Shawnee
saawanwaatoweewe, sâwanwâtowêwe[1]
Native to	United States
Region	Central and NortheastOklahoma
Ethnicity	Shawnee[2]
Native speakers	100–200 (2024)[2]
Language family	Algic Algonquian Shawnee
Writing system	Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sjw
Glottolog	shaw1249
ELP	Shawnee
Distribution of the Shawnee language around 1650
Shawnee is classified as Severely Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA.

Shawnee (/ʃɔːˈni/shaw-NEE) is a CentralAlgonquian language spoken in parts of central and northeasternOklahoma by theShawnee people. Historically, it was spoken across a wide region of the Eastern United States, primarily north of theOhio River. This territory included areas within present-dayOhio,West Virginia,Kentucky, andPennsylvania.^[3]

Shawnee is closely related to otherAlgonquian languages, such asMesquakie-Sauk (Sac and Fox) andKickapoo. It has 260 speakers, according to a 2015 census,^[2] although the number is decreasing. It is apolysynthetic language that is described as having freedom inword ordering.^[4]

Shawnee is severelythreatened, as many speakers have shifted to English. The approximately 200 remaining speakers are older adults.^[2] Some of the decline in usage of Shawnee resulted from the United Statesassimilation program carried out byIndian boarding schools, which abused, starved, and beat children who spoke their Native languages. This treatment is often extended to the families of those children as well.

Of the 4,576 citizens of theAbsentee Shawnee Tribe around the city ofShawnee, Oklahoma, more than 100 are speakers. Of the 3,652 citizens of theEastern Shawnee Tribe inOttawa County, only a few elders are speakers. Of the 2,226 citizens of theShawnee Tribe, or Loyal Shawnee in northeasternOklahoma aroundWhite Oak, there are fewer than 12 speakers.^[2] Because of the low speaker population and the percentage of elderly speakers, Shawnee is classified as anendangered language. Additionally, language development outside of the home has been limited. A dictionary and portions of theBible translated from 1842 to 1929 were translated into Shawnee.^[2]

Absentee-ShawneeElder George Blanchard Sr., former governor of his tribe, teaches classes to Head Start and elementary school children, as well as evening classes for adults, at the Cultural Preservation Center inSeneca, Missouri. His work was profiled on thePBS showAmerican Experience in 2009.^[5] The classes are intended to encourage speaking Shawnee among families at home. TheEastern Shawnee have also taught language classes.^[6] TheShawnee Tribe launched a language immersion program in 2020 with virtual and in-person classes.^[7]

Conversational Shawnee booklets, CDs, and aLearn Shawnee Language website are available.^[8][9]

Shawnee has six vowels,^[4] three of which are high, and three are low.

In Shawnee,/i/ tends to be realized as[ɪ], and/e/ tends to be pronounced[ɛ].^[4]

In (1) and (2), a near minimal pair has been found for Shawnee/i/ 'i' and/iː/ 'ii'. In (3) and (4), a minimal pair has been found for Shawnee/a/ 'a' and/aː/ 'aa'.

(1)ho-wiisi'-ta 'he was in charge'

(2)wi 'si 'dog'

(3)caaki yaama 'all this'

(4)caki 'small'^[4]

However, no quantitative contrasts have been found in the vowels/e/ and/o/.

Shawnee consonants are shown in the chart below.

/k/ and/kk/ contrast in the verbal affixes-ki (which marks third person singular animate objects) and-kki (which marks third person plural animate objects).

The Shawnee/θ/ is most often derived fromProto-Algonquian *s.^[10]: 16

Some speakers of Shawnee pronounce/ʃ/ more like an alveolar[s]. This pronunciation is especially common amongLoyal Band Shawnee speakers nearVinita, Oklahoma.

[ʔ] and [h] are allophones of the same phoneme: [ʔ] occurs in syllable-final position, while[h] occurs at the beginning of a syllable.^[4]

Stress in Shawnee falls on the final syllable (ultima) of a word.

Consonant length^[4]

In Shawnee phonology,consonant length is contrastive. Words may not begin with vowels, and between amorpheme ending with a vowel and one starting with a vowel, a[y] is inserted. Shawnee does not allow word-final consonants and long vowels.

/k/ and/kk/ contrast in the following verbal affixes

These affixes (-ki,-kki) are object markers in the transitive animate subordinate mode. The subject is understood.

[h] Insertion^[4]

∅→[h]/#____V

A word may not begin with a vowel. Instead, an on-glide[h] is added. For example:

There are two variants of the article-oci, meaning 'from'. It can attach to nouns to form prepositional phrases, or it can also be a pre-verb. When it attaches to a noun, it is-ooci, and when attached to a pre-verb it is-hoci.

/y/ Insertion^[4]

∅→[y]/V(:)_____ V(:)

When one of the vowels is long, Shawnee allows for the insertion of[y].

Word-final consonant deletion^[4]

C# → 0

A consonant is deleted at the end of a word.

In (a), a noun ends in a consonant when alocative suffix follows, but in (b), the consonant is deleted at the word end.

Word-final vowel shortening^[4]

V:# → V#

A long vowel is shortened at the end of a word.

Source:^[4]

t/V____V

[t] is inserted between two vowels at the morpheme boundary.

As we know from thephonological rule stated above, a word may not begin with a vowel in Shawnee. From themorphophonological rule above, it can be assumed that[h]~[t].

• example

-eecini(i) meaning 'Indian agent' appears ashina heecini or 'that Indian agent', and asho-[t]eecinii-ma-waa-li, meaning 'he was their Indian agent'. The[t] ofho-[t]- fills the open slot that would otherwise have to be filled with[h].

V1-V2 → V2
A short vowel preceding another short vowel at a morpheme boundary is deleted.

V:V → V:

When a long vowel and a short vowel come together at a morpheme boundary, the short vowel is deleted.

Shawnee shares many grammatical features with other Algonquian languages. There are two third persons,proximate andobviative, and twonoun classes (or genders),animate andinanimate. It is primarilyagglutinatingtypologically, and ispolysynthetic, resulting in a great deal of information being encoded on the verb. The most commonword order is Verb-Subject.

stem-(instrumental affix)-transitivizing affix-object affix

The instrumentalaffix is not obligatory, but if it is present, it determines the type of transitivizing affix that can follow it, (see numbering scheme below) or by the last stem in the theme.

Instrumental affixes are as follows

-tθani (w)- 'bed'

Source:^[4]

Shawnee has a fairly free word order, withVSO being the most common:

SOV, SVO, VOS, and OVS are also plausible.

Parts of speech in the Algonquian languages, Shawnee included, show a basic division betweeninflecting forms (nouns, verbs, and pronouns), and non-inflecting invariant forms (also known as particles). Directional particles (piyeci meaning 'towards') incorporate into the verb itself. Although particles are invariant in form, they have different distributions and meanings that correspond to adverbs ([hi]noki meaning 'now',waapaki meaning 'today',lakokwe meaning 'so, certainly',mata meaning 'not') postpositions (heta'koθaki wayeeci meaning 'towards the east') and interjections (ce meaning 'so!').

Examples (1) and (2) below show the grammatical interaction ofobviation and inverse. The narrative begins in (1) in which grandfather is the grammatical subject [+AGENT] in discourse-focus [+PROXIMATE]. In (2), grandfather remains in discourse-focus [+PROXIMATE], but he is now the grammatical object [+OBJECT]. To align grammatical relations properly in (2), the inverse marker /-ekw-/ is used in the verb stem to signal that the governor is affecting the grandfather. (The prefix/ho-/ onho-stakooli refers to 'grandfather').^[2]

Since the person building the house (the governor) is disjointed from the person who the house is being built for (the grandfather), this disjunction is marked by placing one participant in the obviative. Since the grandfather is the focus of this narrative, the governor is assigned the obviative marking. Grammatically,kapenal-ee (-ee- < -ile- < -ileni- 'person') is the subject who is not in discourse-focus (marked by/-li/ 3s OBVIATIVE), showing that grammatical relations and obviation are independent categories.

Similar interactions of inverse and obviation are found below. In Shawnee, third-person animate beings participate in obviation, including grammatically animate nouns that are semantically inanimate.

The Shawnee/-eki/ meaning 'in' can be used with either gender. This locative affix cliticizes onto the preceding noun, and thus it appears to be a case ending.

The independent and imperative orders are used in independent clauses. The imperative order involves an understood second person affecting the first or third persons.

Independent Mode:
Inanimate Intransitive (II):

3s → /-i/ →skwaaw-i 'it is red'

3p → /-a/ →kinwaaw-a 'those are long'

Refer to the examples below.Yaama meaning 'this' in examples 1 and 2 refers to someone in front of the speaker. The repetition ofyaama in example 1 emphasizes the location of the referent in the immediate presence of the speaker.

Refer to the examples below.Hina functions as a third-person singular pronoun.

Refer to the examples below.Hini fulfills the same functions as above for inanimate nouns. Locational and third-person singular pronominal uses are found in the following examples.

The choice of person affix may depend on the relative position of the agent and object on the animacy hierarchy. According to Dixon,^[11] the animacy hierarchy extends from first-person pronouns, second-person pronouns, third-person pronouns, proper nouns, human common nouns, animate common nouns, and inanimate common nouns.

The affixes in the verb will reflect whether an animate agent is acting on someone or something lower in the animacy scale, or whether he or she is being acted upon by someone or something lower in the animacy scale.

Shawnee nouns can be singular or plural. Inflectional affixes in the verb stem that cross-reference objects are often omitted if inanimate objects are involved. Even if an inflectional affix for the inanimate object is present, it usually does not distinguish number. For example, in the TI paradigm (animate›inanimate) when there is a second or third-person plural subject, object markers are present in the verb stem, but they are number-indifferent. Overt object markers are omitted for most other subjects. In the inverse situation, (animate‹inanimate) the inanimate participants are not cross-referenced morphologically.^[12]

The basic distinction for gender in Shawnee is between animate actors and inanimate objects. Nouns are in two gender classes, inanimate and animate; the latter includes all persons, animals, spirits, large trees, and some other objects such as tobacco, maize, apple, raspberry (but not strawberry), calf of leg (but not thigh), stomach,spittle, feather, bird's tail, horn, kettle, pipe for smoking, snowshoe.^[13]

Grammatical gender in Shawnee is more accurately signaled by thephonology, not the semantics.

Nouns ending in/-a/ are animate, while nouns ending in/-i/ are inanimate.^[14] This phonological criterion is not absolute. Modification by a demonstrative (hina being animate andhini being inanimate, meaning 'that') and pluralization are conclusive tests.

In the singular, Shawnee animate nouns end in/-a/, and the obviative singular morpheme is/-li/.

Shawnee inanimate nouns are usually pluralized with stem +/-ali/.

This causesanimate obviative singular andinanimate plural to look alike on the surface.

• example

animate obviative singular

wiskilo'θa-li
bird

inanimate plural

niipit-ali
my teeth

During the 19th century, a short-lived Roman-based alphabet was designed for Shawnee by the missionaryJotham Meeker. It was never widely used.^[10]: 36 Later, native Shawnee speakerThomas 'Wildcat' Alford devised a highlyphonemic and accurateorthography for his 1929 Shawnee translation of the four gospels of the New Testament, but it, too, never attained wide usage.

• "Shawnee Orthography, from: An Introduction to the Shawnee Language, by Chrisley, Ronald J." 1992. Retrieved2013-04-26.
• Albert Gatschet's notes on the Shawnee language
• OLAC resources in and about the Shawnee language
• Shawnee language vocabulary
• Absentee Shawnee Language

• Algonquian languages
• Indigenous languages of Oklahoma
• Indigenous languages of the North American eastern woodlands
• Shawnee
• Endangered Indigenous languages of the Americas

• Pages containing links to subscription-only content
• Language articles citing Ethnologue 18
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Shawnee-language text
• Pages with plain IPA
• CS1 maint: location missing publisher