Kitsai language

Kitsai
Native to United States
Region previously west-central Oklahoma and eastern Texas
Extinct 1940, with the death of Kai Kai[1]
Caddoan
  • Northern
    • Pawnee–Kitsai
      • Kitsai
Language codes
ISO 639-3 kii
Glottolog kits1249[2]
Linguasphere 64-BAB-a

The Kitsai (also Kichai) language is an extinct member of the Caddoan language family.[3] It was spoken in Oklahoma by the Kichai tribe and became extinct in the 1930s. It is thought to be most closely related to Pawnee.[4][5] The Kichai people today are enrolled in the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes (Wichita, Keechi), Waco and Tawakonie), headquartered in Anadarko, Oklahoma.

Phonology

Consonants

Kitsai has the following consonants:[6] Those consonants that differ from the IPA rendering are bracketed.

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Stop t k ʔ
Affricate c [t͡s]
Fricative s h
Nasal n
Approximant w r y [j]

Vowels

Kitsai has the following vowel phonemes:

   Short   Long 
 Front   Back   Front   Back 
 High  i u iː uː
 Mid-Low  e a eː aː

Documentation

Kitsai is documented in the still mostly-unpublished field notes of anthropologist Alexander Lesser, of Hofstra University. Lesser discovered five speakers of Kitsai in 1928 and 1929, none of whom spoke English. Communicating to the Kitsai speakers through Wichita/English bilingual translators, he filled 41 notebooks with Kitsai material.[7]

Kai Kai was the last fluent speaker of Kitsai. She was born around 1849 and lived eight miles north of Anadarko. Kai Kai worked with Lesser to record vocabulary and oral history and prepare a grammar of the language.[8]

In the 1960s, Lesser shared his materials with Salvador Bucca of the Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, and they published scholarly articles on Kitsai.[7]

Vocabulary

Some Kitsai words include the following:[9]

  • Bear: Wari:ni
  • Corn: Kotay
  • Coyote: 'Taxko
  • Grass: A'tsi'u
  • Man: Wí:ta
  • Sweet potato: 'Ihts
  • White: Kaxtsnu
  • Wind: Ho'tonu
  • Woman: Tsakwákt

Notes

  1. ↑ "Kitsai". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-06-12.
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Kitsai". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Sturtevant and Fogelson, 616
  4. ↑ Sturtevant and Fogelson, 68
  5. ↑ "Kitsai: an extinct language of USA." Ethnologue. 2005 (retrieved 3 May 2010)
  6. ↑ Vantine, John Liessman (1980). Aspects of Kitsai Phonology. MA Thesis, University of Manitoba.
  7. 1 2 Salvador Bucca and Alexander Lesser, "Kitsai Phonology and Morphophonemics," (University of Chicago Press, 1969): 7.
  8. ↑ "Science: Last of the Kitsai." Time Magazine. 27 June 1932 (retrieved 3 May 2010)
  9. ↑ "Kitsai and Caddoan Word Set." Native Languages. (retrieved 3 May 2010)

References

  • Sturtevant, William C., general editor, and Raymond D. Fogelson, volume editor. Handbook of North American Indians: Southeast. Volume 14. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2004. ISBN 0-16-072300-0.
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