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Plains Apache language
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Plains Apache language
The Plains Apache language is a Southern Athabaskan language formerly spoken by the Plains Apache, organized as the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, living primarily around Anadarko in southwest Oklahoma. The language is extinct as of 2008, when Alfred Chalepah, Jr., the last native speaker, died.
Plains Apache is the most divergent member of the Southern Athabaskan languages, a family which also includes Navajo, Chiricahua Apache, Mescalero Apache, Lipan Apache, Western Apache, and Jicarilla Apache. As a member of the broader Athabaskan family, it has an extremely complex system of verbal morphology, often enabling entire sentences to be constructed with only a verb.
This article follows the orthography of Bittle (1963); where this differs from the IPA, IPA is given between slashes.
Plains Apache has a large consonant inventory resembling that of its close relatives Navajo and Western Apache.
The phoneme /ⁿd/ is only found in prefixes and does not occur before /o/. /h/ is in free variation with /x/ preceding /a/ and also does not occur before /o/. The fricated alveolar and postalveolar series are tend to be realized as slightly retroflex preceding /i/ and /e/, though these variants are in free variation with the unretroflexed realizations. The plain alveolar and velar series are slightly fronted preceding /i/ and /e/, and slightly backed and rounded preceding /o/.
Plains Apache distinguishes four vowel qualities, much like the other Southern Athabaskan languages.
Additionally, all vowels may be either short or long and nasal or oral. Length is indicated in the orthography by writing the vowel twice (e.g. kóó, 'water'); nasalization is indicated with an ogonek (e.g. nǫ̀ǫ̀, 'earth'). When long, the realization of /i/ tends to be closer to [i], and when short, closer to [ɪ]. An analogous alternation is true of /o/ [u~o], although this variation is more free, and is lexicalized by some speakers in certain words.
The Plains Apache syllable is maximally CCV:C, e.g. stłèèh 'pants', though initial clusters are rare and must co-occur with a long vowel, making most syllables (C)V(:)(C), e.g. xòòš 'cactus' and séé 'dust'. All consonants may appear in the syllable onset, although /l/ and a null onset are not permitted word-initially; only /d, g, ʔ, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, h, l/ and /ɬ/ may appear in the syllable coda, whether word-final or not.
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Plains Apache language
The Plains Apache language is a Southern Athabaskan language formerly spoken by the Plains Apache, organized as the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, living primarily around Anadarko in southwest Oklahoma. The language is extinct as of 2008, when Alfred Chalepah, Jr., the last native speaker, died.
Plains Apache is the most divergent member of the Southern Athabaskan languages, a family which also includes Navajo, Chiricahua Apache, Mescalero Apache, Lipan Apache, Western Apache, and Jicarilla Apache. As a member of the broader Athabaskan family, it has an extremely complex system of verbal morphology, often enabling entire sentences to be constructed with only a verb.
This article follows the orthography of Bittle (1963); where this differs from the IPA, IPA is given between slashes.
Plains Apache has a large consonant inventory resembling that of its close relatives Navajo and Western Apache.
The phoneme /ⁿd/ is only found in prefixes and does not occur before /o/. /h/ is in free variation with /x/ preceding /a/ and also does not occur before /o/. The fricated alveolar and postalveolar series are tend to be realized as slightly retroflex preceding /i/ and /e/, though these variants are in free variation with the unretroflexed realizations. The plain alveolar and velar series are slightly fronted preceding /i/ and /e/, and slightly backed and rounded preceding /o/.
Plains Apache distinguishes four vowel qualities, much like the other Southern Athabaskan languages.
Additionally, all vowels may be either short or long and nasal or oral. Length is indicated in the orthography by writing the vowel twice (e.g. kóó, 'water'); nasalization is indicated with an ogonek (e.g. nǫ̀ǫ̀, 'earth'). When long, the realization of /i/ tends to be closer to [i], and when short, closer to [ɪ]. An analogous alternation is true of /o/ [u~o], although this variation is more free, and is lexicalized by some speakers in certain words.
The Plains Apache syllable is maximally CCV:C, e.g. stłèèh 'pants', though initial clusters are rare and must co-occur with a long vowel, making most syllables (C)V(:)(C), e.g. xòòš 'cactus' and séé 'dust'. All consonants may appear in the syllable onset, although /l/ and a null onset are not permitted word-initially; only /d, g, ʔ, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, h, l/ and /ɬ/ may appear in the syllable coda, whether word-final or not.
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