The Choctaw language (Choctaw: ), spoken by the Choctaw, an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, US, is a member of the Muskogean language family. Choctaw is a separate but closely related language to Chickasaw.Munro 1984
The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma published the New Choctaw dictionary in 2016.
Dialects There are three dialects of Choctaw (Mithun 1999):
"Native" Choctaw on the Choctaw Nation in southeastern Oklahoma Mississippi Choctaw of Oklahoma on Chickasaw Nation of south-central Oklahoma (near Durwood) Choctaw of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians near Philadelphia, Mississippi
Other speakers live near Tallahassee, Florida, and with the Koasati in Louisiana, and also a few speakers live in Texas and California.
Phonology More information on suffixes is in the Morphology section.
Consonants Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal median lateral Nasal Stop Affricate ch [] Fricative sh [] Approximant y []
The only voiced stop is . The voiceless stops , , and may become partially voiced between vowels, especially and for male speakers. Also, the voiceless stops are slightly aspirated at the onset of wordsBroadwell (2006:15) and before stressed syllables, behaving like English voiceless plosives. Controversially, some analyses suggest that all nouns end in an underlying consonant phoneme.Broadwell (2006:19-20) Nouns apparently ending in a vowel actually have a glottal stop or a glottal fricative as the final consonant. Such consonants become realized when suffixes are attached. The distinction between phonemes and is neutralized at the end of words.
Free variation There is free variation of some consonants in Choctaw with some speakers:Broadwell (2006:15-20) /ɬ/, the voiceless lateral fricative, is pronounced as a voiceless dental fricative [θ]: →. The voiceless labiodental fricative /f/ is pronounced as a voiceless bilabial fricative [ɸ]: →.
Phonological processes of consonants In Choctaw , the voiceless velar plosive, is often pronounced as , a voiced velar fricative, between vowels. →/V_V im-ofi-aki̱lih → [ɪmofijəɣẽːlih] III-dog-indeed 'his own dog'
The voiceless glottal fricative is often pronounced like a voiceless palatal fricative when it precedes the voiceless palato-alveolar affricate . →/_ katihchish → [katɪçtʃɪʃ] 'how'
Vowels ShortLongNasaltenselax Close front Close-mid back Open central
Lax vowels occur more often in closed syllables. In traditional orthography, ʋ usually indicates and u usually indicates . Exceptions include pokoli (traditional) for , imalakusi for . The traditional orthography does not distinguish lax and tense front vowels; instead it indicates with e. Nasal vowels are intrinsically long.
Pitch In Choctaw, very few words are distinguished only by pitch accent.Broadwell (2006:16-18) Nouns in Choctaw have pitch realization at the penultimate syllable or the ultimate syllable. Verbs in Choctaw will have pitch realization at morphemes indicating tense, but sometimes, pitch directly precedes the tense morpheme.
Syllable structure +Syllables of ChoctawBroadwell (2006:18-19) Light example meaning V a.bih 'to kill' CV no.sih 'to sleep' Heavy example meaning VV ii.chih 'to drive' CVV pii.ni' 'boat, train' V̱ a̱.chi' 'quilt' CV̱ ta̱.chi' 'corn' VC ish.ki' 'mother' CVC ha.bish.ko' 'nose' Superheavy example meaning VVC óok.cha-cha 'she/he woke up and ...' CVVC náaf.ka 'dress' V̱C a̱t 'come and' CV̱C ok.hi̱sh 'medicine'
As is in the chart above, there are three syllable structure types in Choctaw: light, heavy, and super heavy. Possible syllables in Choctaw must contain at least one vowel of any quality.Broadwell (2006:18-19) Syllables cannot end with a consonant clusters CC. However, there is an exception with the structure *(C)VCC if a word in Choctaw ends with the suffix /-t/. Syllables do not begin with consonant clusters CC, but there is an exception in an initial /i-/ deletion, which results in a syllable *CCV .
Rhythmic lengthening Rhythmic lengthening is the process of lengthening the vowel duration of an even-numbered CV syllable in Choctaw. However, vowels at the end of words are not permitted to undergo that process. Also, if an even-numbered syllable is a verbal prefixes class I or III, the affix's vowel may not undergo lengthening, and the same holds true for noun prefixes class III as well.Broadwell (2006:21-26) CV-CV-CVC→CV-CV꞉-CVC salahatok→sala꞉hatok
Smallest possible word The smallest possible word in Choctaw must contain either two short vowels or one long vowel.Broadwell (2006:20) ofi''' 'dog' waak 'cow'
/a-/ insertion: there are verbs with only one short vowel in their roots. Without an affix attached to the verb root, the verbs become impossible utterances because Choctaw requires either two short vowels or a long vowel for a word to be formed. An initial A-prefix is thus attached to the root of the verb.Broadwell (2006:18-21) *bih → a-bih
Phonological processes Glide insertion When a verb root ends with a long vowel, a glide /w/ or /j/ is inserted after the long vowel.Broadwell (2006:125) ∅→/wa/ / V꞉____ Where V꞉ is oo boo-a-h→bóowah ∅→/ja/ / V꞉____ Where V꞉ can be either ii or aa talaa-a-h→talaayah
/i-/ deletion In Choctaw, there is a group of nouns which contain an initial /i-/ that encodes for 3rd person possession. It may be deleted, but if the /i/ is part of a VC syllable structure, the C is also deleted, because the resulting CCV syllable is rarely a permissible syllable structure at the onset of words.Broadwell (2006:60-62) /i/→∅ / #____ Part 1: /i + C/→∅ + /C/ / #____ Part 2: /∅ + C/→∅ / #____ ippókni'→ppókni'→pókni'
/-l-/ infix assimilation The verbal infix /l/ is pronounced /h, ch, or ɬ/ when /l/ precedes a voiceless consonant.Broadwell (2006:124-125) l → {h, tʃ, ɬ} /_C[-voice] ho-l-tinah → ho-ɬ-tinah
Phonological processes of the suffix /-li/
There are several assimilation processes that occur with the suffix /-li/. When the verbal suffix /-li/ is preceded by /f/ /ɫ/ /h/ /m/ /n/ or /w/, the /l/ assimilates to the corresponding consonant that precedes it.Broadwell (2006:26-27) Also, the verbal suffix /-li/ is preceded by the consonant /b/, the /l/ is realized as /b/. Third, when the verbal suffix /-li/ is preceded by the consonant /p/, the /p/ is pronounced as /b/. Lastly, when the verbal suffix /-li/ is preceded by the consonant /t/, the /t/ is pronounced as /l/. /l/→/f, ɫ, h, m, n, w/ / /f, ɫ, h, m, n, w/____ /kobaf-li-h/→ kobaaffih
/l/→/b/ / /b/____ /atob-li-h/→ atobbih
/p/→/b/ / ____/l/ /tap-li-h/→ tablih
/t/→/l/ / ____/l/ /palhat-li-h/→ pallalih
There are two deletion processes that occur with the suffix /-li/. If the verbal suffix /-li/ precedes the verbal suffix /-tʃi/, the suffix /-li/ may be deleted if the resulting syllable, after deletion, is a consonant cluster.Broadwell (2006:130) The other process occurs when the verbal suffix /-li/ precedes the suffix /-t/, which results with the suffix /-li/ being sometimes deleted if the syllable /-li/ has not already gone under phonological processes as described above.Broadwell (2006:219) /li/→∅ / ____/tʃi/ balii-li-chi-h→balii-chi-h
/li/→∅ / ____/t/ balii-li--h→balii-t
Schwa insertion Schwa insertion: when a glottal fricative or a velar stop precedes a voiced consonant within a consonant cluster, a schwa is inserted to break up the consonant cluster.Broadwell (2006:16) ∅→ / ____[+voiced] consonant ∅→ / ____[+voiced] consonant 'ahnih'→/ahənih/
Vowel deletion Vowel deletion is the process of a short vowel being deleted at a morpheme boundary. It occurs when an affix containing a short vowel at the morpheme boundary binds to a word that also contains a short vowel at the morpheme boundary.Broadwell (2006:26) For most vowel deletion cases, the preceding short vowel is deleted at the morpheme boundary. V→∅ / ____V /baliili-aatʃĩ-h/→baliilaatʃĩh If a class II suffix attaches to a word that results with two short vowels occurring together, the short vowel that follows the class II suffix is deleted. V→∅ / V____ /sa-ibaa-waʃoohah/→sabaa-waʃoohah
Orthography
IPALinguisticCBTCMississippiTraditionalByington/SwantonVowels aaiiooLongaːaaááaāiːiiííe, iīoːooóóoōNasalãːa̱ąa̱aⁿ+C am, anĩːi̱įi̱iⁿ+C im, inõːo̱ǫo̱oⁿ+C om, on, um, unLaxəaʋạɪiʊ ouConsonantsbbtʃchčchffhhkkllɬ lhłhl, lh ł, lh mmnnppssʃshšshttwwjyʔ∅ The written Choctaw language is based upon the English version of the Roman alphabet and was developed in conjunction with the "civilization program" of the United States, a program to westernize and forcefully assimilate Indigenous Americans, particularly those adhering to what were to become the Five Civilized Tribes (of which the Choctaw are a part) into Anglo-American Culture and Sympathies during the early 19th century. Although there are other variations of the Choctaw alphabet, the three most commonly seen are the Byington (Traditional), Byington/Swanton (Linguistic), and Modern (Mississippi Choctaw).
Many publications by linguists about the Choctaw language use a slight variant of the "modern (Mississippi Choctaw)" orthography listed here, where long vowels are written as doubled. In the "linguistic" version, the acute accent shows the position of the pitch accent, rather than the length of the vowel.
The discussion of Choctaw grammar below uses the linguistic variant of the orthography.
Choctaw Bible Translation Committee Substituted with 'v' according to typesetting or encoding constraints. The former is used before a vowel; the latter, before a consonant. The intervocalic use of conflated the common consonant cluster /hl/ with /ɬ/. Dictionary editors John Swanton and Henry Halbert systematically replaced all instances of with , regardless whether stood for /ɬ/ or /hl/. Despite the editors' systematic replacement of all with , the digraph was allowed to stand.
Morphology Verbal morphology Choctaw verbs display a wide range of inflectional and derivational morphology. In Choctaw, the category of verb may also include words that would be categorized as adjectives or quantifiers in English. Verbs may be preceded by up to three prefixes and followed by as many as five suffixes. In addition, verb roots may contain infixes that convey aspectual information.
Verb prefixes The verbal prefixes convey information about the arguments of the verb: how many there are and their person and number features. The prefixes can be divided into three sorts: agreement markers, applicative markers, and anaphors (reflexives and reciprocals). The prefixes occur in the following order: agreement-anaphor-applicative-verb stem.
Agreement affixes The agreement affixes are shown in the following chart. The only suffix among the personal agreement markers is the first-person singular class I agreement marker /-li/. Third-person is completely unmarked for class I and class II agreement arguments and never indicates number.Broadwell (2006:137-140)
+ person markers class I class II class III class N imperative +s +C +V +C/i +a/o +C +V +C +V +C +V first-person singular initial -li sa- si- a̱- am- ak- n/a medial -sa̱- -sam- paucal ii- il- pi- pi̱- pim- kii- kil- plural hapi- hapi̱- hapim- second-person singular is- ish- chi- chi̱- chim- chik- ∅ plural has- hash- hachi- hachi̱- hachim- hachik- ho- oh- third-person ∅ ∅ i̱- im- ik-
Some authors (Ulrich 1986, Davies, 1986) refer to class I as actor or nominative, class II as patient or accusative and class III as dative. Broadwell prefers the neutral numbered labels because the actual use of the affixes is more complex. This type of morphology is generally referred to as active–stative and polypersonal agreement.