Osage (; Osage: Wažáže ie) is a Siouan language spoken by the people of the Osage Nation in northern Oklahoma. Their original territory was in the present-day Ohio River Valley, which they shared with other Siouan language nations. Slowly they migrated to present-day Missouri and Kansas areas (see Dhegihan migration), but they were gradually pushed west by pressure from invading colonial forces and settlement by other displaced Native American nations.

Osage has an inventory of sounds very similar to that of Dakota, also a Siouan language, plus vowel length, preaspirated obstruents and an interdental fricative (like "th" in English "then"). In contrast to Dakota, phonemically aspirated obstruents appear phonetically as affricates, and the high back vowel *u has been fronted to .

Osage is written primarily with two systems: one using the Latin script with diacritics, and another derived Osage script created in 2006. Osage is among the few indigenous languages in the United States that has developed its own writing system.<!-- not counting diacritical Latin systems. "the final 2014 revision was included in Unicode version 9.0 in June 2016 in the Osage block." might be suited more for the Osage script entry instead -->

Language revitalization

As of 2009, about 15–20 elders were second-language speakers of Osage. The Osage Language Program, created in 2003, provides audio and video learning materials on its website. The 2nd Annual Dhegiha Gathering in 2012 brought Osage, Kaw, Quapaw, Ponca and Omaha speakers together to share best practices in language revitalization. In early 2015, Osage Nation Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear announced he would make Osage language immersion a priority.

Phonology

Osage phonology is quite similar to that of Kansa. But, it preserves many historical alternations that have been leveled out in Kansa; for example, Kansa *u has merged with *i, whereas it is still largely distinct in Osage.

Vowels

Basic vowels

Osage has five plain vowels:

{|class="wikitable"

! rowspan="2" |

! colspan="2" |Front

! rowspan="2" |Central

! rowspan="2" |Back

|-

!<small>Unrounded</small>!!<small>Rounded</small>

|- align="center"

!Close

| || colspan="2" | ~ ||

|- align="center"

!Mid

| colspan="2" ||| ||

|- align="center"

!Open

| colspan="2" | || colspan="2" | ~

|}

These are written .

varies between central and front, , and frequently unrounds to . It is especially far front following a velar obstruent and when it is near a front vowel with no intervening obstruent. It most commonly conflates with following ð and n.

Usually in fast speech, unstressed /a/ is pronounced . This occurs after a stressed syllable, or at the end of a word. For example: 'cow', 'this one'.

Nasalized vowels

There are three vowels that carry this feature: . It is quite common for nasalized to become a nasal and vice versa. Non-nasalized vowels can be heard as nasalized as well. In general, vowels tend to become nasalized adjacent to another nasal vowel or consonant when there is no intervening obstruent. On the other hand, final nasal vowels tend to become oral. However, nasal vowels are always short, regardless of their position.

Examples: 'girl' and 'mountain'

Vowel clusters and long vowels

According to Hans Wolff (65), common Osage vowel clusters are:

  • iu for example: niuʒõ 'Neosho River'
  • íe for example: wíe 'I'
  • íĩ for example: kasíĩte 'tomorrow'
  • iuĩ for example: ékiuĩka 'don't'
  • éa for example: cʼéaðe 'I killed him'
  • aĩ for example: hówaĩke 'where?'
  • óa for example: tóa 'this one'

Vowel length is important in Osage, but it is hard to perceive and has a good deal of variation. For example, long vowels are often reduced to short ones when they are not accented. Quintero took long vowels to be the underlying form in such situations. There is not enough information to specify exactly how the accent system works in Osage, and there is still uncertainty about Osage vowel length.

Oral vowels are long before non-stop consonants and in final stressed position. When they are unstressed in final position, they are always short.

Lengthening of short vowels often occurs in questions.

:Example: 'you want' becomes ?

Long vowels also arise when ð is omitted between identical vowels.

:Example: océ 'look for, hunt for' becomes otá 'look for it!'

Diphthongs

The vowel sequences and are almost certainly diphthongs. The Osage script has letters to represent each of the diphthongs.

Consonants

There are thirty-one consonant phonemes in Osage,

  • Ejective . They cannot appear as the second member of a consonant cluster. Historical *tʼ is in Osage.
  • Voiced: with b being the only member in this category. The only environment this sound may appear in is in the cluster . The cluster itself generally appears in the first verb form, otherwise it is somewhat infrequent.
  • The voiceless unaspirated affricate has two allophones: after ; elsewhere it is .
  • has two allophones, and . occurs between vowels, elsewhere it is .

:

:Examples:

:::: 'cough'

:::: 'gourd'

:::: 'spirit'

:::: 'crow'

  • The phoneme is always voiceless.
  • usually has a single allophone , but in the Hominy dialect it has two allophones: initially before and elsewhere. All consonants occur initially and medially; they never occur in final position. Consonant clusters of the type CC only occur in initial and medial positions. Furthermore, only voiceless consonants form clusters, with the exception of .

References

Sources

  • Quintero, Carolyn. The Osage Language. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2004. .
  • Quintero, Carolyn. Osage Dictionary. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 2009. .
  • Wolff, Hans. "Osage I: Phonemes and Historical Phonology". International Journal of American Linguistics 18.2 (1952): 63–68.
  • The Osage Nation's language homepage
  • Audio clips of Osage phrases
  • (may require log-in access)