Pawnee language

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title: "Pawnee language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["pawnee", "indigenous-languages-of-the-north-american-plains", "caddoan-languages", "polysynthetic-languages", "indigenous-languages-of-oklahoma", "endangered-caddoan-languages", "endangered-indigenous-languages-of-the-americas"] description: "Endangered Caddoan language of Oklahoma, US" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnee_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Endangered Caddoan language of Oklahoma, US ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]

Field	Value
name	Pawnee
altname	pâri pakûru’
region	North-central Oklahoma
ethnicity	2,500 Pawnee (2007)
speakers
date	2007
ref
familycolor	American
states	United States
fam1	Caddoan
fam2	Northern
fam3	Pawnee–Kitsai
fam4	Pawnee–Arikara
dia1	Skiri
dia2	South Band
iso3	paw
glotto	pawn1254
glottorefname	Pawnee
lingua	64-BAB-b
map	Pawnee lang.png
mapcaption	Pre-contact distribution of Pawnee
map2	Lang Status 20-CR.svg
mapcaption2
notice	IPA
::

| name = Pawnee | altname = pâri pakûru’ | region = North-central Oklahoma | ethnicity = 2,500 Pawnee (2007) | speakers = | date = 2007 | ref = | familycolor = American | states = United States | fam1 = Caddoan | fam2 = Northern | fam3 = Pawnee–Kitsai | fam4 = Pawnee–Arikara | dia1 = Skiri | dia2 = South Band | iso3 = paw | glotto = pawn1254 | glottorefname = Pawnee | lingua = 64-BAB-b | map = Pawnee lang.png | mapcaption = Pre-contact distribution of Pawnee | map2 = Lang Status 20-CR.svg | mapcaption2 = | notice = IPA

Pawnee or pâri pakûru*’* is a Caddoan language traditionally spoken by Pawnee Native Americans, currently inhabiting north-central Oklahoma. Historically, the Pawnee lived along the Platte River in what is now Nebraska.

Dialects

Two important dialect divisions are evident in Pawnee: South Band and Skiri. The distinction between the two dialects rests on differences in their respective phonetic inventory and lexicon. The Skiri dialect became extinct in 2001 with the death of Lula Nora Pratt.

Status

As of 2007, there are fewer than 10 native speakers, all elderly. The Pawnee Nation is developing teaching materials for the local high school and for adult language classes. There are also extensive documentary materials in the language archived at the American Indian Studies Research Institute. The Pawnee language can be heard spoken in the 2015 movie The Revenant. In 2019 and 2020, the Pawnee Nation posted online videos teaching the Pawnee language.

Phonology

The following describes the South Band dialect.

Consonants

Pawnee has eight consonant phonemes, and according to one analysis of medial- and final-position glottal stops, one may posit a ninth consonant phoneme.

::data[format=table]

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Velar	Glottal	Stop	Affricate	Rhotic	Fricative	Approximant
::

• is predictable when it occurs in the middle of words. However, since is not completely predictable at the end of words, it may also need to be considered a phoneme.

Vowels

Pawnee has four short vowel phonemes and four long counterparts (also phonemic).

::data[format=table]

	Front	Back	High	Mid-low
::

Phonotactics

Consonant clusters are common in Pawnee in initial, medial, and final positions. These clusters fall into a small number of types, illustrated in the table below. The sequence patterns as a single unit in initial and medial clusters, and so it is not considered a cluster in itself. ::data[format=table title=""]

C1	C2	Examples
Initial
Medial
	any consonant except	rahwa "captive"
Final
::

Vowel sequences are allowed morpheme-internally and across morpheme boundaries. Pawnee distinguishes between long vowels, doubled vowels (e.g. kskiːtiiks "four"), long + short vowel sequences (cakiːis "trotter"), and short-long vowel sequences (tiiːtit "snipe"). No morpheme contains two long vowels in sequence, however.

Morphology

Pawnee is an ergative-absolutive polysynthetic language.

Alphabet

The Pawnee alphabet has nine consonants and eight vowels. The letters are relatively similar in pronunciation to their English counterparts.

Consonants

::data[format=table]

Spelling	Sound (IPA)	English equivalents
p		poke, cup
t		top, cat
k		cool, stuck
c	~	shell, push ~ pants
s		silly, face
h		heart, ahead
r		car, ferry
w		wacky, away
′		The "-" in uh-oh
::

Vowels

::data[format=table]

Spelling	Sound (IPA)	English equivalents
i		sit
ii		feed
e		red
ee		paid
a		nut
aa		father
u	ʊ	book
uu		rude
::

Other alphabets

Here are other alphabets that are used sometimes in Pawnee texts.

::data[format=table title="Pawnee Alphabet #1"]

a	â	c	č	e	ê	h	i	î	k	p	r	s	t	u	û	w	‘
::

::data[format=table title="Pawnee Alphabet #2"]

a	aa	ch	e	ee	h	i	ii	k	o	oo	p	r	s	t	ts	u	uu	w	‘
::

Notes

References

• American Indian Studies Research Institute. (2008). Dictionary Database: Pawnee (Skiri and Southband dialects).
• American Indian Studies Research Institute. (2001). Pawnee Alphabet Book.
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (hbk); .
• Parks, Douglas R. (1976). A grammar of Pawnee. New York: Garland.
• Taylor, Allan R. (1978). [Review of A grammar of Pawnee by D. Parks]. Language, 54 (4), 969-972.

References

1. Victor Golla, "North America.” In Moseley & Asher, ''Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages''
2. "Meet Russell Sun Eagle". CanvasRebel.
3. Douglas Parks and Lula Nora Pratt (2008) ''A Dictionary of Skiri Pawnee''
4. "Pawnee".
5. Nolan, Bethany. "IU linguists provide Arikara and Pawnee dialogue for Oscar-nominated film 'The Revenant'". Inside IU Bloomington.
6. ((YouTube user "Pawnee Nation")). "Pawnee Language Classes - YouTube".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::