Cheyenne language
The Cheyenne language (Tsehesenestsestotse or, in easier spelling, Tsisinstsistots) is a Native American language spoken in present-day Montana and Oklahoma in the United States. It is part of the Algonquian language family. Like all Algonquian languages, it has complex agglutinative morphology.
Classification
Cheyenne is one of the Algonquian languages, which is a subphylum of the Algic languages. Specifically, it is a Plains Algonquian language. However, Plains Algonquian, which also includes Arapaho and Blackfoot, is an areal rather than genetic subgrouping.
Geographic distribution
Cheyenne is spoken on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana and in Oklahoma. It is spoken by about 1,700 people, mostly adults.
Phonology
Cheyenne phonology is not exceptionally complex. While there are only three basic vowels, they can be pronounced in three ways: high pitch (e.g. á), low pitch (e.g. a), and voiceless (e.g. e)[There are also two other variants of the phonemic pitches: the mid (e.g. a) and raised-high pitches (e.g. ô). These are often not represented in writing, although there are standard diacritics to indicate all of them. Linguist Wayne Leman included one more variant in his International Journal of American Linguistics] (1981) article on Cheyenne pitch rules, a lowered-high pitch (e.g. à), but has since recognized that this posited pitch is the same as a low pitch.. The high and low pitches are phonemic, while vowel devoicing is governed by environmental rules, making voiceless vowels allophones of the voiced vowels. The digraph ‘ts’ represents assibilated /t/; a phonological rule of Cheyenne is that underlying /t/ becomes affricated before an /e/ . Therefore, ‘ts’ is not a separate phoneme, but an allophone of /t/. The sound is not a phoneme, but derives from other phonemes, including (when precedes or follows a non-front vowel, /a/ or /o/), and the far-past tense morpheme /h/ which is pronounced as when it precedes a morpheme which starts with /h/.
The Cheyenne orthography of 14 letters is neither a pure phonemic system nor a phonetic transcription; it is, in the words of linguist Wayne Leman, a "pronunciation orthography". In other words, it is a practical spelling system designed to facilitate proper pronunciation. Some allophonic variants, such as voiceless vowels, are shown. represents not the phoneme /e/, but is usually pronounced as a phonetic and sometimes varies to . <š> represents .
Grammar
Cheyenne represents the participants of an expression not as separate pronoun words but as affixes on the verb. Its pronominal system uses typical Algonquian distinctions: three grammatical persons (1st, 2nd, 3rd) plus obviated 3rd (3'), two numbers (singular, plural), animacy (animate and inanimate) and inclusivity and exclusivity on the first person plural. The 3' (obviative) person is an elaboration of the third; it is an "out of focus" third person. When there are two or more third persons in an expression, one of them will become obviated. If the obviated entity is an animate noun, it will be marked with an obviative suffix, typically -o or -óho. Verbs register the presence of obviated participants whether or not they are present as nouns.
Pronominal affixes
There are three basic pronominal prefixes in Cheyenne:
ná- First person
né- Second person
é- Third person
These three basic prefixes can be combined with various suffixes to express all of Cheyenne's pronominal distinctions. For example, the prefix ná- can be combined on a verb with the suffix -me to express the first person plural exclusive ("we, not including you"), as with nátahpetame, "we.EXCL are big."
Historical development
Like all the Algonquian languages, Cheyenne developed from a reconstructed ancestor referred to as Proto-Algonquian (often abbreviated "PA"). The sound changes on the road from PA to modern Cheyenne are complex, as exhibited by the development of the PA word *erenyiwa "man" into Cheyenne hetane:
 First, the PA suffix -wa drops (*erenyi)
The geminate vowel sequence -yi- simplifies to /i/ (semivowels were phonemically vowels in PA; when PA */i/ or */o/ appeared before another vowel, it became non-syllabic) (*ereni)
PA */r/ changes to /t/ (*eteni)
/h/ is added before word-initial vowels (*heteni)
Due to a vowel chain-shift, the vowels in the word wind up as /e/, /a/ and /e/ (PA */e/ sometimes corresponds to Cheyenne /e/ and sometimes to Cheyenne /a/; PA */i/ almost always corresponds to Cheyenne /e/, however) (hetane).
Lexicon
Some Cheyenne words (with the Proto-Algonquian reconstructions where known):
(PA *pemyi, "grease")
(PA *we?kweni, "his liver")
(PA **e?kwe·wa, "woman")
(PA *erenyiwa, "man")
("sacred spirit, God")
(PA *me?enyi, "milk")
References
Marianne Mithun. 1999. The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
External links
Cheyenne Dictionary
Cheyenne Language Web Site
Ethnologue report for Cheyenne
Wiktionary section on Cheyenne language
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