Alabama (also known as Alibamu) is a

Native American language Native may refer to: People * Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Native Americans (disambiguation) In arts and enterta ...

, spoken by the Alabama-Coushatta tribe of

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. It was once spoken by the Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town of Oklahoma, but there are no more Alabama speakers in Oklahoma. It is a

Muskogean language Muskogean (also Muskhogean, Muskogee) is a Native Americans in the United States, Native American language family spoken in different areas of the Southeastern United States. Though the debate concerning their interrelationships is ongoing, the ...

, and is believed to have been related to the Muklasa and Tuskegee languages, which are no longer extant. Alabama is closely related to

Koasati The Coushatta ( cku, Koasati, Kowassaati or Kowassa:ti) are a Muskogean-speaking Native American people now living primarily in the U.S. states of Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. When first encountered by Europeans, they lived in the territor ...

and

Apalachee The Apalachee were an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, specifically an Indigenous people of Florida, who lived in the Florida Panhandle until the early 18th century. They lived between the Aucilla River and Ochlockonee River,Bobby ...

, and more distantly to other

Muskogean languages Muskogean (also Muskhogean, Muskogee) is a Native American language family spoken in different areas of the Southeastern United States. Though the debate concerning their interrelationships is ongoing, the Muskogean languages are generally div ...

Hitchiti The Hitchiti ( ) were a historic indigenous tribe in the Southeast United States. They formerly resided chiefly in a town of the same name on the east bank of the Chattahoochee River, four miles below Chiaha, in western present-day Georgia. The n ...

Chickasaw The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classified as ...

and

Choctaw The Choctaw (in the Choctaw language, Chahta) are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Alabama and Mississippi. Their Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw people are ...

History

The Alabama first encountered Europeans when

Hernando de Soto Hernando de Soto (; ; 1500 – 21 May, 1542) was a Spanish explorer and '' conquistador'' who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. He played an important role in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire ...

arrived in 1540. (See

here Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to: Software * Here Technologies, a mapping company * Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Technologies, Here Television * Here TV (form ...

for other de Soto contactees) In the 18th century, the French arrived on the

Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Mississ ...

and built a fort at what became

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 cens ...

. The ''Alibamu'' and ''Koasati'' tribes were part of the

Creek Confederacy The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsBritish British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

settlers than other Creek tribes did. They were the first to leave when British settlers swarmed into the area by the middle of the 18th century, after the land was ceded by the French following the British victory in the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...

. Under pressure as well by Native American enemies, the Alabama and Coushatta tribes wanted to avoid the powerful

in present-day

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

. They moved into territories of future states, first into

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

and then into

. In 1795, the Coushatta arrived in the Big Thicket area of East Texas. In 1805, nearly 1,000 Alabama came to Tyler County's Peach Tree Village in East Texas. The two tribes developed a strong friendship as they roamed and hunted their new land together. In the early 19th century, the Texas Congress granted each tribe two strips of land along the Trinity River. Their land was soon taken over by European-American settlers, leaving them homeless.

Sam Houston Samuel Houston (, ; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American general and statesman who played an important role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two i ...

, the governor of Texas, recommended that the state purchase for the Alabamas. Although money was appropriated to buy for the Coushatta, the land was never bought. Either through marriage or special permission, many Coushatta went to live on the land given to the Alabama. Other Coushatta had stayed in an area in southern Louisiana near the Red River. Many of their descendants are enrolled members of the federally recognized Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana. Alabama and Coushatta towns were divided into "red" and "white" towns. The "white" towns were responsible for keeping the peace and for providing refuge, while the "red" towns were responsible for conducting military campaigns. Though they had "red" and "white" towns, the Alabama-Coushatta thought of themselves as a peace-loving people.Hook, Jonathan. ''The Alabama-Coushatta Indians.'' Texas A&M University Press, 1997. By 1820, there were three main Alabama towns and three large Coushatta towns in east

, in the region known as the Big Thicket. In 1854, the Alabama were given 1,280 acres (5 km²) in

Polk County Polk County is the name of twelve counties in the United States, all except two named after president of the United States James Knox Polk: * Polk County, Arkansas * Polk County, Florida * Polk County, Georgia * Polk County, Iowa * Polk Count ...

. The following year, 640 acres (2.6 km²), also in Polk County, were given to the Coushattas. The Coushatta claim was disputed by white settlers in 1859. When the Coushatta lost the land claim, the Alabama invited them to live on their land claim. The federal government approved a large grant in 1928 to purchase additional land near the reservation; it was granted to the "Alabama and Coushatta tribes." Since that time, the reservation has officially been known as “Alabama-Coushatta". Origin myths focus on the interconnectedness of the tribes. One myth states that the two tribes sprouted from either side of a

cypress Cypress is a common name for various coniferous trees or shrubs of northern temperate regions that belong to the family Cupressaceae. The word ''cypress'' is derived from Old French ''cipres'', which was imported from Latin ''cypressus'', the ...

tree. Another legend was recorded in 1857 from ''Se-ko-pe-chi'', one of the oldest Creeks in

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United St ...

. He said that the tribes “sprang out of the ground between the Cohawba and

Alabama River The Alabama River, in the U.S. state of Alabama, is formed by the Tallapoosa and Coosa rivers, which unite about north of Montgomery, near the town of Wetumpka. The river flows west to Selma, then southwest until, about from Mobile, it un ...

s.” The symbol of the Alabama-Coushatta tribe comes from pre-contact

Mississippian culture The Mississippian culture was a Native Americans in the United States, Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern United States, Midwestern, Eastern United States, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from appr ...

: two intertwined woodpeckers, now symbolic of the connection between the two tribes.

Phonology

Consonants

There are fourteen consonant

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...

s in Alabama: is

apico-alveolar An apical consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the tip of the tongue (apex) in conjunction with upper articulators from lips to postalveolar, and possibly prepalatal. It contrasts with laminal cons ...

, . The voiceless stops are typically fortis and unlike in many other Southeastern languages they are not

voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer ...

between vowels. All consonants can occur

geminated In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...

.Hardy 2005:83 The post-alveolar affricate is realized as when it occurs as the first member of a consonant cluster and the geminate is realized as . The only voiced

obstruent An obstruent () is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well as ...

in Alabama is , which is realized as when it occurs in coda (syllable final) position. The geminate is realized as . The two nasal phonemes become velar before the velar stop . In syllable-final position, is often realized as lengthening of the preceding vowel.

Vowels

There are three vowel qualities, . Vowel length is distinctive. Vowels can be nasalized in certain morphological contexts.

Prosody

In Alabama, the final syllable generally carries the primary stress, except in the case of certain grammatical operations which move the stress. There is also a pitch accent system with two contrastive tones: high-level and high-falling. The two phonemic tones have several different allophonic realizations depending on vowel length and neighboring consonants.Hardy 2005:83-84

References

Sources

* Davis, Philip; & Hardy, Heather. (1988). Absence of noun marking in Alabama. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''54'' (3), 279–308. . * Hardy, Heather K. (2005). Hardy, Heather K.; Janine Scancarelli, eds. "Alabama". ''Native Languages of the Southeastern United States'' (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press). pp. 75–113. . * Hardy, Heather; & Davis, Philip. (1988). Comparatives in Alabama. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''54'' (2), 209–231. . * * Hardy, Heather; & Davis, Philip. (1993). Semantics of agreement in Alabama. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''59'' (4), 453–472. . * Hardy, Heather; & Montler, Timothy. (1988). Imperfective gemination in Alabama. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''54'' (4), 399–415. * Montler, Timothy; & Hardy, Heather. (1991). Phonology of negation in Alabama. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''57'' (1), 1-23. . * Rand, Earl. (1968). Structural phonology of Alabaman, a Muskogean language. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''34'' (2), 94-103. . *

External links

Online Alabama-English-Alabama Dictionary

Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas

– How to say "hello" in Alabama
OLAC resources in and about the Alabama language
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alabama Language Agglutinative languages Definitely endangered languages Muskogean languages Indigenous languages of the North American Southeast Indigenous languages of Oklahoma