Southern Tiwa language

Classification

Southern Tiwa belongs to the Tiwa sub-grouping of the Kiowa–Tanoan language family. It is closely related to the more northernly Picurís (spoken at Picuris Pueblo) and Taos (spoken at Taos Pueblo). Trager stated that Southern Tiwa speakers were able to understand Taos and Picurís, although Taos and Picurís speakers could not understand Southern Tiwa very easily. Harrington (1910) observed that an Isleta person (Southern Tiwa) communicated in "Mexican jargon" with Taos speakers as Taos and Southern Tiwa were not mutually intelligible.

Dialects

Southern Tiwa had three dialectal variants

1. Sandía
2. Isleta
3. Ysleta del Sur (Tigua)

Trager reported that Sandía and Isleta were very similar and mutually intelligible.

In August 2015, it was announced that the Tiwa language would be taught to children at Isleta Elementary School in Pueblo of Isleta, as a part of the school's transfer from federal to tribal control.

Sound system

Consonants

Southern Tiwa has 29 consonants:

:{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: center"

| | | | | | | | | |- ! voiceless | | | | | | |kʷ | | |- !aspirated |pʰ |tʰ | | | |kʰ | | | |- !glottalized |pʼ |tʼ | | |ʼ |kʼ |kʼʷ | | |- ! colspan="2" | Fricative |f | | | |ʃ | | |

| | | ɾ | | | | | | |- ! colspan="2" | Nasal | | | | | | | | | |- ! colspan="2" | Approximant | | | | | | | | | |} Stops /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/ and /b, d/ may be fricated in different positions as [f, θ, x] and [β, ð] respectively. :/ɾ/ can also be heard as a trill [r] and a retroflex [ɽ].

Vowels

Southern Tiwa has five vowels that have both an oral and nasal contrast.

:{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center" |+ Vowels ! rowspan="2" | ! colspan="2" | Front ! colspan="2" |Central ! colspan="2" | Back |- style="font-size: small;" ! oral ! nasal !oral !nasal ! oral ! nasal |- ! High | | ĩ |ɨ |ɨ̃ |

| | | | |- ! Low | | | | |ɑ |ɑ̃ |} Sounds /i, ɨ, u, ɑ/ may also be heard as [ɪ, ɯ, ʊ, a]. Southern Tiwa has three tones: high, mid, and low.

Syllable structure

Southern Tiwa syllable structure is CV, where C is a consonant and V can be either a single oral or nasal vowel or diphthong. Diphthongs can be composed of any vowel quality and they have the same duration of a single vowel.

References

Bibliography

• Allen, Barbara J. (1978). Goal advancement in Southern Tiwa. SIL working papers (No. 22). Summer Institute of Linguistics and University of North Dakota.
• Allen, Barbara J.; & Frantz, Donald G. (1978). Verb agreement in Southern Tiwa. In Proceedings of the fourth annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (pp. 11–17).
• Allen, Barbara J.; & Frantz, Donald G. (1983). An impersonal passive in Southern Tiwa. SIL working papers (No. 25). Summer Institute of Linguistics and University of North Dakota.
• Allen, Barbara J.; Frantz, Donald G.; & Gardiner, Donna B. (1981). Phantom arcs in Southern Tiwa. SIL working papers (No. 27). Summer Institute of Linguistics and University of North Dakota.
• Allen, Barbara J.; & Gardiner, Donna B. (1981). Passive in Southern Tiwa. In Proceedings of the ninth annual Southwestern Areal Language and Linguistic Workshop.
• Allen, Barbara J.; Gardiner, Donna B.; & Frantz, Donald G. (1984). Noun incorporation in Southern Tiwa. International Journal of American Linguistics, 50 (3), 292-311.
• Brandt, Elizabeth. (1970). Sandia Pueblo, New Mexico: A linguistics and ethnolinguistic investigation. (Doctoral dissertation, Southern Methodist University).
• Brandt, Elizabeth. (1970). On the origins of linguistic stratification: The Sandia case. Anthropological Linguistics, 12 (2), 46-50.
• Gardiner, Donna. (1977). Embedded questions in Southern Tiwa. (Master's thesis, University of North Dakota).
• Gatschet, Albert. (1891). A mythic tale of the Isleta Indians, New Mexico. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 29, 208-218.
• Harrington, J. P. (1909). Notes on the Piro language. American Anthropologist, 11 (4), 563-594.
• Leap, William L. (1970). The language of Isleta, New Mexico. (Doctoral dissertation, Southern Methodist University).
• Leap, William L. (1970). Tiwa noun class semology: A historical view. Anthropological Linguistics, 12 (2), 38-45.
• Lummis, C. (1910). Pueblo Indian folk stories. New York: The Century Co.
• Sutton, Logan D. (2014). Kiowa-Tanoan: A Synchronic and Diachronic Study. The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
• Trager, George L. (1942). The historical phonology of the Tiwa languages. Studies in Linguistics, 1 (5), 1-10.
• Trager, George L. (1943). The kinship and status terms of the Tiwa languages. American Anthropologist, 45 (1), 557-571.
• Trager, George L. (1946). An outline of Taos grammar. In C. Osgood (Ed.), Linguistic structures in North America (pp. 184–221). New York: Wenner-Green Foundation for Anthropological Research.
• Yumitani, Yukihiro. (1987). A Comparative Sketch of Pueblo Languages: Phonology, Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 12, 135-139.

References

1. Boetel, Ryan. (August 2, 2015). "A new beginning for education at Isleta Pueblo".
2. Harrington, John P.. (1910). "An Introductory Paper on the Tiwa Language, Dialect of Taos, New Mexico". American Anthropologist.