Caddo languages

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Dissemination of the Caddo languages

The Caddo languages are a family of five closely related languages ​​(once numerous dialects) that were once spoken by several powerful chiefdoms and tribes in the Southern Plains and Central Plains . The former language area extended over large areas of North and South Dakota , Nebraska , Kansas , Oklahoma and Texas in the USA . None of the four Caddo languages ​​still spoken today have more than 25 speakers, and therefore all are seriously endangered or almost extinct languages .

breakdown

The following five belong to the family of Caddo languages:

I. Southern Caddo or just Caddo

  • 1. Caddo (the actual Caddo as well as the Yatasi, Tula, Ouachita (Washita), Eyeish and Cahinnio tribes, which are historically linguistically and politically allied with them, today mostly Hainai and Hasinai dialects, some Kadohadacho; 25 speakers, seriously threatened)
    • Kadohadacho dialect
    • Hasinai dialect
    • Hainai dialect
    • Natchitoches dialect
    • Yatasi dialect

II. Northern Caddo or Plains Caddo

A: WICHITA

  • 2. Wichita (the Wichita peoples : Guichita (aka Wichita), Taovaya (Tawehash), Waco (Iscani, Hueco) and Tawakoni (Towakoni), only 1 native speaker and three speakers, almost extinct)
    • KirikirɁi: s (aka Wichita) dialect
    • Waco (Hueco) dialect
    • Tawakoni (Towakoni) dialect

B: PAWNEE KITSAI

Kitsai (Kichai)
Pawnee
  • 4. Arikara (Ree) (the Arikaree (Arikara) , 10 speakers, almost extinct)
  • 5. Pawnee (the Pawnee , 10 speakers (Golla 2007), possibly up to 79 speakers (2000 census), but only from elders, almost extinct)
    • South Band dialect
    • Skiri / Skidi (also Wolf) dialect

Language and identity

As already mentioned above, the four Caddo languages ​​still spoken today are considered to be seriously threatened languages (Southern Caddo or Caddo) or as an almost extinct language (Northern Caddo: Wichita, Arikara and Pawnee ) due to the mostly forced language change to the dominant American English ). Should one of these languages ​​die out (see language death ), a complex system of knowledge peculiar to the people (about their environment, religion and society) often disappears with it. In addition, the loss of language is often to be equated with the loss of identity as a people, since knowledge that is usually orally transmitted by the elders is lost for the next generation, as the latter no longer understands the language. Several dictionaries for the various Caddo languages have been (and are) published and sometimes taught in the tribal schools, but today mostly only older people speak this as their mother tongue . In addition, translations into American English cannot capture the full range of languages ​​and the ambiguity of the original sagas and stories or the ritual chants at dances and religious festivals, so that a loss of culture and identity cannot be avoided here either.

The fifth Caddo language that the Northern Caddo scoring Kitsai language of Kichai applies since the death of the last speaker in the 1940s as a dead language .

Possible family relationships

The postulated relationship of Caddo to the Sioux languages , the Iroquois languages and the Yuchi (the Yuchi ) and the incorporation of all these languages ​​in a so-called macro-Sioux language family could not be proven until today and is rejected by the majority of the linguists.

Furthermore, a relationship between the Keres spoken by several Pueblo peoples and the now extinct Adai (of which only a list of 275 words has survived) was assumed; Today, however, both languages ​​- just like Yuchi - are counted among the isolated languages . Since the Adai and Bidai , whose tribal names go back to a Caddo word for “undergrowth, undergrowth”, which no longer exist today as peoples , were geographically, culturally and sometimes politically closely linked to the Southern Caddo , their languages ​​were also called Caddo languages considered. Today, however, the Bidai language is generally regarded as a Western dialect of the now also extinct isolated Atakapa language .

literature

  • Lyle Campbell : American Indian languages. The historical linguistics of Native America (= Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics. 4). Oxford University Press, New York NY u. a. 1997, ISBN 0-19-509427-1 .
  • Wallace L. Chafe: Siouan, Iroquoian, and Caddoan. In: Thomas A. Sebeok (Ed.): Current trends in linguistics. Volume 10: Linguistics in North America. Volume 2. Mouton, The Hague u. a. 1973, 1164-1209, (Reprinted in: Thomas A. Sebeok (Ed.): Native languages ​​of the Americas. Volume 1. Plenum Press, New York NY 1976, ISBN 0-306-37157-X , pp. 527-572 ).
  • Wallace L. Chafe: The Caddoan, Iroquioan, and Siouan languages (= Trends in Linguistics. State of the Art Reports. 3). Mouton, The Hague, et al. a. 1976, ISBN 90-279-3443-6 .
  • Wallace L. Chafe: Caddoan. In: Lyle Campbell, Marianne Mithun (Ed.): The languages ​​of Native America. Historical and comparative assessment. University of Texas Press, Austin TX et al. a. 1979, ISBN 0-292-74624-5 , pp. 213-235.
  • Wallace L. Chafe: Indian languages: Siouan-Caddoan. In: Jacob Ernest Cooke (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the North American colonies. Volume 3. C. Scribner's Sons et al. a., New York, NY u. a. 1993, ISBN 0-684-19611-5 , pp. 33-42.
  • Alexander Lesser, Gene Weltfish: Composition of the Caddoan linguistic stock (= Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. Vol. 87, No. 6, ISSN  0096-8749 = Smithsonian Institution Press Publication. 3141). Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1932, ( digitized ).
  • Marianne Mithun: The languages ​​of Native North America. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge u. a. 1999, ISBN 0-521-23228-7 .
  • Allan R. Taylor: Comparative Caddoan. In: International Journal of American Linguistics. Vol. 29, No. 2, 1963, ISSN  0020-7071 , pp. 113-131, JSTOR 1264185 .

See also