Kiowa-Tanoan languages

The Kiowa-Tanoan languages are a family of Native American languages spoken in New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Within the family, the Tañoan group is made up of the Tewa, Tigua, and Towa or Jémez languages. Tigua presents differences between its northern dialects (taos, picurís), its southern dialects (watermelon, isleta, isleta del sur, piro). These languages are mostly spoken in the region inhabited by the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico. On the other hand, the Kiowa group is currently represented by a single language, spoken in southwestern Oklahoma, and which previously occupied a larger territory divided between New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. There are other extinct languages of the Pyro subgroup that are considered closer to the Tanoan group.

Classification

Family languages

There is no complete consensus on the ramification and diversification of the Kiowa-Tanoan family, although a widely accepted proposal is the following:

Relations with other languages

Several authors have postulated that there is some distant relationship between the Kiowa-Tañoan languages and the Uto-Aztecan languages (Azteco-Tañoan hypothesis) but the evidence is scant and far from conclusive (in the lexicon section it can be verified that some Kiowa-Tanoan forms bear some resemblance to the Uto-Aztec forms, but by themselves these coincidences do not allow the kinship to be certain).

Common features

Phonology

The table below reflects the reconstructed consonant inventory for Proto-Kiowa-Tanoan, the proto-language that would have given rise to today's Kiowa-Tanoan languages, as reconstructed by Hale (1967) based on the regular correspondences in initial position:

		Labial	Alveolar		Velar	Labio-velar	Gloss
Occlusive	Sonora	♪	♪	*	(*g)	♪
	sorda	♪	♪	*c	♪	*kw	*
	glotized	♪	♪	*c	♪	♪kw
	vacuum	♪	♪	♪	*kh	*kwh
Nasal		♪	♪
Fridge				♪			♪
Semivocal		♪

The signs /c, cʼ, cʰ/ are the AFA signs used for affricates (in IPA are denoted as /ʦ, ʦʼ, ʦʰ/). The evidence in favor of /*g/ derives from the prefixes; the phoneme /*g/ does not appear in strict initial position and is therefore indicated here in parentheses. Hale also reconstructs the nasality feature for nasal vowels. Vowel quality and other prosodic characteristics such as vowel quantity, tone, or accent have not yet been properly reconstructed. Despite this, Hale (1967) outlines some correspondence sets that include vowel quantity.

The following table illustrates the phonetic correspondences between the reconstructed initial consonants for Proto-Kiowa-Tano and the corresponding sounds in modern languages:

Initial consonants in protolengua and modern languages

PROTO- KIOWA-TAÑO	Taos	Tewa	Jémez	Kiowa		PROTO- KIOWA-TAÑO		Taos	Tewa	Jémez	Kiowa
						Consonant	context phonetic
♪	h	h	∅	h		♪ dz		j	j, d	z	d
*	.	.	.	∅		♪	oral vowel	l	d	d
♪	p	p	p	p			nasal vowel	n	n	n
♪	p.	p.	p.	p.		♪					n
♪	ph	f		ph		♪		w	w	w	j
♪	m	m	m	b		♪				kw
♪				m		(*))		k		k
♪	t	t	t	t		♪			k		k
*ts	t implied	ts	s			*kw		kw	kw
♪	th	θ	MIN	th		♪kw		kw	kw		(k)
*tsh	s	s				♪		(k)	(k)	(k)
♪			c	s		*kh		x	x	h	kh
♪	t.	t.	t.	t.		*kwh		xw	xw
♪	".	ts

As can be seen in the table above, there have been a good number of sound confusions or loss of phonemic contrasts in different languages

Morphology

Personal pronouns in the Kiowa-Tanoan languages distinguish between three grammatical persons. Although Piro and Tewa systematically distinguish singular from plural, in Tiwa and Kiowa the plural forms are identical to the singular:

PERSON	Kiowa	Tigua	Tewa	Piro	proto-KT	proto-UA
1. a	No.	ną	ną	na-oé	♪	♪i-
2nd	a	Åą	Pencil	e-kié	*im-	♪im-
3a		ąwaną		wa

Where the spelling <ą, ų> represents the nasal vowels /aⁿ, uⁿ/.

Another interesting grammatical aspect is the opposition between direct/reverse diathesis.

Lexical comparison

Numerals

The numerals for different Kiowa-Tanoan languages are:

GLOSA	Kiowa-Towa		Tewa-Tiwa			PROTO- KIOWA-TAÑO
	Jémez	Kiowa	Tewa	Tiwa septen.	Tiwa Merid.
'1'	pˀɨ̜	pá Agenda	wî	WHICH	^wimaa	*pamaa
'2'	wî(š)	jítile	Hey.	Worse	Đwisi	♪ Wihihi
'3'	(ta)	phãò	poeye	Pôyùo	^pac a	*payuwo
'4'	wí devoted(l)	jíkjá	yôenu	woan	wian	♪ Wian-
'5'	pːō	Русский	pːaː	ponyùo	^pandandaa	♪
'6'	MILITARY	ḿ,ś	Yes.	mõ devoted	^ma i	♪ Masi
'7'	ś.	pã́nsē	é	ù	shú	*
'8'	h́.	já́zco	khâtileve	xwílì	hwiři	*kwhidi
'9'	h h̄	ḱ.	whäː	xwizco	haa	♪kwhiã-
'10'	";	k kkhĩ̀	tä̜	trumped up	Đtið	*tæn-

The term for '3' from Jémez is a borrowing from Navajo. The northern tiwa corresponds to the Taos variety.

Cognates

Here are some cognates that support the correspondences examined in the phonology section:

	Taos	Tewa	Jémez	Kiowa	GLOSA
♪	m›	mã	ḿ;	bɔ	'to take.'
♪	mæ¢n-	mãn	mãté	m- turning	'Mano'
*d (+V)	līlū-	di	dél devoted	-	'gallo'
*d (+))	¢Ü ¢Ü ¢Ü ¢Ü ¢Ü ¢Ü ¢Ü ¢Ü ¢Ü ¢Ü ¢Ü	nãn	##	d- turning-m	'arena' (in Taos), 'soil' (in Tewa, Kiowa), 'slow' (in jamez)
♪	##	##	###	nː turning	1.a of the signatory
*ts	ро ро ро ри	tsí	I know.	ta	'Ojo'
♪	♪	tṹ	t́.	tõ-	'say'
*tsh	sŭ	s/25070/	ś.	thõ-m	'beber'
♪	^th ̄	θá	gil	tha-	'romper' (in Taos, Tewa, Jémez), 'to give a lot' (in Kiowa)
*ts’	^t・	-	-	t'--l	'higado'
*t’	".	ton	t ' a	t ' ː	'antilope'
♪ dz	j̄	-	z devoted	dɔ	"chanting" (in Taos, Jémez), 'cantar' (in Kiowa)

Similarities with Uto-Aztec

Some examples of lexical forms compared in Kiowa, in Tewa and in Proto-Uto-Aztecan.

GLOSA	Kiowa	Tewa	Tigua	proto-UA
'One'	pá Agenda	wî	WHICH	♪
'two'	and	Hey.	Worse	*wō-
'three'	phãò	poeye	Pôyùo	*pahai
'four.'	Yíkyá	yôenu	woan	♪nā-woho-
'five'	Русский	pːaː	ponyùo	♪
'Man'	ch i	sen	soan	*taka
'woman'	Ma	kwe		♪uka, ♪
'Mano'	m- turning	mãn	mæ¢n-	♪
'sol'	pay	than		♪
'luna'	p pahy	póóe		♪
'agua'	T ton	pooe	Pâ	*pād
'me'	nː turning	##	##	*n) coin())
'you'	a	Русский	Åã	*)m())