Kaw language
| Kansa | |
|---|---|
| Kánza | |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Kansas, Oklahoma |
| Ethnicity | 1,700 Kaw (2007) |
| Extinct | early 1980s a dozen claim to know it (2007) |
|
Siouan
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
|
Linguist list
|
qlc Kansa-Osage |
| Glottolog | kans1243 |
Kansa is a Siouan language of the Dhegihan group once spoken by the Kaw people of Oklahoma. The last mother-tongue speaker, Walter Kekahbah, died in 1983.
Kansa is a Dhegiha Siouan language, a broader category containing other languages such as Quapaw, Omaha, Ponca and Osage. This group of language falls under Mississippi Valley Siouan, which is grouped under the largest category of The Siouan Language Family.
The speakers of Kansa, known as the Kaw people lived together with the Siouan-speakers in a united nation and were known as the Dhegiha Siouan group. This group was originally situated north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River and then moved west down the Ohio River. After this migration, the Dhegiha Siouan group split into five subgroups or tribes that were known as the Poncas, Osages, Omahas, Quapaws and the Kaws. Later on the Kaw migrated west of Missouri river and were called the "People of the Southwind."
The language was only spoken in Kansas and is no longer spoken since all of the speakers have died. Many of the members of the tribe now use English, but some are able to understand certain phrases or words in the language.
Dialects:
The languages of the 5 tribes originating from the single Dhegiha group are extremely similar and have been considered as dialects of each other.
Pioneering anthropologist and linguist James Owen Dorsey collected 604 Kansa words in the 1880s and also made about 25,000 entries in a Kansa-English dictionary which has never been published. Dorsey also collected 24 myths, historical accounts, and personal letters from nine Kansa speakers.
In 1974, Linguist Robert L. Rankin met Kekahbah, Ralph Pepper (d. 1982), and Maud McCauley Rowe (d. 1978), the last surviving native speakers of Kansa. Rankin made extensive recordings of all three, especially Rowe, and his work over the next 31 years documented the language and helped the Kaw Nation to develop language learning materials.
Kansa has 30 consonants and 8 vowels.
The long consonant sounds /pː tː tʃː kː/ can also be pronounced normally.
Nasal vowels are in parentheses. /a/ and /o/ can also be pronounced as /ə/ and /u/.
Kansa does not use tenses or a plural of a noun. Unlike English, they position the verb at the end of a sentence and the verb contains details about who or what performs and receives the action. For example, ni kónbla means "Water, I want it." Also, a word like sínga can mean "squirrel" or "squirrels."
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Wikipedia