Zuni language

language
name=Zuni
nativename=Shiwi'ma
familycolor=Isolate
states=U.S.
region=Western New Mexico
speakers=9,651
iso2=zun|iso3=zun


Pre-European contact distribution of Zuni

Zuni (also Zuñi) is a language of the Zuni people, indigenous to western New Mexico and eastern Arizona in the United States. It is spoken by around 9,500 people worldwide, especially in the vicinity of Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico and much smaller numbers in parts of Arizona.

Unlike most indigenous languages in the US, Zuni is still spoken by a significant number of children and, thus, is comparatively less threatened with language endangerment. Edmund Ladd reported in 1994 that Zuni is still the main language of communication in the pueblo and is used in the home (Newman 1996).

Within the language, the language itself is called "Shiwi'ma" ("shiwi" "Zuni" + "-’ma" "vernacular", trans. as "Zuni way") and its speakers are collectively "A:shiwi" ("’a:(w)-" "plural" + "shiwi" "Zuni").

Classification

Zuni is considered a language isolate (i.e., unrelated to any other language). A number of possible relationships to other languages have been proposed by various researchers although none of these have gained general acceptance. The main hypothetical proposals have been connections with Penutian (and Penutioid and Macro-Penutian), Tanoan, and Hokan phylums and also the Keresan family.

The most clearly articulated hypothesis is Newman's (1964) connection to Penutian, but even this was considered by Newman (according to Michael Silverstein) to be a tongue-in-cheek work due to the inherent problematic nature of the methodology used in Penutian studies (Goddard 1996). Newman's cognate sets suffered from common problems in comparative linguistics, such as comparing commonly borrowed forms (e.g. "tobacco"), forms with large semantic differences (e.g. "bad" and "garbage", "horse" and "hoof"), nursery forms, and onomatopoetic forms (Campbell 1997). Zuni was also included under Morris Swadesh's Penutioid proposal and Joseph Greenberg's very inclusive Penutian sub-grouping — both without convincing arguments (Campbell 1997).

Zuni was included with reservations under Aztec-Tanoan under Edward Sapir's heuristic (without supporting evidence). Later discussions of the Aztec-Tanoan hypothesis usually excluded Zuni (Foster 1996).

Karl-Heinz Gursky published problematic unconvincing evidence for a Keresan-Zuni grouping. J. P. Harrington wrote one unpublished paper with the title "Zuñi Discovered to be Hokan" (Campbell 1997). A speculative work Davis (2004) offers a controversial comparison of cognates (without any proposed sound correspondences) between Zuni and Japanese, another language isolate.

Language contact

Since Zuni is a member of the Pueblo linguistic area, it shares a number of features with Hopi, Keresan, and Tanoan (and to a lesser extent Navajo) that are probably due to language contact. The development of ejective consonants in Zuni may be due to contact with Keresan and Tanoan languages which have complete series of ejectives. Likewise, aspirated consonants may have diffused into Zuni. Some Tanoan languages have "i-e-a-o-u" vowel systems, which may have resulted from contact with Zuni. Other shared traits include: final devoicing of vowels and sonorant consonants, dual number, ceremonial vocabulary, and the presence of a labialized velar "k^w" (Campbell 1997).

ounds

The 16 consonants of Zuni in orthography (with IPA phonetic symbol when different from orthography):

:

Note the syncretism between dual and plural non-possessive forms in the first and second persons. Utterances with these pronouns are typically disambiguated by the fact that plural pronouns agree with plural-marked verb forms.

Verbs

Enclitics

Particles

ociolinguistic aspects

* storytelling ("telapnaawe") - Tedlock (1972)
* ceremonial speech - Newman (1955)
* slang - Newman (1955)

"Names – Teknonymy". Zuni adults are often known after the relationship between that adult and a child. For example, a person might be called "father of so-and-so", etc. This circumlocution is used to avoid using adult names, which have religious meanings and are very personal. [Kroeber, Albert L. (1917). Zuñi kin and clan. Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History (Vol. 18, Pt. 2). New York: The Trustees. (Online: digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/handle/2246/97).]

Orthography

The letters found in Zuni orthography used today on the reservation are the same as that of English, except that

* it includes "Ł, ł"
* "r" is used only in borrowed words
* ":" is used to indicate long vowels where it follows the vowel
* "’" indicates a glottal stop — it is written medially and finally but not word-initially

In the past scholars have developed other misc. writing systems, which have been used on their projects. A writing system based on the Roman alphabet was developed for Zuni by linguist Stanley Newman (Newman 1954). This practical orthography essentially followed Americanist phonetic notation with the substitution of some uncommon letters with other letters or digraphs (two letter combinations). A further revised orthography is used in Dennis Tedlock's transcriptions of oral narratives.

A comparison of the systems is in the table below.

::

In Newman's orthography (used in his dictionary, Newman 1958), the symbols, "ch", "j", "lh", "q", "sh", "z", "/", ":" replaced Americanist "č", "h", "ł", "k^w", "š", "c", "ʔ", and "·" (used in Newman's grammar, Newman 1965).

Tedlock's orthography uses "ʼ" instead of Newman's "/" except at the beginning of words where it is not written. Additionally, in Tedlock's system, long vowels are written doubled instead with a length mark ":" as in Newman's system (e.g. "aa" instead of "a:") and "h" and "kw" are used instead of "j" and "q". Finally, Tedlock writes the following long consonants — "cch", "llh", "ssh", "tts" — with a doubled initial letter instead of Newman's doubling of the digraphs — "chch", "lhlh", "shsh" — and "kkw" and "tts" are used instead of Newman's "qq" and "zz".

Notes

References

*Bunzel, Ruth L. (1932a). Zuñi origin myths. In "47th annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology for the years 1929-1930" (pp. 545-609). Washington.
*Bunzel, Ruth L. (1932b). Zuñi ritual poetry. In "47th annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology for the years 1929-1930" (pp. 611-835). Washington.
*Bunzel, Ruth L. (1933). "Zuni texts". Publications of the American Ethnological Society (No. 15). New York: G.E. Steckert & Co. ISBN 0-404-58165-X
*Bunzel, Ruth L. (1934). Zuni. In "Handbook of American Indian languages" (Vol. 3, pp. 383-515). Gluckstadt: J. J. Augustin.
* Campbell, Lyle. (1997). "American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America". New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
*Cannell, Joseph R. (2007). "On the Language Family Classifications of Zuni" [Online] Available: www.josephcannell.yahoo.com [2007, April 15]
*Condie, Carol. (1973). Problems of a Chomskyan analysis of Zuni transitivity. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "39", 207-223.
*Cook, Curtis D. (1975). Nucleus and margin of Zuni clause types. "Linguistics", "13" 5-37.
*Cushing, Frank Hamilton. (1975). "Zuni breadstuff". Indian notes and monographs (Vol. 8). AMS Press. ISBN 0-404-11835-6
* Foster, Michael K. (1996). Language and the culture history of North America. In I. Goddard (Ed.) "Handbook of North American Indians: Languages" (Vol. 17, pp. 64-110). Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
*Davis, Nancy Yaw. (2000). "The Zuni enigma". Norton. ISBN 0-393-04788-1
* Davis, Irvine. (1966). [Review of "Zuni grammar" by Stanley Newman] . "International Journal of American Linguistics", "32", 82-84.
*Dutton, Bertha P. (1983). "American Indians of the Southwest". Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
* Goddard, Ives. (1996). The classification of the native languages of North America. In I. Goddard (Ed.) "Handbook of North American Indians: Languages" (Vol. 17, pp. 290-323). Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
*Granberry, Julian. (1967). "Zuni syntax". (Doctoral dissertation, SUNY Buffalo).
*Hickerson, Nancy P. (1975). Two studies of color: Implications for cross-cultural comparability of semantic categories. In M. D. Kinkade, K. Hale, & O. Werner (Eds.), "Linguistics and anthropology: In honor of C. F. Voegelin" (pp. 317-330). The Peter De Ridder Press.
*Hymes, Dell H. (1957). Some Penutian elements and the Penutian hypothesis. "Southwestern Journal of Anthropology", "13", 69-87.
* Kroeber, Albert L. (1917). "Zuñi kin and clan". Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History (Vol. 18, Pt. 2). New York: The Trustees. (Online: [http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/handle/2246/97 digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/handle/2246/97] ).
* Miller, Wick R. (1996). The ethnography of speaking. In I. Goddard (Ed.) "Handbook of North American Indians: Languages" (Vol. 17, pp. 222-243). Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
*Miner, Kenneth L. (1986). Noun stripping and loose incorporation in Zuni. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "52", 242-254.
*Mithun, Marianne (Ed.). (1999). "The languages of native North America". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Newman, Stanley. (1954). A practical Zuni orthography. In J. Roberts & W. Smith (Eds.), "Zuni law: A field of values" (pp. 163-170). Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology (Vol. 43, No. 1). Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum, Harvard University. ISBN 0-527-01312-9
*Newman, Stanley. (1955). Vocabulary levels: Zuni sacred and slang usage. "Southwestern Journal of Anthropology", "11", 345-354.
*Newman, Stanley. (1958). "Zuni dictionary". Indiana University research center publications (No. 6). Bloomington: Indiana University.
* Newman, Stanley. (1964). Comparison of Zuni and California Penutian. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "30", 1-13.
*Newman, Stanley. (1965). "Zuni grammar". University of New Mexico publications in anthropology (No. 14). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico.
*Newman, Stanley. (1967). Zuni grammar: Alternative solutions versus weaknesses. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "33", 187-192.
*Newman, Stanley. (1967). The Zuni verb 'to be'. In J. W. Verhaar (Ed.), "Foundations of language, supplemental series" (Vol. 1). The Humanities Press.
*Newman, Stanley. (1996). Sketch of the Zuni language. In I. Goddard (Ed.) "Handbook of North American Indians: Languages" (Vol. 17, pp. 483-506). Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
*Nichols, Lynn. (1990). Direct quotation and switch reference in Zuni. In "Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society" (No. 16, pp. 90-100).
*Nichols, Lynn. (1993). Recovering Zuni auxiliaries and their role in event classification. "Harvard Studies in Linguistics", "3", 92-108.
*Nichols, Lynn. (1998). "Topics in Zuni syntax". (Doctoral dissertation, Harvard).
* Parsons, Elsie Clews. (1927). Zuñi names and naming practices. "The Journal of American Folklore", "36" (140), 171-176.
*Stout, Carol. (1972). "Zuni transitivity: A generative approach". (Doctoral dissertation, University of New Mexico).
* Tedlock, Dennis. (1972). "Finding the center: Narrative poetry of the Zuni Indians". New York: Dial.
* Tedlock, Dennis. (1978). Coyote and Junco. In W. Bright (Ed.), "Coyote stories" (pp. 171-177). Chicago: The Chicago University Press.
* Tedlock, Dennis. (1983). "The spoken word and the work of interpretation". Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
* Tedlock, Dennis. (1999). "Finding the center: The art of the Zuni storyteller" (2nd ed.). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
*Walker, Willard. (1964). "Reference, taxonomy and inflection in Zuni". (Doctoral dissertation, Cornell University).
*Walker, Willard. (1966). [Review of "Zuni grammar" by Stanley Newman] . "Language", "42" (1), 176-180.
*Walker, Willard. (1966). Inflection and taxonomic structure in Zuni. "International Journal of American Linguistics", "32" (3), 217-227.
*Walker, Willard. (1979). Zuni semantic categories. In A. Ortiz (Ed.), "Handbook of North American Indians: Southwest" (Vol. 9, pp. 509-513). Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
*Walker, Willard. (1983). What Zuni is really like. In F. Agard, G. Kelley, A. Makkai, V. B. Makkai (Eds.), "Essays in honor of Charles F. Hockett" (pp. 551-562). Leiden: E. J. Brill.
*Watts, Linda. (1992). "Relational terminology at Zuni Pueblo: A social semiotic case study". (Doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University).
*Yumitani, Yukihiro. (1987). A comparative sketch of Pueblo languages: Phonology. In "Kansas working papers in linguistics" (No. 12, pp. 119-139). University of Kansas.

External links

* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=zun Ethnologue report for Zuni]
* [http://www.amerindianarts.us/zuni_worldview.html Zuni World View] "Linguistic and Ontological Implications of the Conceptual Presuppositions of the Zuni Worldview", HTML and PDF.
* [http://www.nativecalling.org/archives/2000/jul/07252000.ram Zuni Enigma (Listen in RealAudio…)] Did a group of thirteenth century Japanese pilgrims come to the American Southwest and merge with the people of Zuni? Guests include Nancy Yaw Davis, author of "The Zuni Enigma" and members of the Zuni Nation, Hayes Lewis, Arden Kucate, and Malcolm Bowekety.
* [http://www.suduva.com/english_zuni_words.htm English-Zuni Word list]
* [http://www.suduva.com/zuni_conversation.htm English-Zuni Conversational phrases]
* [http://www.amazon.com/review/RE2MA4OTVSGPQ Short Review by Senior Lecturer in Linguistics Mark Newbrook of the Zuni Enigma by Nancy Davis]
* [http://benawekokshi.googlepages.com Zuni Texts]