Catawba language

Catawba ( ) is one of two Catawban languages of the eastern US, which together with the Siouan languages forms the Siouan–Catawban languages. The last native, fluent speaker of Catawba was Samuel Taylor Blue, who died in 1959.Thomas J. Blummer, Catawba Indian Nation: Treasures in History (The History Press, 2007), p. 101 The Catawba people are now working to revitalize and preserve the Catawba language.

Dialects The Catawba language has two documented dialects, Esaw and Saraw. Scholar Ives Goddard wrote the Saraw and Esaw dialects of Catawba presumably descend specifically from the Cheraw and the Esaw. Both dialects lasted into the 20th century.

Phonology Consonants LabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottalPlosivevoiceless voiced ( )Affricate Nasal Fricative Trill Approximant

// rarely occurs.

[] occurs as an allophone of //.

Vowels

{| class="wikitable" style=text-align:center |+Short vowels ! !Front !Back |- align="center" !Close

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |+Long vowels ! !Front !Back |- align="center" !Close

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |+Nasalised vowels ! !Front !Back |- align="center" !Close

Short vowel sounds // can be heard as lax, ranging to [].

// can range to [], and a short // can range to a central vowel [] or a back vowel sound [].

Orthography A Catawba alphabet was created by the Catawba Language Project for the Catawba language, as part of a revitalization effort for the language and the creation of an app for it.

+ (Ye Iswąʔre) Catawba alphabet A a α Ą ą B b Č č ~ D d E e Ɛ ɛ Ę ę G g H h ʰ ʔ I i Ii ii Į į K k M m N n P p R r S s T t U u Uu uu ~ Ų ų W w Y y Á á ά ~ Ą́ ą́ É é Ɛ́ έ Ę ę Í í Íí íí Į́ į́ Ú ú Úú úú Ų́ ų́

The aspirated is used in the word: 'thank you'. The ⟨ʔ⟩ is written in different ways like ⟨ɂ⟩ and ⟨ˀ⟩ in some texts. The ⟨o⟩ and ⟨ǫ⟩ is some time occurs in words like example, meaning 'ask', meaning 'call', meaning 'ice', and meaning Santee Tribe.

Errata Red Thunder Cloud, an impostor, born Cromwell Ashbie Hawkins West, claimed to be Catawba and the last speaker of the Catawba language. He was promoted by anthropologist Frank Speck, who introduced West to the Catawba community. The Catawba told Speck that West was not Catawba, but Speck ignored them and continued to promote West and include him in his work, even recommending him as an expert to other anthropologists. Speck at one time also insisted that the Cherokee language was Siouan. At his death in 1996 it was revealed that West was neither Catawba nor even Native American, but had learned what he knew of the language from books, and from listening to the last known native speaker, Samuel Taylor Blue and his half-sister, Sally Gordon, when Speck brought him to the Catawba reservation. This had apparently been enough to fool the non-Native ethnologists who wrote about him.

References

Bibliography

External links Ives Goddard, 2000. "The Identity of Red Thunder Cloud", Smithsonian Institution, reprinted from Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas Newsletter. (accessed 2021-05-25) Frank G. Speck, Catawba Texts, 1934 "Catawba Language App"

Catawba language

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