UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE SPEAKING KIOWA TODAY: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE THROUGH THE GENERATIONS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By AMBER A. NEELY Norman, Oklahoma 2015 SPEAKING KIOWA TODAY: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE THROUGH THE GENERATIONS A DISSERTATION APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY BY ______________________________ Dr. Gus Palmer Jr., Co-Chair ______________________________ Dr. Sean P. O’Neill, Co-Chair ______________________________ Dr. Daniel Swan ______________________________ Dr. Lesley Rankin-Hill ______________________________ Dr. Marcia Haag © Copyright by AMBER A. NEELY 2015 All Rights Reserved. To my dearest Kiowa friends, who have welcomed me into their folds and believed in me all these years: Prof. Gus Palmer, Jr., Grandma Dorothy Whitehorse DeLaune, Mrs. Delores Harragarra and the Harragarra family, as well as all those who are dedicated to the revitalization of the Kiowa language. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am so grateful to so many people for sharing their lives, their knowledge, their friendship, and of course, their language. Since this work is about the speakers of Kiowa, I would like to start there. Let me first thank those who have meant so much to me through the years, welcoming me almost as family. First and foremost, I wish to honor Mrs. Delores Toyebo Harragarra and Grandma Dorothy Whitehorse DeLaune, both of whose grace, humor, and insight inspire me daily, and who have both played a great role in the unfolding of this project. The enigmatic Kenny Harragarra, whose company is always a delight, and the rest of the Harragarra family, as well as Mrs. Harragarra’s sisters Christine Simmons, Julia Gieiomah, Carolyn Lujan and their families, have always been so welcoming and kind. Albert Bronaugh, I thank for his earnest friendship and for sharing his knowledge, enthusiasm for Kiowa culture and language, and his family with me. His mother Carol Bronaugh and her sisters, my dear friend Aunt LaVonne and Aunt LaDonna, taught me the ins-and-outs of onion chopping, frybread turning, and turning any given moment or daily task into a party. I greatly admire all those who have dedicated so much to teaching and learning Kiowa, and sharing ethnolinguistic traditions. I especially respect Dane Poolaw, for all of his insight and dedication (and hard work!), and Warren Queton, who as a young Grandpa Rabbit, is bringing his own love of story and song to the next generation. Mrs. Carole Willis, who along with Prof. Gus Palmer, Jr., gave me my first introduction to the Kiowa language. I am also honored to have known the late Alecia Gonzales, Mr. iv Evans Ray Satepauhoodle, Mr. Steven “Bubba” Knowles, a.k.a. Grandpa Rabbit, and Mr. Billy Evans Horse, could he ever give a speech! I salute the young families who are really bringing the Kiowa language back into the home and family, especially Cricket and Kevin Connewerdy and Randi and Cedric Sunray, with all of the additional community language work that they do. Thanks also to the Tahbone family, especially Pat with her dedication in bringing the little ones to the language classes and Amy, who will always continue to do good things. Lance White, whose perseverence and devotion to learning Kiowa is inspiring. I am deeply grateful to the many other Kiowa people who have either collaborated with me on this project or others, or encouraged me to help ‘do something’ for the Kiowa language: Mrs. Pearl Bigbow, Carl and Vanessa Jennings, Mrs. Rita Creeping-Bear, Vickie Boettger, Mrs. Melva Wermy, and the late Mrs. Lucille Aitson (who gave me my first Kiowa name), Donald Tofpi, for his advocacy, Davetta Gimmesaddle, Mrs. Martha Perez. I am also thankful for my Kiowa students and fellow language learners at Comanche Nation College, and for all the warm collegiality I have found with the CNC family there. Finally, I am both honored by and endebted to Mary Helen Deer and the rest of the Kiowa Culture and Language Preservation Board for entrusting me with the work of transcribing and translating some of the materials from the Kiowa Cultural Program from the 1970’s and 1980’s with the help of Elders in the community, and permitting me to use some of this material in this work. I wish to thank Prof. Gus Palmer, Jr., Prof. Mary Linn, and Prof. Sean O’Neill for their enduring faith in me and all they have done to help me become an increasingly v better scholar, researcher, writer, and language advocate. I also appreciate all Prof. Linn has done for the Kiowa people and many of the Native Americans in Oklahoma working to revitalize their language through the creation of the Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair. Thanks are also due to Daniel Harbour and Laurel Watkins, who have been most kind and encouraging of my interest in the Kiowa language. This project could not have become as successful as it did without the help of the National Science Foundation, and the award of a Dissertation Improvement Grant, as well as and the early support I received through the two EPSCoR scholarships as I was initiating my work with the Kiowa community. Thanks are also due to the University of Oklahoma Department of Anthropology, both for funding in the form of the Morris E. Opler award for dissertation development and for assistantships including working with the wonderful teachers of the Native American Languages Program at OU. I will never forget our “formative years” together, Jessica Walker, Abby Wightman, Candessa Tehee, Michael Jordan, and John Lukavic! You all inspired and challenged me academically, and helped me remember to have fun both inside and outside the classroom. I will always cherish our friendships. To Darlynn Dietrich I can only say: words are not enough to express my gratitude, for your friendship, your support, our rapport, and reciprocal advice and appreciation on all and sundry. You are a balm to the soul. Of course I wish to thank my beloved Kansas family for all the encouragement, support, and love throughout the years. Grandma, Mom, Dad, Aunt Mary: you have all vi inspired me to become all I wish to be: both a seeker and a sharer of knowledge. My Oklahoma family has also been a great source of joy and support as I’ve come to know and love you all. Melissa Sue Lopez, my heart’s friend, you have been there with me through so many beautiful times and tough ones, supporting me and driving me onwards, making me laugh and sharing in the joke, and teaching me new things about the world(s) we live in. I’m grateful for you just being you, every day. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………xi List of Figures………………………………………………………………………….xii Chapter 1. Introduction…………………………………………………..………………1 1.1. Language Endangerment with a View towards Revitalization 1.2. Describing Language Obsolescence… Or Language Change 1.2.1. Ethnography of Language Obsolescence / Language Change 1.2.2. Describing Structural Language Change in Endangered Languages 1.3. The Kiowa and Their Language 1.3.1. Old Kiowa Language Documentation 1.3.2. More Recent Kiowa Linguistic Description & Theorization 1.3.3. Ethnography of Kiowa Speech Communities 1.4. Modern Kiowa vis à vis Old Kiowa 1.4.1. Process of Language Obsolescence in Endangered Languages 1.4.2. Revitalization: Language Change and Language Teaching 1.5. Conclusion 2. Methodology: Integrating Ethnographic and Linguistic Analyses………………….20 2.1. Describing the Ethnographic Context of Language Change in Kiowa 2.1.1. Language Use in Context 2.1.2. Discerning Ideologies and Attitudes 2.1.3. Speakers 2.2. Examining Structural Language Change 2.2.1. Elicitation 2.2.2. Comparative Analysis 2.3. Connecting Context and Structure 2.3.1. Change through Contact: Language External, and Attrition: Language Internal 2.3.2. Domain and Genre Delimitations 2.4. Conclusion 3. Ethnography of Speaking Kiowa Today…………………………………………….47 3.1. Historical Context of Kiowa Speaking 3.1.1. Macrosocial Historical Factors – Pan-Indian 3.1.2. Microsocial Historical Variables 3.1.3. Ethnography of Speaking for Old Kiowa 3.2. Current Overarching Context 3.2.1. Macrosocial Variables 3.2.2. Kiowa-Specific Microsocial Factors viii 3.2.3. Language Attitudes and Ideologies 3.3. Speakers of Kiowa 3.3.1. Old Kiowa Speakers 3.3.2. Modern Kiowa Speakers 3.3.3. Speakers and Authenticity 3.3.4. Language Teachers and Authority 3.4. Domains of Kiowa 3.4.1. Public Domains 3.4.2. Private Domains 3.5. Genres of Kiowa Speech Today 3.5.1. Public Speech 3.5.2. Private Speech 3.5. Summary of Ethnographic Situation 4. Structural Kiowa Language Change: Pronominals………………………………….99 4.1. Basic Kiowa Sentence Structure 4.1.1. Pronominals as Clitics as Opposed to Prefixes 4.1.2. Noun Classes and Pronominal Agreement as Verbal Agreement 4.2. Introduction to the Old Kiowa Pronominal System 4.3. Modern Kiowa Pronominal Usage 4.3.1. Intransitives and Reflexives Vocabulary 4.3.2. Modern Kiowa Pronominal Patterns: Less Polysynthetic, More Isolating 4.4. Mechanisms of Change 4.4.1. Categorical Leveling and Overextension 4.4.2. Singular Overextension and Strategies for Clarification 4.4.3. Relinquishing the Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction 4.4.4. Second Person Dual / Plural Leveling 4.4.5. Kiowa Pronominal ‘Specification’: Counter-leveling 4.5. Discussion: Pronominal Usage in Context 4.5.1. Domains Relevant to Pronominal Usage 4.5.2. Genre-related Pronominal Usage 4.5.3. Language Attitudes Relating to Pronominal Usage 4.5.4. Language Teaching and Learning Methods and Pronominals 4.6. Attributing Changes to Language-Internal or Contact Phenomena 4.6.1. Language Contact: External Phenomena 4.6.2.