Comanche Sounds and the Comanche Alphabet

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

COMANCHE SOUNDS AND THE COMANCHE ALPHABET It is important to distinguish between the sounds in the Comanche language and the alphabet used to represent the sounds. There are six (6) vowel symbols and twelve (12) consonant symbols (plus the two consonant combinations ts and kw). Underlining is used to indicate voiceless vowels, and doubled vowel symbols indicate long vowels. VOWEL SYMBOLS FOR COMANCHE Symbol Comanche Word Comparable sound in English a sari dog o in pot or a in father e ekapitu red between a in gate and e in get i wa?ipu woman ea in neat or ee in keep o pohya walk similar to o in hope u suniku like that oo in root or scoop u unu you similar to u in put or u in undo Vowels written with double symbols are pronounced like the corresponding single symbol vowels, but held longer: aa kaaru sit ee kutseena coyote ii sari dog oo wa?oo cat uu huutsuu bird uu Nuumu Comanche Whispered vowels are indicated by underlining. They are almost inaudible. Whispered Vowel Example a kawosa coyote e taabe sun i noobi hill o aawo cup u uhtu give u tsaatu good Comanche also has combinations of two vowels. For example, ai, pronounced like the ie of pie, as in taiboo, a “non Indian person,” and oi, pronounced like the oy of toy, as in hoitsubunsu, “how about yourself.” CONSONANT SYMBOLS FOR COMANCHE Symbol Comanche Word Comparable sound in English b tubitsi really similar to v in having h haitsi friend h of horse k kee no k of skip kw kwasi tail qu of queen m mia go m of meat n nuuka dance n of neat p puuku horse p of speech r aruka deer tt of better, or d of rider s sarii dog s of same t tanu we t of stop ts tsihtiawe point ts of hits w wuunu stand w of weather y yahne laugh y of yet z mo?o hand glottal stop, as in uh-oh There are also a few sound / spelling variations you need to be aware of: • the “t” is sometimes pronounced as an “r” and • the “p” is sometimes pronounced as a “b” .

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Native American Languages Act Hearing
S. HRG. 108–107 NATIVE AMERICAN LANGUAGES ACT HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON S. 575 TO AMEND THE NATIVE AMERICAN LANGUAGES ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE SUPPORT OF NATIVE AMERICAN LANGUAGE SURVIVAL SCHOOLS MAY 15, 2003 WASHINGTON, DC ( U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 87–260 PDF WASHINGTON : 2003 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001 COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado, Chairman DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii, Vice Chairman JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, KENT CONRAD, North Dakota PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico HARRY REID, Nevada CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota GORDON SMITH, Oregon MARIA CANTWELL, Washington LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska PAUL MOOREHEAD, Majority Staff Director/Chief Counsel PATRICIA M. ZELL, Minority Staff Director/Chief Counsel (II) C O N T E N T S Page S. 575, text of ........................................................................................................... 2 Statements: Brown, William Y., director, Bishop Museum, Honolulu, HI ....................... 55 Cheek, John, director, National Indian Education Association, Alexan- dria, VA .........................................................................................................
[Show full text]
Partitioning the Timeline a Cross-Linguistic Survey of Tense
Partitioning the timeline A cross-linguistic survey of tense Viveka Velupillai Justus Liebig University Giessen The database The following gives the languages and their values in my database. The lan- guage names are primarily based on the source(s) and WALS Online (Dryer & Haspelmath 2013); where these differ from theEthnologue (Lewis et al. 2013) lan- guage names the Ethnologue name has been given in parenthesis. The ISO-639–3 codes are given in square brackets after the language name. I have relied onWALS Online where possible for the family and genus affiliation; where this was not pos- sible I relied on the source(s) and Ethnologue. The values for fusion type were tak- en from Bickel and Nichols (2013a) where possible; those languages are marked with an asterisk (*). For those languages that were not in Bickel & Nichol’s (2013a) database, I coded the fusion type according to the principles set out in Bickel & Nichols (2013b) using the reference indicated in the ‘Source’ column. Studies in Language 40:1 (2016), 1–42. doi 10.1075/sl.40.1.04ve2 issn 0378–4177 / e-issn 1569–9978 © John Benjamins Publishing Company 2 Viveka Velupillai Viveka No tense Language Genus Family Fusion Source Abui [abz] Greater Alor Timor-Alor-Pantar Isolating/Concatenative (Kratochvíl 2007: 209ff, 350) Achumawi [acv] Palaihnihan Hokan Concatenative (Angulo & Freeland 1930: 89ff, 111) Ainu [ain] Ainu Ainu Concatenative (Shibatani 1990: 80) Apinajé (Apinayé) [apn] Ge-Kaingang Macro-Ge Isolating (Cunha de Oliveira 2005: 170f) Arandai [jbj] South Bird’s Head Marind
[Show full text]
UC Berkeley Dissertations, Department of Linguistics
UC Berkeley Dissertations, Department of Linguistics Title An Updated Typology of Causative Constructions: Form-function Mappings in Hupa (California Athabaskan), Chungli Ao (Tibeto-Burman) and Beyond Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4556v4g6 Author Escamilla, Ramón Publication Date 2012 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California An Updated Typology of Causative Constructions: Form-Function Mappings in Hupa (California Athabaskan), Chungli Ao (Tibeto-Burman) and Beyond By Ramón Mahew Escamilla, Jr. A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Eve Sweetser, Chair Professor Richard A. Rhodes Professor Johanna Nichols Fall 2012 Abstract An Updated Typology of Causative Constructions: Form-Function Mappings in Hupa (California Athabaskan), Chungli Ao (Tibeto-Burman) and Beyond by Ramón Mahew Escamilla, Jr. Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics University of California, Berkeley Professor Eve Sweetser, Chair Taking up analytical issues raised primarily in Dixon (2000) and Dixon & Aikhenvald (2000), this dissertation combines descriptive work with a medium-sized (50-language) typological study. Chapter 1 situates the dissertation against a concise survey of typological-functional work on causative constructions from the last few decades, and outlines the major research questions. Chapter 2 presents a case study of causative encoding in Hupa (California Athabaskan). I describe the morphosyntax and semantics of the Hupa syntactic causative construction, and analyze its distribution with respect to Dixon’s (2000) proposals for a typology of causative constructions. I demonstrate that causee control (Dixon’s parameter 3) over the caused microevent is a significant semantic factor in licensing this construction.
[Show full text]
Constructing Comanche: Imperialism, Print Culture
CONSTRUCTING COMANCHE: IMPERIALISM, PRINT CULTURE, AND THE CREATION OF THE MOST DANGEROUS INDIAN IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA A THESIS IN History Presented to the Faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS by JOSHUA CHRISTOPHER MIKA B.A., UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, 2000 B.A., UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, 2006 M.L.I.S.c., UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MĀNOA, 2012 Kansas City, Missouri, 2018 © 2018 JOSHUA CHRISTOPHER MIKA ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CONSTRUCTING COMANCHE: IMPERIALISM, PRINT CULTURE, AND THE CREATION OF THE MOST DANGEROUS INDIAN IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA Joshua Christopher Mika, Candidate for the Master of Arts Degree University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2018 ABSTRACT Anglo-American print sources during the antebellum era framed the Comanche as “the most powerful” or “the most dreaded” Indian whom settlers encountered on the frontier. This research examines the pivotal role that American print culture played in constructing dubious stereotypes of Comanche Indians in American intellectual and popular culture during the nineteenth century, such as we find embedded in English language newspapers and captivity narratives. Though some scholars have examined the role that American media has played in constructing spurious images of Native Americans, this current research is the first of its kind that specifically examines the birth and development of Comanche stereotypes in American print culture during its formative years. This process of typification iii robbed Comanches of their own voice and identity. It marked them with indelible, negative impressions in the American imaginary – impressions that have lasted to this day in popular images of the Comanche.
[Show full text]
Ssila Bulletin
The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas SSILA BULLETIN An Information Service for SSILA Members Editor - Victor Golla ([email protected]) Associate Editor - Scott DeLancey ([email protected]) Correspondence should be directed to the Editor Number 105: February 12, 2000 105.0 SSILA BUSINESS Call for papers: 39th CAIL (San Francisco, Nov. 15-19, 2000) The 39th meeting of the Conference on American Indian Languages (constituting the Annual Meeting of SSILA for 2000) will be held in San Francisco, California, November 15-19, 2000, as part of the 99th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. As in previous years, SSILA will organize multiple sessions of CAIL papers around topics reflected in individual submissions. Any topic dealing with American Indian languages and linguistics is acceptable. Groups of papers on special topics are welcome. SSILA members who wish to have a paper considered for a CAIL session must submit a formal AAA proposal and abstract, together with an advance registration form, to the 2000 SSILA Program Committee (NOT directly to the AAA) by Friday, March 17, 2000. Copies of the appropriate AAA forms are enclosed with the January 2000 SSILA Newsletter, which will reach most members within the coming week. Forms can also be downloaded from the AAA website: http://www.aaanet.org Beginning this year, SSILA welcomes the presentation of papers in Spanish. If your paper willbe in Spanish, an English translation of the abstract should be submitted as well as the Spanish original. To deliver a paper at a CAIL session you must be a member of SSILA and also a current member of the American Anthropological Association.
[Show full text]
NEWSLETTER the Comanche Language & Cultural Preservation
NU- MU- TEKWAPU- HA NOMNEEKATU- NEWSLETTER March 2001 Vol. 4 Issue 2 The Comanche Language & Cultural Preservation Committee P.O. Box 3610 Lawton OK 73502-3610 www.comanchelanguage.org (fax#1-580-353-6322) e-mail:[email protected] Editor: Barbara Goodin “From The President” Mexico to Eastern Oklahoma. But the one thing (*Editor’s Note: Following is a paper written by that united these bands was their language. Based the late Michael Red Elk on February 12, 1996, on their previous experience, these bands never when he was attending Haskell at Lawrence, fought each other due to their language ties. From Kansas. Michael is the son of president Ron Red the late 1600s to the late 1800s the bands raided Elk and his wife Frances, and was killed in an and dominated their territory. But after constant automobile accident in 1999.) encroachment from European settlers, the THE COMANCHE LANGUAGE, Comanches slowly lost their large land base and FROM THE PAST TO THE FUTURE soon was confined to a small tract of land in by Michael Red Elk (1996) Southwest Oklahoma. “The Comanche language has a very long and After fighting for their land valiantly, the proud history and has been through much Comanche culture was feared and despised by the diversity. But to fully understand it one must United States Government. At the heart of their examine where it came from and where it is culture was the Comanche language. In an going. In all aspects of Comanche life the attempt to destroy the language and culture, Indian language has played a key role.
[Show full text]
Ssila Bulletin
The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas SSILA BULLETIN An Information Service for SSILA Members Editor - Victor Golla Associate Editor - Scott DeLancey Correspondence should be directed to the Editor Number 56: October 11, 1997 56.1 CORRESPONDENCE Ojibwe dictionaries, on- and off-line >From John Nichols ([email protected]) 26 Sept 97: Re: Peter Bakker's note (SSILA Bulletin #55) about on-line dictionaries, SSILA readers should be warned that an Ojibwe dictionary claiming to be based on Nichols and Nyholm (1979), and most recently titled Ojibwewi- Ikidowinan: An Ojibwe Word Resource Book, is an illegal pirated version. No electronic version has been authorized by us. In the version I saw, many errors had been introduced by the copy typist. We attempted to stop the sale of a diskette version of this several years ago, but were not able to do so. They were charging hundreds of dollars for a bad copy. There appears to be no introductory information that lets users know that many citation forms in this dictionary are abstract stems, not actual inflected words. This electronic mess is not a reliable source of information on Ojibwe. Sites offering an on-line Ojibwe dictionary, or links to it, should ensure that electronic reproduction has been authorized and that the dictionary has been competently edited and proofread. Nichols and Nyholm (1979), meanwhile, has been completely replaced by Nichols and Nyholm, A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe, U of Minnesota Press, 1995. Buy a legal hard copy for the bargain price of $10 and get accurate information! Most citation forms in this new dictionary are inflected words.
[Show full text]
The Language That Won the War and the Veteran That Lead an Oppressed Reservation to a Self-Determined Nation
The Language That Won The War And The Veteran That Lead An Oppressed Reservation To A Self-Determined Nation A. Engelstad Peter MacDonald, Sr. February 22, 2010 Table of Contents Inerviewer/Interviewee Release Form………………..…………………………………………...2 Statement of Purpose……………………………………………………………………………...3 Biography…………………………………………………………………………………………4 Historical Contextualization—“The Evolution of Native Americans from WWII to the 1990s”..6 Interview Transcription…………………………………………………………………………..24 Time Indexing Recording Log…………………………………………………………………...57 Interview Analysis…………………………………………………………………………….....59 Appendices……………………………………………………………………………………....66 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………...80 Statement of Purpose The purpose of this oral history document is to achieve a better understanding of the experiences of Native Americans, especially the Navajo people, including their experiences in WWII as code-talkers and their experiences with the United States government since then. The document provides a historical contextualization of primary and secondary sources documenting the occurrences and historiography on the topic and compares these to an in-depth interview with Peter MacDonald, a Navajo code-talker himself and the former Chairman of Navajo Nation from 1970-1989. Furthermore, the project analyzes the effectiveness of oral history as an accurate way to study the past. Biography Peter MacDonald Sr. was probably born in the early spring of 1928. Because he was raised in the traditional way of the Navajo, the largest Native American tribe in the United States, he does not know the exact date of his birth. He was raised in Teec Nos Pos, New Mexico, by his mother and his grandparents, having lost his father at age two. He began his formal education at age six in a BIA day school, one of many set up by the federal government and Bureau of Indian Affairs to offer Native American children a primary and secondary education more typical of schooling outside the reservation.
[Show full text]
An Analysis of the Syntax of Comanche Samantha Price
An Analysis of the Syntax of Comanche Samantha Price Northeastern University 1 Introduction This paper discusses Comanche syntax, examining both its complexities and its unique relationship with the language’s morphological system. Section 2 provides a brief overview of the language: its historic roots, its evolution, and its current state. The following section (Section 3) supplies details about Comanche’s basic SOV word order, including instances where this word order is maintained and situations where irregular word orders arise. The typology of Comanche’s word order is examined as well, with an emphasis on whether it possesses the characteristics of a typical SOV language. Section 4 focuses on the formation of noun phrases and the structures that are commonly seen (basic nouns, nouns/determiners, objective/possessive nouns, nominal case markings). Section 5 transitions to verb phrases, specifically the structure of phrases with different verb types (intransitive, transitive, etc.), as well as the construction of questions. Lastly, two significant features of Comanche’s morphosyntax are highlighted in Section 6: case reference markers and oblique relatives. 2 Sociolinguistic Profile This section presents a brief overview of the Comanche language.1 Comanche is spoken by members of the Comanche Nation in Western Oklahoma. Although this tribe once dominated the Great Plains region of the Western U.S. and Mexico, historical mistreatment of Native Americans by westward-bound settlers led to its decline and present-day diminished state (Charney 1993:1). Today, the Comanche tribe is surrounded by a diverse collection of other Native American nations (see Figure 1); few 1 of these tribes are members of its Numic genus or Uto-Aztecan family due to the U.S.
[Show full text]
The Indigenous Languages Initiative at the University of Texas at Austin
The Indigenous Languages Initiative at The University of Texas at Austin by Ryan Sullivant The Teaching of Indigenous Languages at UT ON A CHILLY morning in April, German, French, Italian, and Spanish. These four languages (along Manuela Tahay walks into her with English) are the native tongues of only about 13 percent of the classroom wearing a gray coat world’s population. For some, this state of afairs refects a missed over an embroidered blouse and opportunity to educate students more broadly on the many diferent wraparound skirt typical of the languages spoken worldwide. One entity that would like to see less traditional dress in her hometown commonly taught languages (LCTLs) in more U.S. university curricula of Nahualá in Guatemala. Tahay is the U.S. Department of Education, which awards Title VI funds to is Maya, and she is here to teach institutions so that they can improve language instruction programs her native language of K’ichee’ to in LCTLs and area studies, ofering U.S. college graduates a deeper T 1 a group of students at The University of Texas at Austin. She hands and broader understanding of the languages and cultures that may each student a photograph of typical Guatemalan market scenes have been overlooked previously. Building on UT’s particular expertise and asks them to describe the action they see. This exercise is all and association with Latin America, LILLAS Benson has applied for about building sentences with both a subject and a verb, no small Title VI funds to teach the indigenous languages of Latin America feat given the complex K’ichee’ verb, which is assembled by adding both on the Forty Acres and during immersive summer programs.
[Show full text]
Exploring Great Basin Archaeology
NRAF BLM Exploring Great Basin Archaeology Exploring Great Basin Archaeology Exploring Great Basin Archaeology This booklet was produced by the Nevada Rock Art Foundation to accompany the 2015 Great Basin Teachers’ Workshop presented by the Bureau of Land Management Ely District Office. Funding for this booklet was provided by the Lincoln County Archaeological Initiative Project. © 2015 CONTENTS List of Figures ........ ix Foreword .......xi 1 § INTRODUCING THE GREAT BASIN | 1 Hydrographic Great Basin ......2 Physiographic Great Basin ......3 Floristic Great Basin ......3 Ethnographic Great Basin .......4 Cultural anthropology ....... 4 Culture area ......4 Memory culture ....... 6 Great Basin hunter-gatherers ....... 7 Summary ....... 8 Suggested reading ...... 8 2 § PREHISTORIC ENVIRONMENTS | 9 Pleistocene Climate ......9 Pluvial lakes ... 11 Fauna ...... 12 Vegetation .......12 Holocene Climate ...13 Early Holocene .... 13 Middle Holocene ... 14 Late Holocene ..... 15 Suggested reading ..... 16 Summary ......16 3 § GREAT BASIN PREHISTORY | 17 Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherer Strategies ......18 Paleo-Indian Period .........19 Early Archaic Period .......22 Middle Archaic Period ....... 24 Late Archaic Period .........25 Formative Period .........26 Late Prehistoric Period ....... 28 Suggested reading ..... 30 4 § THE ETHNOGRAPHIC GREAT BASIN | 31 Great Basin Languages and Territories .........33 Western Numic .... 34 Central Numic ...... 34 Southern Numic ...... 35 Hokan ..... 36 Tribal Names ....... 36 Kinship ..........37 Villages .........38
[Show full text]
Is for Aboriginal
Joseph MacLean lives in the Coast Salish traditional Digital territory (North Vancouver, British Columbia). A is for Aboriginal He grew up in Unama’ki (Cape Breton Island, Nova By Joseph MacLean Scotia) until, at the age of ten, his family moved to Illustrated by Brendan Heard the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) Territory (Montréal). Joseph is an historian by education, a storyteller by Is For Zuni A Is For Aboriginal avocation and a social entrepreneur by trade. Is For Z “Those who cannot remember the past are His mother, Lieut. Virginia Doyle, a WWII army Pueblo condemned to repeat it.” nurse, often spoke of her Irish grandmother, a country From the Spanish for Village healer and herbalist, being adopted by the Mi'kmaq. - George Santayana (1863-1952) Ancient Anasazi Aboriginal The author remembers the stories of how his great- American SouthwestProof grandmother met Native medicine women on her A is for Aboriginal is the first in the First ‘gatherings’ and how as she shared her ‘old-country’ A:shiwi is their name in their language Nations Reader Series. Each letter explores a knowledge and learned additional remedies from her The language stands alone name, a place or facet of Aboriginal history and new found friends. The author wishes he had written Unique, single, their own down some of the recipes that his mother used when culture. he was growing up – strange smelling plasters that Zuni pottery cured his childhood ailments. geometry and rich secrets The reader will discover some interesting bits of glaze and gleam in the desert sun history and tradition that are not widely known.
[Show full text]