Assiniboine language-The Daily Ledger

The Assiniboine language (; also known as Assiniboin, Hohe, or Nakota, Nakoda, Nakon or Nakona, or Stoney) is a Nakotan Siouan language of the Northern Plains. The name Assiniboine comes from the term , from Ojibwe, meaning 'Stone Siouans'. The reason they were called this was that Assiniboine people used heated stone to boil their food. In Canada, Assiniboine people are known as Stoney Indians, while they called themselves Nakota or Nakoda, meaning 'allies'.

Classification

The Dakotan group of the Siouan family has five main divisions: Dakota (Santee-Sisseton), Dakota (Yankton-Yanktonai), Lakota (Teton), Nakoda (Assiniboine) and Nakoda (Stoney). Along with the closely related Stoney, Assiniboine is an n variety of the Dakotan languages, meaning its autonym is pronounced with an initial n (thus: as opposed to Dakʰóta or Lakʰóta, and or as opposed to or ). The Assiniboine language is also closely related to the Sioux language and to the Stoney language (likewise called Nakoda or Nakota), although they are hardly mutually intelligible.

Assiniboine language

Official status

The Assiniboine language is not a government-recognized official language of any state or region where Assiniboine people live. There are two reservations located in Montana, but the official language of the state is English. An estimate of native speakers ranges from less than 50, to about 100, to about 150 Assiniboine people, most of them elderly.

Assiniboine language

Related languages

Sioux, Assiniboine, and Stoney are closely related languages of the Dakota family. Many linguists consider Assiniboine and Stoney to be dialects. However, they are mutually unintelligible. Parks and DeMallie report that they are not variant forms of a single dialect, but that Assiniboine is closer to the Sioux dialects than it is to Stoney. The exact number of interrelationships among the subdialects and dialects comprising this continuum is unknown.

Assiniboine language

Geographic distribution

The languages of the Dakotan group are spoken in the following regions: Canada Alberta Manitoba Saskatchewan United States Minnesota Montana Nebraska North Dakota South Dakota

D-N-L classification system

The Assiniboine language (Nakota), the Dakota language and the Lakota language are usually classified into a group with D-N-L subgroup classification. As suggested by the name of the system, the variation in pronunciations of certain words follows the D-N-L rule. A typical example is given below:

Santee-Sisseton and Yankton-Yanktonai are languages that belong to the Dakotan group and Teton is a language in the Lakotan group. The table above illustrates a typical variation amongst these three languages. Just as the name of these three tribes suggest, the Dakota language, the Lakota language and the Nakota (Assiniboine) language have respective inclinations towards , , and in some substitutable consonants.

Arguments against the classification system

Some scholars argue that the D-N-L classification system may not be totally accurate due to the non-rigidness of the substitution form. Siouan Indians live on an expansive continuum such that the distinction between different languages does not manifest in a rigid, clear-cutting criterion. Historically, linguists have debated on Yankton-Yanktonai languages and their proper positions into the D-N-L classification system, but the coexistence of and phonemes made such classification doubtful. This example of lexical difference between the languages of the Siouan group illustrates another possible distinction besides the D-N-L variations.

Phonology

The phonemic inventory has 27 consonants, which includes aspirated, plain, and ejective stops. In addition to this, it has five oral vowels and three nasal vowels. It is a structure-preserving language. Assiniboine has no definite or indefinite articles, no nominal case system, and no verbal tense marking. Clauses unmarked are "realized," while clauses marked as "potential" by means of verbal enclitic, which is successful in producing a future/non-future distinction. The verbal system is split into active and stative (split-intransitive). The active object pronominal affixes coincide with the stative verbs of the subject pronominal affixes.

The affricates and stops of Assiniboine are often described as voiced rather than voiceless, due to intervocalic voicing rules which result in surface voiced forms.