- Mikasuki language
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Mikasuki Spoken in United States Region Southern Florida Native speakers 500 (date missing) Language family Muskogean- Eastern Muskogean
- Mikasuki
Language codes ISO 639-3 mik This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. The Mikasuki language (also Miccosukee or Hitchiti-Mikasuki) is a Muskogean language spoken by around 500 people in southern Florida. It is spoken by the Miccosukee tribe as well as many Florida Seminoles. The now-extinct Hitchiti language was mutually intelligible with Mikasuki.
Contents
Sounds
Front Central Back Close ɪ ɪː ɪ̃ Mid ʋ ʋː ʋ̃ Open ɐ ɐː ɐ̃ There are three tones, high, low and falling. Vowel length is distinctive, for example eche ('mouth') vs eeche ('deer'), ete ('eye') vs eete ('fire').
Labial Dental Palatal Velar Glottal Nasal m n ŋ Stop voiceless p t tʃ k voiced b Fricative ɸ ɬ ʃ h Approximant l j w Grammar
Nouns are marked with suffixes for various functions, some examples:
Suffix Function Example Meaning embaache battery ot subject marker embaachot hampeepom the battery has gone bad on object marker embaachon aklomle I need a battery ee question marker embachee cheméèło? do you have a battery? Free pronouns exist (aane "I", chehne "you", pohne "we") but are rarely used. Verb suffixes are the usual way of marking person.
Writing System
Mikasuki is written using the Latin alphabet. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
Letter Sound a, aa a, aː a, aa ã, ãː e, ee i, iː e, ee ĩː, ĩː o, oo o, oː o, oo õ; õː ay ai ao ao The consonants are:
Letter Sound b b ch t͡ʃ f ɸ h h k k l l ł ɬ m m n n ng ŋ p p sh ʃ t t w w y j High tone is indicated with an acute, low tone with a grave and falling tone with an acute (on a long vowel this is typographically split over both vowels, otherwise the grave is placed over the next consonant):
High Tone Low Tone Falling Tone á, áa à, àa áǹ, áà An epenthetic [ə] vowel appears in kl, kw and kn clusters in careful speech.
Examples
Verbs
bochonkom he/she/it touches chaolom he/she/it writes chayahlom he/she/it walks eelom he/she/it arrives empom he/she/it eats eshkom he/she/it drinks faayom he/she/it hunts ommom he/she/it makes Numerals
1 łáàmen 2 toklan 3 tocheenan 4 shéetaaken 5 chahkeepan 6 eepaaken 7 kolapaaken 8 toshnapaaken 9 oshtapaaken 10 pokoolen Kinship Terms
nakne man, male ooche son ooshtayke daughter táàte father tayke woman, female wáàche mother yaate person yaatooche infant External links
References
- West, J. & Smith, N. A Guide to the Miccosukee Language, Miami: Miccosukee Corporation 1978.
- West, J. The Phonology of Mikasuki in Studies in Linguistics 1962, 16:77-91.
Categories:- Language articles with undated speaker data
- Agglutinative languages
- Muskogean languages
- Languages of the United States
- Indigenous languages of the North American Southeast
- Tonal languages
- Eastern Muskogean
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