User:Dgilber1/Language selection

I am working with Veronica Komorek on this project, the link to her language selection page is here: https://wikis.swarthmore.edu/ling073/User:Vkomore1/Language_selection

Wichita

Morphological Typology: Wichita is widely regarded as a language with minimal phonemes, however has large morphological complexity. That being said, the language is known for its ability to depict lots of different phrases and things with minimal distinct sounds due to very distinct grammatical structures. It is largely polysynthetic and agglutinative language, meaning that things that would be explained by full sentences in English are portrayed as singular, verb-adjacent words. Wichita is often considered to have a non-configurational structure where the verb portrays most of the information in different arguments. Some other facts about this language is that there are no distinctions between gender and there are very complicated morphemes that indicate mood, tense, and more.

Basic Information: There are zero remaining fluent heritage speakers of this language. The last known native speaker of this language, Doris McLemore, died in 2016 at 89 years old. The Wichita people typically resided in Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. The Wichita and affiliated tribes are headquartered in Anadarko, Oklahoma. While there are no native speakers left that speak this language, there are some people with different levels of proficiency because of different language revitalization programs. The language is considered dormant, meaning that it is no longer transmitted from parents to children. Through the Wichita Language Program, many Wichita Tribe leaders and affiliated leaders are focused on revitalizing the language. Every potential Wichita speaker is also a native English speaker. The Wichita orthography uses a Latin system where nearly 30 grammatical slots are simplified into complex words. The most notable features include the use of a colon for vowel length, and acute accents for high tone.

Text of Language: There seems to be a decent amount of texts with translation available. They are linked below. https://wichitatribe.com/department-of-preservation/language-class-dictionary/ https://wichitatribe.com/dictionary/ https://archive.mpi.nl/tla/islandora/search/Wichita?type=dismax

Sources: https://archive.org/details/rosettaproject_wic_detail-1 https://dobes.mpi.nl/posters/print/americas-wichita-print.pdf https://www.omniglot.com/writing/wichita.htm

ISO Code: WIC

Natchez

Morphological Typology: Natchez is a language with much morphological complexity, using a verbal system where single words are capable of expressing the ideas that would be expressed in entire sentences in English. Its verbs are polysynthetic and agglutinative, again being capable of expressing entire ideas in just one word. A singular Natchez verb indicates subject, object, tense, directional information, and aspect. Natchez makes a distinction between active and stative subjects in the language, meaning that people performing an action and people who experience a state are referred to differently in verbs. Further, Natchez can assign verb-like properties to a noun just like English as well as Wichita. Something interesting was the use of a “speech register” used by storytellers. When describing cannibal characters in traditional stories and tales, there were very distinct morphological variations differentiating them from other people.

Basic Information: There are zero remaining fluent speakers. The last two native speakers, Watt Sam and Nancy Raven, passed away in 1944 and 1957, respectively. The Natchez lived in the Lower Mississippi Valley. After conflict with the French in the 1730s, they merged with the Cherokee and Muscogee Nations. As of today, the Natchez people have communities in both Oklahoma and South Carolina. The language is also considered dormant, meaning that it is no longer transmitted in households. However, like the Wichita, there has been a revitalization program and a small number of tribe members have varying levels of proficiency. Natchez are also all native English speakers and because of merging with Cherokee and Muscogee tribes, some are also fluent in Cherokee and Muscogee. There is no single orthography but the most recent revitalization efforts use a Latin system in which colons indicate vowel length, acute accents indicate tone, and special consonants indicate emphasis on certain consonants.

Text of Language: This language might be very difficult as I only found translations for a couple words/phrases and there is little indication as to sentence structure and how the language is pieced together. https://www.omniglot.com/writing/natchez.htm https://www.native-languages.org/natchez_words.htm

Sources: https://books.google.com/books?id=nd5o9juMePEC&pg=PA385&lpg=PA385&dq=Geoffrey+Kimball,+Native+Languages+of+the+Southeastern+United+States#v=onepage&q&f=false https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natchez_language

ISO Code: NCZ

Fataluku

Morphological Typology: Fataluku is a Papuan language that has an agglutinative and isolating structure, with a focus on order of the phrases and sentence structure. It is not polysynthetic. Words are shorter and rely on piecing smaller words together rather than making larger, more specific words like the other two languages I chose to research. Fataluku has a strict sentence structure (Subject-Object-Verb), which structures sentences like “I chicken eat” instead of “I eat chicken.” In terms of agglutination, it uses suffixes to mark possession and location. A unique characteristic of the Fataluku language is using serial verb construction. Meaning that instead of saying “Bring”, the language would say something like “Take Go”. It also doesn’t differentiate between gender and also doesn’t differentiate between the singular and plural versions of nouns unless a specific number of that said noun is stated.

Basic Information: Fataluku is a living language with approximately 35,000 to 40,000 native speakers. They reside in the Lautém Municipality of Timor-Lesta. The language is stable and developing. It is actively transmitted to children in households and is used in day-to-day life, ceremonies, and trading. That being said, it does face some pressure from both Tetum and Portuguese. The majority of Fataluku are multilingual, speaking Tetum and some having proficiency in Portuguese and Indonesian. There is a normative orthography based on the Latin alphabet. Vowel length is described by doubling the letter, consonants are somewhat similar to English, however the language uses 'x ' for “sh” sounds and “c” for “ch” sounds.

Text of Language: It seems as though it may be a bit challenging to find good sentence and word translations because I didn’t come up with many sources during my research. https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/6074160 https://glosbe.com/ddg/en

Sources: East Fataluku Grammar Sketch (Leiden University PDF) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279031382_The_Nature_and_Underlying_Representations_of_Long_Vowels_and_Diphthongs_in_Fataluku https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/9e37f803-6be6-4891-80b6-76bccea346ef

ISO Code: FAT,,,