Wichita language facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Wichita |
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| KirikirɁi:s | ||||
| Native to | United States | |||
| Region | West-central Oklahoma | |||
| Ethnicity | 2,100 Wichita people (2007) | |||
| Extinct | 30 August 2016 with the death of Doris McLemore. |
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| Language family |
Caddoan
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| Linguasphere | 64-BAC > 64-BAC-a | |||
Distribution of Native American languages in Oklahoma
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The Wichita language (called KirikirɁi:s by its speakers) is an extinct language from the Caddoan family. It was once spoken in Oklahoma by the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes.
The last person who spoke Wichita fluently from childhood, Doris McLemore, passed away in 2016. This means the language is now considered "functionally extinct." However, the Wichita tribe is working hard to bring their language back to life. They offer classes and partner with the Wichita Documentation Project at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Contents
What are the Wichita language's dialects?
When Europeans first came to North America, the Wichita language had three main types, called dialects. These were Waco, Tawakoni, and KirikirɁi:s (which was the main Wichita dialect). As fewer people spoke the language, these differences mostly disappeared.
How many people spoke Wichita?
In 2007, there were only three people left who had learned Wichita as their first language. The last fluent speaker, Doris McLemore, died on August 30, 2016. This is a big change from 1950, when about 500 people spoke Wichita.
How is Wichita classified?
Wichita belongs to the Caddoan language family. Other languages in this family include Caddo, Pawnee, Arikara, and Kitsai.
What are the sounds of Wichita?
The Wichita language has some very interesting sounds.
Consonants
Wichita has 10 consonant sounds. It is unusual because it has almost no sounds made with both lips, like 'p' or 'm'. There is also only one main nasal sound, like 'n'.
Vowels
Wichita has only a few vowel sounds, possibly three or four. These vowels can also be spoken with different lengths: short, long, or even extra-long. This is quite rare in languages around the world!
Tone
Wichita also uses different tones (how high or low your voice is) to change the meaning of words. This is shown by a mark above the vowel, like an accent.
Word structure
Wichita words can start with many consonant sounds grouped together. For example, some words might begin with sounds like "kskh" or "rh." The longest group of consonants found in Wichita is five sounds long! However, most Wichita syllables are simpler, usually a consonant followed by a vowel, or a consonant, vowel, and then another consonant.
How does Wichita grammar work?
Wichita is an "agglutinative" and "polysynthetic" language. This means that words are built by adding many small parts (called affixes) to a main verb. These added parts can include who is doing the action, who the action is for, and even if something is owned. Because of this, very complex ideas can be said in just one word! For example, one word can mean "one makes himself a fire."
Wichita nouns do not change for singular or plural. This information is usually found in the verb. Also, Wichita does not have different words for male or female, which can make translating to English tricky.
Sentence order
The order of words in a Wichita sentence is more flexible than in English. Words are often placed based on how important or new the information is. The main topic of the sentence is often put at the beginning.
For example, a sentence meaning "When God put our ancestors on this earth" might start with "ancestors" because they are the main focus. This shows that words don't always need to be right next to each other to be connected in Wichita.
Tenses and aspects
Wichita verbs show when an action happens and how it happens.
- The perfective tense shows an action that has been finished.
- The intentive tense shows that someone plans or planned to do something.
- The habitual aspect shows an action that happens regularly, like "he smokes" (meaning he smokes often), not "he is smoking" (meaning he is smoking right now).
- The durative tense describes an action that happens at the same time as something else.
Wichita does not have indirect speech (like "He said that he was going") or passive voice (like "The ball was hit by him"). When talking about the past, speakers must say if they know the information because they saw it themselves or if they heard it from someone else.
Wichita also has two ways to say "we": one that includes the listener and one that does not. And unlike English, which usually has singular and plural, Wichita can also show "dual" (for two things).
Affixes: How words are built
Wichita uses many prefixes (added to the beginning of a word) and suffixes (added to the end of a word) to change meaning. These affixes can show different tenses (like past, present, future) and aspects (how an action happens).
For example, there are prefixes for:
- Future: To say something will happen.
- Perfect: To say something just finished.
- Imperative: To give a command.
- Quotative: To show that the speaker heard the information from someone else, not from personal experience.
And suffixes for:
- Imperfective: To show an ongoing action.
- Intentive: To show a plan.
- Habitual: To show something done regularly.
How are nouns used?
In Wichita, nouns don't change much on their own. Instead, other parts of the sentence, especially the verb, show details about them.
Possession
To show that someone owns something, the noun is often included in the verb, and a pronoun shows who the owner is. For example, one verb form can mean "my wife" or "my children."
Number marking
Nouns in Wichita can be counted or not counted.
- Countable nouns: These can be marked as singular (one), dual (two), or plural (more than two). If they are not marked, they are usually singular.
- Uncountable nouns: These cannot be made plural. Liquids like water have a special marker. Other uncountable things, like fire or salt, do not have special markers.
Wichita also divides countable nouns into "collective" and "non-collective." Collective nouns are for things that usually come in pieces or groups, like wood, meat, or containers filled with things.
Some verbs also change depending on if the object of the verb is "animate" (a living thing) or an "activity."
Why is Wichita endangered?
The Wichita language is now considered "dormant," meaning no one speaks it fluently as a native language. The main reason for this decline is that Wichita speakers began using English more often. Children were not taught Wichita, so only the elders knew the language.
What are the revitalization efforts?
The Wichita and Affiliated Tribes are working hard to bring their language back. They have offered language classes taught by Doris McLemore and Shirley Davilla. They even created special classes for children and adults to learn the language.
A linguist named David Rood has worked with Wichita speakers to create a dictionary and language CDs. The tribe continues to work with the University of Colorado, Boulder, on the Wichita Documentation Project to record and teach the language.
Images for kids
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Distribution of Native American languages in Oklahoma
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Wichita is an extinct language according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
See also
In Spanish: Idioma wichita para niños
