Sioux languages

The Sioux languages are a family of Native American languages. The group is the second most widely spoken native language family in the US, after the Algonquian languages.

Internal classification

The classifications of most authors coincide in clearly recognizing four subgroups within the Sioux languages:

• The subgroup of the Missouri Valley (crow, hidatsa)
• The subgroup commands (mandan)
• The South-Eastern Subgroup (tutelo, ofo-biloxi)
• The subgroup of the Mississippi Valley (rama dhegiha, chiwere, winnebago, dakota)

Regarding the grouping of these groups, the question is open to debate. Robert K. Headley (1971) on a lexiocostatistical basis proposed the following tree for the Sioux-Catawba languages:

Apart from statistical counting, there is no other evidence to suggest that this internal grouping is correct, although the ASJP systematic comparison project reproduces a tree identical to the previous one in addition to detailing the structure of the Mississippi subgroup, which is as follows:

Number of speakers

The following is an estimate of the number of speakers of these languages (in brackets the date of the estimates):

• A. Catalan family
  • Catawba ext.
• B. Siux family
  • Siux central
    • Mandan Group
      • Mandan v. 6 (1992)
    • Mississippi Group
      • Chiwere
        • Iowa-Oto 70 (1997)
      • Dakota
        • Assiniboine 1000 (1980); 150-200 (1997)
        • Dakota 19 000 (1997); 19 228 (2001); 19 000 (2002); c. 26 000 (2008)
        • Lakota 6000 -6390 (1997)
        • Stoney 1000-1500 (1997); 2300 (2001)
      • Dhegiha
        • Kansas v. 19 (1990)
        • Omaha-Ponca 1000 (1980); 85 (1986)
        • Osage v. 5 (1992)
        • Quapaw v. 34 (1990)
      • Winnebago
        • Ho-Chunk (Hocąk) 4000 (1980); 230-1500 (1997) or 11 (2004)
  • Valley of the Missouri
    • Crow v. 3500 (1980); 4280 (1990); 5500 (1997)
    • Hidatsa v. 100 (1986); 125 (1997)
  • Southeast
    • Biloxi-Ofo Group
      • Biloxi ext.
      • Ofo ext.
    • Tutelo ext Group.

History

Sioux languages have been spoken throughout North America in its central and southeastern regions. From the Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains are Winnebago, Dakota (with dialects such as Santee, Yankton, Yanktonai(s), Teton (endonym: Lakhota or Lakota), Assiniboine and Stoney (endonym for both: Nakota or Nakoda), Mandan, Hidatsa and Crow In addition, Dhegiha (Quapaw, Kansa, Osage, and Omaha-Ponca) and Chiwere (Iowa, Oto, and extinct Missouri) are spoken in the central United States.Three languages are documented in the southeastern United States extinct sioux: tutelo, oto and biloxi.

Other Sioux languages were spoken in what is now Virginia and the Carolinas when Europeans arrived there. Catawba is a Sioux language although its relationships with the others are very distant.

In total there were 2,975 people in Canada at the 1981 census who spoke Sioux languages as their mother tongues.

Common features

Phonology

There is a reasonable amount of work with the comparative method within the Sioux-Catawba family. One of the first and most complete comparative works on the phonology of these languages is that of Wolff (1950-51), who reconstructed the phonological inventory of Proto-Sioux and gave a sufficient number of correspondences in support of said reconstruction. Wolff's reconstructed consonant inventory was refined by Matthews (1958), resolving some inconsistencies and is now generally accepted:

Regarding the vowels, five non-nasal vowels /*i, *e, *a, *o, *u/ and three nasal vowels /*į, *ą, *ų/ are reconstructed. Furthermore, both Wolff and Matthews reconstruct an important number of consonant clusters such as /*tk, *kš, *šk, *sp/ and others.

Grammar

Morphologically, all Sioux languages have at least traces of personal, locative, and instrumental prefixes. Most languages contrast alienable with inalienable possessions by means of prefixes on the root of nouns. All show the tendency to the order Subject Object Verb.

Below is an example of the Sioux language:

(1) u'ux-dak al-a'kaa-?

'Did you see any deer?'

(2) bache'e-sh huu-la'k ua' dappee'-k

'The man came and his wife killed him.'

The following is a comparative list of pronouns:

Lexical comparison

From the numerals in the attested languages, the numerals for each of the subgroups can be roughly reconstructed:

Relations with other families

The closest relative of the Sioux languages is the Catawba spoken on the east coast of North America. Outside of this proven kinship with the Catawba, some evidence has been shown that it could be remotely related to the Iroquoian languages and the Caddoan languages. This evidence refers basically to verbal morphology, although long lists of cognates to it have not been established. where the comparative method could be applied and the relationship convincingly demonstrated. The hypothesized macrofamily by the Sioux-Catawba, Iroquois, and Caddoan groups is known as the macro-Sioux hypothesis.

Sapir and some other authors went further and proposed a relationship between the hypothetical Macro-Sioux (Sioux, Caddoan, Iroquois) and the Hokan languages. This Hokano-Sioux supergrouping would hypothetically include geographically adjacent groups such as Yuchi, Natchez, and Muskogi as well as the geographically non-adjacent Macro-Sioux group languages. Most Americanists regard this far-reaching relationship as spurious, judging the supporting evidence to be extremely weak and decidedly unconvincing.