Osage language


Osage is a Siouan language spoken by the Osage people of Oklahoma.
Osage has an inventory of sounds very similar to that of Dakota, plus vowel length, preaspirated obstruents and an interdental fricative. 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 using the Latin script with diacritics. In 2006, a derived Osage script, with diacritics reflecting the Latin, was created for it; the final 2014 revision was included in Unicode version 9.0 in June 2016 in the Osage block.

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 Omoha 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. However, 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:
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, the /a/ is pronounced. This assimilation 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 , common Osage vowel clusters are:
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.
Long vowels also arise when ð is omitted between identical vowels.
When e changes to a, an immediately preceding c is often replaced by t

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, twenty-two of which are voiceless and nine are voiced. However, Osage has a rich system of stop sounds, known as the stop series, or the stop sequence.

Stop series

The stop series can be grouped according to five categories:
The ejective, fortis, and lenis series of the alphabet are not distinguished in Osage orthography.
Listed below is some features and phonological alternations of Osage:
The dentalveolar obstruents are often fricated: the ejective always, and the other series before the front vowels. Exceptions occur due to compounding and other derivational processes. For example, from hką́ą́ce 'fruit' and oolá 'put in' is hkąącóla 'pie'.
Č, hč are rare, and only found in diminutives: č only in two words, čóopa 'a little', čáahpa 'squat', and hč for hc in endearment forms of kin terms like wihčóšpa 'my grandchild'. In Hominy, šc is pronounced šč.

Consonant clusters

Osage has a simple expanded CV syllabic template: V. 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.
The initial clusters are, excluding aspirated stops.
Medial clusters may be divided into two groups:
The historically aspirated series *pʰ *tʰ *kʰ is seldom realized with aspiration today. Before back vowels they are, and before front vowels . Some speakers from Hominy assimilate tx to or.
Đ, n, r all derive from historic *r, and l from *kr and *xr. The latter is a recent phenomenon; in the 1930s words with modern l were transcribed xth and gth. Historically *r became ð before oral vowels and n before nasal vowels, but since the nasalization has often been lost, there are minimal pairs and are now separate phonemes. Nonetheless, intervocalic ð is optionally pronounced in many words. It is also sometimes strongly palatalized intervocalically, to the point of becoming.
In words with l, this is sometimes pronounced or. The former derives from historic *xl, the latter from *kð and *gð; these sequences have largely merged with simple *l. This is productive; ð in verbs may become l when prefixed with k.
The r is apparently an approximant like English. Br is most common in first-person forms of verbs beginning with ð, where the 1sg agent prefix w- assimilates to before the ð, and indeed this was written bth in the 1930s. However, in rarer cases the origin of br is opaque.