Caddo Language and Cultural Information for Turtle TURTLE –Caddo Word for Terrapin; a semi-aquatic hard-shelled turtle; a land turtle - CH'AYAH Pronounced CHAH-yah, with the emphasis in your voice on the first syllable CHAH. Whereas the English language scientifically distinguishes tortoises (land only turtles), terrapins (semi-aquatic turtles), and true turtles (like sea turtles), our ancestors only had two ways to categorize 4-legged critters with hard shells in our Hasinay language: land turtles and water turtles. This categorization is based upon their behavior. The turtles that spend most of the time on land would be considered ch’ayah, and the turtles that spend most of their time in water would be called bahdin. One of the most notable land-dwelling ch’ayah that is native to our ancestral homelands of Northeastern Texas, Southeastern Oklahoma, Southwestern Arkansas, and Northeastern Louisiana is the three-toed box turtle (Terrapene carolina triunguis). This ch’ayah makes the perfect choice for a rattle or stomp dance shells because of its shell’s beautiful domed shape. Not to mention, they are fun to race! The ch sound in the word ch’ayah is not a regular ch like one would hear in “chair”. It's an ejective consonant, which means it is pronounced by building up the air pressure in your vocal cavity. The sudden release of the airflow causes a “popped” sound. This video shows how an ejective works at the 2:37 mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKP10ARLnzM. In linguistics, this popped ch sound is called a voiceless palato-alveolar affricate. It's represented in the international phonetic alphabet with the characters [ tʃ ]. If you do not pronounce the ch sound as an ejective, you will not say this word correctly. That’s because the ch and ch’ sounds are contrastive- they have the ability to change the meaning of the whole word. If you say ch’ayah, you’re saying a land turtle. If you say chayah, you’re saying the word "stop". Tsa Ch'ayah - How the Turtle Got Its Squares, a Traditional Caddo Indian Story was published on 6/28/2005. It includes a CD with the fluent Caddo speaker Sadie Bedoka Weller telling the story in the Caddo language. It is the only Caddo language book ever made to date. Here’s hoping we can change that soon. https://www.xlibris.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/573527-how-the-turtle-got-its-squares .