Caddo language
| Caddo | |
|---|---|
| Hasí:nay | |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Caddo County in western Oklahoma |
| Ethnicity | 5,290 Caddo people (2010 census) |
|
Native speakers
|
25 (2007) |
|
Caddoan
|
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| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | cadd1256 |
| Linguasphere | 64-BBA-a |
Map showing the distribution of Oklahoma Indian Languages
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Caddo is the only surviving Southern Caddoan language of the Caddo language family. It is spoken by the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma. By 2009, there remained only 25 Caddo speakers who acquired the language as infants or children in a non-academic context, and none of these speakers spoke only Caddo, which situation made Caddo a critically endangered language. Caddo has several mutually intelligible dialects; some of the more prominent dialects include Kadohadacho, Hasinai, Hainai, Natchitoches, and Yatasi. Today, the most commonly used dialects are Hasinai and Hainai. Caddo is linguistically related to the members of the Northern Caddoan language family; these include the Pawnee-Kitsai (Keechi) languages (Arikara, Kitsai, and Pawnee) and the Wichita language. Kitsai is now extinct, and Pawnee, Arikara, and Wichita each have fewer surviving speakers than Caddo does. Another language, Adai, is postulated to have been a Caddoan language while it was extant, but because of scarce resources and the language’s extinct status, this connection is not conclusive, and Adai is generally considered a language isolate.
As of 2012, the Caddo Nation teaches weekly language classes; language CDs, a coloring book, and an online learning website are also available. As of 2010, a Caddo app is available for Android phones.
Caddo has 19 contrastive consonants, a normal-sized consonant inventory. It is somewhat unusual in that it lacks lateral consonants. The IPA symbols for the consonants of Caddo are given below:
Caddo also features contrastive gemination ofconsonants, which is generally indicated in orthography by a double letter: /nɑ́ttih/ "woman."
Caddo has three contrastive vowel qualities, /i/, /ɑ/, and /u/, and two contrastive vowel lengths, long and short, for a total of 6 vowel phonemes.
However, there is a great deal of phonetic variation in the short vowels. The high front vowel /i/ is generally realized as its lower counterpart /ɪ/, and the high back vowel /u/ is similarly often realized as its lower counterpart /ʊ/. The low central vowel /a/ has a wider range of variation, pronounced (most commonly) as /ɐ/ when it is followed by any consonant except a semivowel or a laryngeal consonant, as a low central vowel (for which IPA lacks a symbol) at the end of an open syllable or when followed by a laryngeal consonant, and as /ə/ before a semivowel.
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