Tanoan languages

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Tanoan
Kiowa–Tanoan
Geographic
distribution		central North America
Linguistic classificationOne of the world's primary language families
Subdivisions
Linguasphere64-C
Glottologkiow1265[1]
{{{mapalt}}}
Distribution of Tanoan languages before European contact. The pueblo languages are at the left; the nomadic Kiowa at right.

Tanoan /təˈnoʊ.ən/, also Kiowa–Tanoan or Tanoan–Kiowa, is a family of languages spoken by indigenous peoples in present-day New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Most of the languages – Tiwa (Taos, Picuris, Southern Tiwa), Tewa, and Towa – are spoken in the Native American Pueblos of New Mexico (with one outlier in Arizona). These were the first languages collectively given the name of Tanoan. Kiowa, which is a related language, is now spoken mostly in southwestern Oklahoma. The Kiowa had historically occupied areas of Texas and Oklahoma.

Languages[edit]

The Tanoan language family has seven languages in four branches:

Tanoan 
 

Kiowa, (Cáuijògà/cáuijò:gyà): 20 speakers

 
 

Jemez (or Towa): 3000 speakers

 
 Tiwa 
Northern 
 

Taos: 800 speakers

 
 

Picuris: 225 speakers

 
 
 

Southern Tiwa: 1,600 speakers

 
 

? Piro †

 
 
 

Tewa: 1,600 speakers

 
 

Kiowa–Towa might form an intermediate branch, as might Tiwa–Tewa.

Name[edit]

Tanoan has long been recognized as a major family of Pueblo languages, consisting of Tiwa, Tewa, and Towa. The inclusion of Kiowa into the family was at first controversial among linguists. The once-nomadic Kiowa people of the Plains are culturally quite distinct from the Tiwa, Tewa, and Towa pueblos, and people in other language families have typically shared more culture. Linguists now accept that a Tanoan family without Kiowa would be paraphyletic, as any ancestor of the pueblo languages would be ancestral to Kiowa as well. Kiowa may be closer to Towa than Towa is to Tiwa–Tewa. Technically Tanoan and Kiowa–Tanoan are considered synonyms among linguists. Because of the cultural use of the name Tanoan as signifying several peoples who share a culture, the more explicit term Kiowa–Tanoan is still commonly used for the language family.

The prehistory of the Kiowa people is little known. As a result, the history is obscure about the separation of the members of this language family into two groups ('Puebloan' and 'Plains') with radically distinct lifestyles. There is apparently no oral tradition of any ancient connection between the peoples. Scholars have not determined when the peoples were connected so that the common linguistic elements could have developed. The earliest traditions and historical notices of the Kiowa record them as migrating to the north and west, to the territory now associated with the tribal nation. Today this area is within the modern states of Texas and Oklahoma), which they occupied from the late 18th century.

Genealogical relations[edit]

The Tanoan family has been connected to the Uto-Aztecan family in a hypothetical Aztec–Tanoan proposal. Although it is undemonstrated, many linguists find this hypothesis to be promising.

Historical phonology[edit]

The chart below[2] contains the reconstructed consonants of the Tanoan proto-language as reconstructed by Hale (1967) based on consonant correspondences in stem-initial position.

Labial Apical Apical
Fricated 		Velar Velar
Labial 		Glottal
Plosive voiced *b *d *dz (*ɡ) *ɡʷ
plain *p *t *ts *k *kʷ
glottalized *pʼ *tʼ *tsʼ *kʼ *kʷʼ *ʔ
aspirated *pʰ *tʰ *tsʰ *kʰ *kʷʰ
Nasal *m *n
Fricative *s *h
Glide *w

The evidence for *ɡ comes from prefixes; *ɡ has not been found in stem-initial position and thus is in parentheses above. Hale reconstructs the nasalization feature for nasal vowels. Vowel quality and prosodic features like vowel length, tone, and stress have not yet been reconstructed for the Tanoan family. Hale (1967) gives certain sets of vowel quality correspondences.

The following table illustrates the reconstructed initial consonants in Proto-Tanoan and its reflexes in the daughter languages.

Initial consonants in proto-language and daughter languages
Proto-Tanoan Tiwa Tewa Towa Kiowa Proto-Tanoan Tiwa Tewa Towa Kiowa
consonant environment
*h h h ∅ [3] h *dz j j, dʒ z d
*ʔ ʔ ʔ ʔ ∅ *d before oral vowel l d d
*p p p p p before nasal vowel n n n
*pʼ pʼ pʼ pʼ pʼ *n n
*pʰ pʰ f ɸ pʰ *w w w w j
*b m m m b *ɡʷ kʷ ɡ
*m m (*ɡ) k ɡ k
*t t t t t *k k k
*ts tʃ [4] ts s *kʷ kʷ kʷ ɡ
*tʰ tʰ θ ʃ tʰ *kʷʼ kʷʼ kʷʼ kʼ
*tsʰ s s *kʼ kʼ kʼ kʼ
*s ɬ c [5] s *kʰ x x h kʰ
*tʼ tʼ tʼ tʼ tʼ *kʷʰ xʷ xʷ
*tsʼ tʃʼ [6] tsʼ

As can be seen in the above table, a number of phonological mergers have occurred in the different languages. Cognate sets supporting the above are listed below:

Cognate sets demonstrating initial consonant correspondences[7]
 Tiwa   Tewa   Towa   Kiowa  meaning(s)
*b mɑ̃ mãʔ mĩ́ː bɔ "to bring"
*m mæ̃̀n- mãn mãté mɔ̃ː-dɔ "hand"
*d (+ V) līlū- diː délʔɨː – "fowl"
*d (+ Ṽ) ˈnæ̃̄m- nãn nṍː dɔ̃-m "sand" (in Taos), "ground" (in Tewa, Kiowa), "space" (in Jemez)
*n næ̃̄ nãː nĩ́ː nɔ̃ː first person singular
*ts ˈtʃī tsíː sé ta "eye"
*t tũ̀ tṹ tɨ̃́ tõ- "to say"
*tsʰ sũ̀ sũwẽ sɨ̃́ tʰõ-m "to drink"
*tʰ ˈtʰɤ̄ θáː ʃó tʰa- "to break" (in Taos, Tewa, Jemez), "to sever several" (in Kiowa)
*ts’ ˈtʃʼɑ̄- – – tʼɔ-l "liver"
*t’ tʼɑ́- tʼon tʼaː tʼɔː "antelope"
*dz jɑ̄- – zǽː dɔ "song" (in Taos, Jemez), "to sing" (in Kiowa)

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Kiowa–Tanoan". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. ^ The original Americanist phonetic symbols differ from the IPA: Amer. ⟨c⟩ = IPA ⟨ts⟩, Amer ⟨ʒ⟩ = IPA ⟨dz⟩.
  3. ^ The null set symbol ∅ represents the lack of a consonant, i.e. the reconstructed proto-sound was deleted in the daughter language.
  4. ^ Taos (and also Picuris) /tʃ/ varies between post-alveolar [tʃ] and alveolar [ts].
  5. ^ This consonant is transcribed as a palatalized [tʸ] in Hale (1967) and palatalized [kʸ] in Hale (1962).
  6. ^ Taos (and also Picuris) /tʃʼ/ varies between post-alveolar [tʃʼ] and alveolar [tsʼ].
  7. ^ The data here is from Hale (1967), which in turn is gathered from G. Trager's publications (for Taos), Harrington's publications (for Kiowa), Dozier in personal communication to Hale (for Tewa), and Hale's own fieldwork on Jemez.

Bibliography[edit]

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