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Lakota (also Lakhota, Teton, Teton Sioux) is the largest of the three languages of the Sioux, of the Siouan family. While generally taught and considered by speakers as a separate language, Lakota is mutually understandable with the other two languages, and is considered by most linguists one of the three major varieties of the Sioux language. The Lakota language represents one of the largest Native American language speech communities left in the United States, with approximately 8,000-9,000 speakers living mostly in northern plains states of North and South Dakota.
The language was first put into written form by missionaries around 1840 and has since evolved to reflect contemporary needs and usage.
Regional variation
Lakota is predominantly associated with the Teton Sioux bands living west of the Missouri River. Lakota itself contains two major regional varieties, which is spoken by the following bands:
- Northern Lakota
- Minneconjou
- Two Kettles
- Sans Arcs
- Blackfoot
- Hunkpapa
- Southern Lakota
- Oglala
- Brule
Phonology
Vowels
Lakota has five oral vowels, /i e a o u/, and three nasal vowels, /ĩ ã ũ/ (phonetically [ɪ̃ ə̃ ʊ̃]). Lakota /e/ and /o/ are said to be more open than the corresponding cardinal vowels, perhaps closer to [ɛ] and [ɔ]. Orthographically, the nasal vowels are sometimes written with a following <ƞ> or <N>, and sometimes with ogoneks underneath, <į ą ų>.
Consonants
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | Voiceless | p | t | tʃ | k | ʔ | |
| Voiced | (b) | (g) | |||||
| Aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | tʃʰ | kʰ | |||
| Ejective | pʼ | tʼ | tʃʼ | kʼ | |||
| Fricative | Voiceless | s | ʃ | x | |||
| Voiced | z | ʒ | ɣ | ||||
| Ejective | sʼ | ʃʼ | xʼ | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Liquid | l | ||||||
| Glide | w | j | h | ||||
The voiced plosives /b/ and /g/ should perhaps be considered allophones of /p/ and /k/, since for almost all words they are in complementary distribution, with [b] and [g] occurring only before /l/, /m/, /n/, /w/, and /j/, as well as in certain morphophonemic situations. The voiceless aspirated plosives have two allophonic variants each: those with glottal friction ([pʰ tʰ ʧʰ kʰ]), and those with velar friction ([pˣ tˣ kˣ]), which occur before /a/, /ã/, /o/, /ĩ/, and /ű/ (thus, lakhóta, /la'kʰota/ is phonetically [la'kˣota]; [ʧˣ] does not occur). For some speakers, there is a phonemic distinction between the two, and both occur before /e/. Some orthographies mark this distinction; others do not. The velar fricatives /x/ and /ɣ/ are commonly spelled <ȟ> (sometimes <ĥ>) and <ǧ>.
Prosody
All words have one vowel which carries primary stress and has a higher tone than all other vowels in the word. This is generally the vowel of the second syllable of the word, but often the first syllable can be stressed, and occasionally other syllables as well. Stress is generally indicated with an acute accent: <á>, etc.
Phonological processes
A common phonological process which occurs in rapid speech is vowel contraction, which generally results from the loss of an intervocalic glide. Vowel contraction results in phonetic long vowels (phonemically a sequence of two identical vowels), with falling pitch if the first underlying vowel is stressed, and rising pitch if the second underlying vowel is stressed: kê: (falling tone), "he said that," from kéye; hǎ:pi (rising tone), "clothing," from hayápi. If one of the vowels is nasalized, the resulting long vowel is also nasalized: čhą̌:pi, "sugar," from čhąhą́pi (Rood and Taylor 1996).
When two vowels of unequal height contract, or when feature contrasts exist between the vowels and the glide, two new phonetic vowels, [æː] and [ɔː], result (Rood and Taylor 1996): iyæ̂:, "he left for there," from iyáye; mithɔ̂:, "it's mine," from mitháwa.
The plural enclitic =pi is frequently changed in rapid speech when preceding the enclitics =kte, =kį, =kštó, or =na. If the vowel preceding =pi is high, =pi becomes [u]; if the vowel is non-high, =pi becomes [o] (if the preceding vowel is nasalized, then the resulting vowel is also nasalized): hí=pi=kte, "they will arrive here," [hiukte]; yatką́=pi=na, "they drank it and...," [jatkə̃õna] (Rood and Taylor 1996).
Lakota also exhibits some traces of sound symbolism among fricatives, where the point of articulation changes to reflect intensity: zí, "it's yellow," ží, "it's tawny," ǧí, "it's brown" (Mithun 1999:33).
Grammar
Morphology
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Word order
The basic word order of Lakota is Subject Object Verb, although the order can be changed for expressive purposes (placing the object before the subject to bring the object into focus or placing the subject after the verb to emphasize its status as established information). It is postpositional, with adpositions occurring after the head nouns: mas'óphiye él, "at the store" (literally 'store at'); thípi=kį ókšą, "around the house" (literally 'house=the around') (Rood and Taylor 1996).
Enclitics
Lakota has a number of enclitic particles, many of which differ depending on whether the speaker is male or female, which follow the verb.
Men and women's speech
There are a number of enclitics which differ in form based on the gender of the speaker. Yeló (men) marks mild assertions, and kšt (men) marks stronger assertions. K(i)štó is the version used by women corresponding to men's yeló and kšt. For men, wą marks a mild opinion and yewą́ marks stronger opinions. The corresponding women's forms are ma and yemá, respectively. Yo (men) and ye (women) mark neutral commands, yethó (men) and nithó / įthó (women) mark familiar, and ye (both men and women) and na mark requests. He is used by both genders to mark direct questions, but men also use hųwó in more formal situations. So (men) and se (women) mark dubitative questions (where the person being asked is not assumed to know the answer).
Phrases
"Hoka hey!" is a phrase used by traditional Lakota people during battle. "Hoka hey" means "it is a good day to die". According to a Lakota Holy Man, Eagle Voice, Nebraska poet, John Neihardt, it is literally translated as "Hold fast. There is more!" [1]
References
Bibliography
- DeMallie, Raymond J. (2001). Sioux until 1850. In R. J. DeMallie (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 2, pp. 718-760). W. C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-050400-7.
- Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Parks, Douglas R.; & Rankin, Robert L. (2001). The Siouan languages. In Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 1, pp. 94-114). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
- de Reuse, Willem J. (1987). One hundred years of Lakota linguistics (1887-1987). Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 12, 13-42. (Online version: https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/509).
- de Reuse, Willem J. (1990). A supplementary bibliography of Lakota languages and linguistics (1887-1990). Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 15 (2), 146-165. (Studies in Native American languages 6). (Online version: https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/441).
- Rood, David S. and Allan R. Taylor. Sketch of Lakhota, a Siouan Language. In: Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 17 (Languages), pp. 440-482. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1996.