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| Tanoan | |
|---|---|
| Kiowa–Tanoan | |
| Geographic distribution | centralNorth America |
Native speakers | ~5,625 |
| Linguistic classification | One of the world's primarylanguage families |
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Linguasphere | 64-C |
| Glottolog | kiow1265 |
 Distribution of Tanoan languages before European contact. The Pueblo languages are at the left; the nomadic Kiowa at right. | |
Tanoan (/təˈnoʊ.ən/tə-NOH-ən), alsoKiowa–Tanoan orTanoan–Kiowa, is a family of languages spoken by indigenous peoples in present-dayNew Mexico,Kansas,Oklahoma, andTexas.
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Most of the languages –Tiwa (Taos, Picuris, Southern Tiwa),Tewa, andTowa – are spoken in the Native AmericanPueblos ofNew Mexico (with one outlier in Arizona). These were the first languages collectively given the name ofTanoan.Kiowa, which is a related language, is now spoken mostly in southwestern Oklahoma. The Kiowa historically inhabited areas of modern-day Texas and Oklahoma.
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The Tanoan language family has seven languages in four branches:[citation needed][verification needed]
Tanoan | |
Kiowa–Towa might form an intermediate branch, as might Tiwa–Tewa.
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Tanoan has long been recognized as a major family ofPueblo languages, consisting ofTiwa,Tewa, andTowa. The inclusion ofKiowa into the family was at first controversial given the cultural differences between those groups. The once-nomadicKiowa people of the Plains are culturally quite distinct from the Tiwa, Tewa, and Towa pueblos, which obscured somewhat the linguistic connection between Tanoans and Kiowans. Linguists now accept that a Tanoan family without Kiowa would beparaphyletic, 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. In older texts,Tanoan andKiowa–Tanoan were used interchangeably. Because of the cultural use of the nameTanoan as signifying several peoples who share a culture, the more explicit termKiowa–Tanoan is now commonly used for the language family as a whole, with Tanoan being the branch that contains the languages now spoken in New Mexico and Arizona (i.e.Arizona Tewa).
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.[weasel words] There is apparently no[dubious –discuss] oral tradition[according to whom?] 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 migrating from the north and west, to the territory now associated with the tribal nation. Today this area is within the modern states ofTexas andOklahoma, which they occupied from the late 18th century.
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The chart below[1] contains the consonants of the Tanoanproto-language as reconstructed by Hale (1967) based on consonant correspondences in stem-initial position.[citation needed]
| 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 thereconstructed[clarification needed] initial consonants in Proto-Tanoan and its reflexes in the daughter languages.[citation needed]
| Proto-Tanoan | Tiwa | Tewa | Towa | Kiowa | Proto-Tanoan | Tiwa | Tewa | Towa | Kiowa | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| consonant | environment | ||||||||||
| *h | h | h | ∅[2] | 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[3] | 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[4] | s | *kʰ | x | x | h | kʰ | |||
| *tʼ | tʼ | tʼ | tʼ | tʼ | *kʷʰ | xʷ | xʷ | ||||
| *tsʼ | tʃʼ[3] | tsʼ | |||||||||
As can be seen in the above table, a number ofphonological mergers have occurred in the different languages.Cognate sets supporting the above are listed below:
| 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) |
