Assiniboine language

The Assiniboine language is not a government-recognized official language of any state or region where Assiniboine people live. There are two reservations located in Montana, but the official language of the state is English.[6] An estimate of native speakers ranges from less than 50,[5] to about 100,[7] to about 150 Assiniboine people, most of them elderly.[8]

Sioux, Assiniboine, and Stoney are closely related languages of the Dakota family. Many linguists consider Assiniboine and Stoney to be dialects. However, they are mutually unintelligible. Parks and DeMallie report that they are not variant forms of a single dialect, but that Assiniboine is closer to the Sioux dialects than it is to Stoney. The exact number of interrelationships among the subdialects and dialects comprising this continuum is unknown.[3]

The languages of the Dakotan group are spoken in the following regions:

• Canada
  • Alberta
  • Manitoba
  • Saskatchewan
• United States
  • Minnesota
  • Montana
  • Nebraska
  • North Dakota
  • South Dakota

The Assiniboine language (Nakota), the Dakota language and the Lakota language are usually classified into a group with D-N-L subgroup classification. As suggested by the name of the system, the variation in pronunciations of certain words follows the D-N-L rule. A typical example is given below:[3]

Santee-Sisseton and Yankton-Yanktonai are languages that belong to the Dakotan group and Teton is a language in the Lakotan group. The table above illustrates a typical variation amongst these three languages. Just as the name of these three tribes suggest, the Dakota language, the Lakota language and the Nakota (Assiniboine) language have respective inclinations towards /d/, /l/, and /n/ in some substitutable consonants.

Some scholars argue that the D-N-L classification system may not be totally accurate due to the non-rigidness of the substitution form.[3] Siouan Indians live on an expansive continuum such that the distinction between different languages does not manifest in a rigid, clear-cutting criterion. Historically, linguists have debated on Yankton-Yanktonai languages and their proper positions into the D-N-L classification system, but the coexistence of /d/ and /n/ phonemes made such classification doubtful. This example of lexical difference between the languages of the Siouan group illustrates another possible distinction besides the D-N-L variations.[3]

There are five oral vowels in Assiniboine, /i u e o a/, and three nasal vowels, /ĩ ũ ã/.[7]

Words that follow the above rules:

• /bahá/ 'hill'
• /pahá/ 'hair'
• /čupó/ 'fog'
• /ptą/ 'otter'
• /pka/ 'heavy'
• /psi/ 'rice'
• /pša/ 'to sneeze'

[9]

Syllables are primarily of CV structure. While codas are possible, they are restricted and uncommon, often becoming restructured as the onset of the following syllable. Onsets may include up to two consonants but codas must be simplex. Possible onset clusters are given in the following table:[10]

Morphological processes for Assiniboine language are primarily agglutinating.[7] In addition, the character of morpheme alternation in Assiniboine may be classified in terms of phoneme loss, phoneme shift, contraction, nasalization loss, syllable loss, syntactic contraction, and syntactic alternation.[11]

Examples from Levin (1964).[11]

Contraction->When two syllabics come into contact they contract as in:

/a/+/i/ > /i/

/i/+/i/ > /i/

/a/+/u/ > /u/

Phoneme loss: Syllabics

when /a/ is in medial position between /k/ and /h/:

/a/> /∅/

when /o/ is in the medial position between /i/ and /k/:

/o/>/∅/

when /e/ is in medial position between /p/ and /k/:

/e/>/Φ/

Phoneme loss: semi-syllabics

/y/ > /∅/ when

/y/ follows /n/

Phoneme loss: non-syllabics

/k/ is in medial position between /u/ and /k/ or /u/ and /h/ or /u/ and /n/ or /u/ and /y/

/k/ > /∅/

Phoneme shift: syllabics

/i/ > /a/ before /n/

Phoneme shift: non-syllabics

When /a/--/e/ is in medial position between /g/ and /š/

/g/ > /x/

When /a/--/e/ is in medial position between /g/ and /c/

/g/ > /x/

When /g/ is in medial position between /a/ and /y/

/g/ > /x/

Nasalization loss exists as follows:

/ą/ > /a/

Syllable loss occurs as follows:

/ye/ > /Φ/ Ex) iyópe... ye 'to pay' so, iyópe + wa + ye > iyópewa 'I pay'

Syntactic contraction: personal inflectional morphemes

wa 'I' + ni 'you' > ci 'I...you';

Syntactic contraction with verbal themes occurs as follows:

/i/ + /k/ – /kk/ > c;

Syntactic alternation

/a/ > /e/ in verbal theme

/a/>/e/ in nomial theme

/a/>/e/ with the future suffix;

Assiniboine has SOV word order. The order of elements may differ from canonical SOV; this is not free nor scrambling word order, but instead, the result of topicalization or other movements. Out-of-context sentences are always interpreted as SOV order even if it sounds odd. For example, 'the man bit the dog', unless an element is moved into a focus position. Focused element sentences are highly marked, and practically, a strange semantic reading is preferred over an interpretation of OSV. For example, the following sentence was interpreted as 'A banana ate the boy' by a native speaker, and to get the OSV reading out of it the object must be stressed, for example if the sentence was given as a reply to the question 'What did the boy eat?'.[12]