasts with Mixe, where it is easy to find a three-way length contrast without the addition of morphemes.

Under Roods analysis, then, Wichita has 9 phonemic vowels:

In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. ... In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. ... In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. ... A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. ... A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. ...

Tone

There is also a contrastive high tone, indicated here by an acute accent. It has been suggested that Tonal language be merged into this article or section. ...

Syllable and phonotactics

While vowel clusters are uncommon (unless the extra-long vowels are clusters), consonant clusters are ubiquitous in Wichita. Words may begin with clusters such as [kskh] (kskhaːrʔa) and [rh] (rhincʔa). The longest cluster noted in Wichita is five consonants long, counting [ts] as a single consonant /c/: nahiʔinckskih 'while sleeping'. However, Wichita syllables are more commonly CV or CVC. In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. ... A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ...

Grammar

It is agglutinative, but surface forms often differ to actual morphemic shapes due to the usage of a series of unusual phonological processes at morpheme boundaries. An agglutinative language is a language in which the words are formed by joining morphemes together. ... In morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest lingual unit that carries a semantic interpretation. ...

Wichita utterances can include single words that would require a full sentence in English: kiyaːkíriwaːcʔárasarikitaʔahíːriks 'he brought the big quantity of meat up to the top by means of many trips'.

External links

• Ethnologue: Wichita
• Exploration of the Red River of Louisiana, in the year 1852 / by Randolph B. Marcy ; assisted by George B. McClellan. hosted by the Portal to Texas History. See Appendix H, which compares the English, Comanche, and Wichita languages.

Bibliography

• Curtis, Edward. (1907-1930). The North American Indian (pp. 230-237). Cambridge. (20 volumes; reprinted 1970).
• Garvin, Paul. (1950). Wichita I: Phonemics. International Journal of American Linguistics, 16, 179-184.
• Marcy. (1853). (pp. 307-308).
• Rood, David S. (1971). Agent and object in Wichita. Lingua, 28, 100-107.
• Rood, David S. (1971). Wichita: An unusual phonology system. Colorado Research in Linguistiscs, 1, R1-R24. (?)
• Rood, David S. (1973). Aspects of subordination in Lakhota and Wichita. CLSs, 71-88.
• Rood, David S. (1975). Implications of Wichita phonology. Language, 51, 315-337.
• Rood, David S. (1975). Wichita verb structure: Inflectional categories. In Crawford (Ed.), (pp. 121-134).
• Rood, David S. (1976). Wichita grammar. New York: Garland.
• Rood, David S. (1977). Wichita texts. International Journal of American Linguistics-NATS 2.1, 91-128.
• Rood, David S.; & Taylor, Allan. (1996). Sketch of Wichita, a Caddoan language. In HNAI (Vol. 17, pp. 580-608).
• Rood, David S. (1998). 'To be' in Wichita. In Hinton & Munro (Eds.), (pp. 190-196).
• Schmitt. (1950).
• Schmitt, Karl; & Schmitt, Iva Osanai. (1952). Wichita kinship past and present. Norman, OK: U. Book Exchange.
• Schoolcraft, Henry. (1851-1857). Historical and statistical information respecting the history, condition, and prospects of the Indian tribes of the US. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo.
• Schoolcraft, Henry. (1953). (pp. 709-711).
• Spier, Leslie. (1924). Wichita and Caddo relationship terms. American Anthropologist, 26, 258-263.
• Vincent, Nigel. (1978). A note on natural classes and the Wichita consonant system. International Journal of American Linguistics, 44, 230-232.
• Whipple. (1856). Reports of explorations and surveys to ascertain the most practicable and economic route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean (pp. 65-68). Washington: War Department. [information on the Waco dialect].