The Cheyenne language (, , informal spelling ) is the
Native American language spoken by the
Cheyenne people, predominantly in present-day
Montana
Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...
and
Oklahoma
Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...
, in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. It is part of the
Algonquian language family. Like all other Algonquian languages, it has complex
agglutinative polysynthetic morphology. This language is considered endangered, at different levels, in both states.
Classification
Cheyenne is one of the
Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages ( ; also Algonkian) are a family of Indigenous languages of the Americas and most of the languages in the Algic language family are included in the group. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from ...
, which is a sub-category of the
Algic languages. Specifically, it is a
Plains Algonquian language. However, Plains Algonquian, which also includes
Arapaho and
Blackfoot, is an
areal rather than genetic subgrouping.
Geographic distribution

Cheyenne is spoken on the
Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in
Montana
Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...
and in
Oklahoma
Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...
. On the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in March 2013 there were approximately 10,050 enrolled tribal members, of which about 4,939 resided on the reservation; slightly more than a quarter of the population five years or older spoke a language other than English.
Current status
The Cheyenne language is considered "definitely
endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...
" in Montana and "critically endangered" in Oklahoma by the
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...
. In Montana the number of speakers were about 1700 in 2012 according to the UNESCO. In 2021 there were approximately 300 elderly speakers. In 2021 in Oklahoma there were fewer than 20 elderly speakers. There is no current information on any other state in the United States regarding the Cheyenne language.
The 2017 film ''
Hostiles'' features extensive dialogue in Northern Cheyenne. The film's producers hired experts in the language and culture to ensure authenticity.
Revitalization efforts and education
In 1997, the Cultural Affairs Department of
Chief Dull Knife College applied to the Administration for Native Americans for an approximately $50,000 language preservation planning
grant. The department wanted to use this money to assess the degree to which Cheyenne was being spoken on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Following this, the department wanted to use the compiled data to establish long-term community language goals, and to prepare Chief Dull Knife College to implement a Cheyenne Language Center and
curriculum
In education, a curriculum (; : curriculums or curricula ) is the totality of student experiences that occur in an educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view of the student's experi ...
guide. In 2015, the Chief Dull Knife College sponsored the 18th Annual
Language Immersion Camp. This event was organized into two weeklong sessions, and its aim was to educate the younger generation on their ancestral language. The first session focused on educating 5–10-year-olds, while the second session focused on 11- to 18-year-olds. Certified Cheyenne language instructors taught daily classes. Ultimately, the camp provided approximately ten temporary jobs for fluent speakers on the impoverished reservation. The state of Montana has passed a law that guarantees support for tribal language preservation for Montana tribes. Classes in the Cheyenne language are available at
Chief Dull Knife College in
Lame Deer, Montana, at
Southwestern Oklahoma State University, and at Watonga High School in
Watonga, Oklahoma.
There are also holistic approaches to language revitalization taken upon by the Cheyenne people to try and keep their language vital. This is done by recognizing the integrated nature of the Cheyenne language with games, crafts, and ceremony which are integrated in youth and community programs. The language is very often not being taught in the home so instead of just teaching grammar as a revitalization effort, holistic approaches attract more attention from new speakers and educate the new generation and counter language and culture loss.
Phonology
Vowels
Cheyenne has three basic
vowel qualities . The phoneme called here is usually pronounced as a phonetic , and sometimes varies to .
These vowel qualities take four
tones:
high tone as in );
low tone as in ;
mid tone as in ; and
rising tone as in . Tones are often not represented in the orthography. Vowels can also be
voiceless (e.g. ). The high and low tones are
phonemic, while voiceless vowels' occurrence is determined by the
phonetic context, making them
allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plos ...
s of the voiced vowels.
Consonants
* The
phoneme
A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
is realized as in the environment between and (h > s / e _ t). is realized as between and (h > ʃ / e _ k) i.e. – 'alien', – 'your daughter', – 'his mother'.
* The digraph represents assibilated ; a phonological rule of Cheyenne is that
underlying becomes
affricated before an . Therefore, "ts" is not a separate phoneme, but an
allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plos ...
of .
* The sound is not a phoneme, but derives from other phonemes, including (when precedes or follows a non-front vowel, or ), and the past tense
morpheme
A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...
which is pronounced when it precedes a morpheme which starts with .
Orthography
The Cheyenne
orthography
An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis.
Most national ...
of 14 letters is neither a pure phonemic system nor a
phonetic
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
transcription; it is, in the words of linguist Wayne Leman, a "pronunciation
orthography
An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis.
Most national ...
". In other words, it is a practical spelling system designed to facilitate proper pronunciation. Some allophonic variants, such as voiceless vowels, are shown. represents the phoneme symbolized , and represents .
Vowels
* a –
* e –
* o –
Consonants
* h –
* k –
* ' –
* m –
* n –
* p –
* s –
* š –
* t –
* v –
* x –
Tones
* á, é, ó – high tone
* ȧ, ė, ȯ or â, ê, ô – voiceless or whispered
Low tone is usually unmarked.
Feature system for phonemes
The systematic phonemes of Cheyenne are distinguished by seven two-valued features. Scholar Donald G. Frantz defined these features as follows:
* Oral: primary articulation is oral (vs. at the glottis)
* Vocoid (voc): central resonant (oral) continuant
* Syllabic (syl): nuclear to syllable (vs. marginal)
* Closure (clos): stoppage of air flow at point of primary articulation
non-continuant'* Nasal (nas): velic is open
* Grave (grv): primary articulation at oral extremity (lips or velum)
non-coronal' for consonants, 'back' for vowels* Diffuse (dif): primary articulation is relatively front
anterior'
0 indicates the value is indeterminable/irrelevant. A blank indicates the value is specifiable, but context is required (even though any value could be inserted because the post-cyclical rules would change the value to the correct one).
Parentheses enclose values that are redundant according to the phonological rules; these values simply represent the results of these rules.
Voicing
Cheyenne has 14 orthographic letters representing 13 phonemes. is written as orthographically but is not a phoneme. This count excludes the results of allophonic devoicing, which are spelled with a
dot over vowels. Devoicing naturally occurs in the last vowel of a word or phrase but can also occur in vowels at the penultimate and prepenultimate positions within a word. Non-high and is also usually devoiced preceding ''h'' followed by a stop. Phonemic is absorbed by a preceding voiceless vowel. Examples are given below.
Penultimate devoicing
* 'ax';
* 'the one who is big';
* 'knife'
Devoicing occurs when certain vowels directly precede the consonants , , , , or followed by an . The rule is linked to the rule of ''e''-
epenthesis, which states simply that
appears in the environment of a consonant and a word boundary.
Prepenultimate devoicing
* 'flute';
* 'sheep (pl.)';
* 'if you ask him'
A vowel that does not have a high pitch is devoiced if it is followed by a voiceless fricative and not preceded by .
Special and devoicing
* 'they are gathering';
* 'I regularly dance';
* 'I punched him in the mouth'
Non-high and become at least partially devoiced when they are preceded by a voiced vowel and followed by an , a consonant, and two or more syllables.
Consonant devoicing
'He is drinking.'
Before a voiceless segment, a consonant is devoiced.
''h''-absorption
* 'kind' + 'imperative suffix' >
* 'conjunct prefix' + 'old' + '3rd pers. suffix' > 'the one who is old'
* + 'you' + 'burn' + 'suffix for some 'you-me' transitive animate forms' > ' you burn me'
The is absorbed if it is preceded or followed by voiceless vowels.
Pitch and tone
There are several rules that govern pitch use in Cheyenne. Pitch can be ˊ = high, unmarked = low, ˉ = mid, and ˆ = raised high. According to linguist Wayne Leman, some research shows that Cheyenne may have a stress system independent from that of pitch. If this is the case, the stress system's role is very minor in Cheyenne prosody. It would have no grammatical or lexical function, unlike pitch.
High-raising
A high pitch becomes a raised high when it is not preceded by another high vowel and precedes an underlying word-final high.
* 'duck';
* 'boat'
Low-to-high raising
A low vowel is raised to the high position when it follows a high and is followed by a word final high.
* 'ticks';
* 'I see him';
* 'cat'
Low-to-mid raising
A low vowel becomes a mid when it is followed by a word-final high but not directly preceded by a high vowel.
* 'sheep (sg.)';
* 'woman';
* 'he is cooking'
High pushover
A high vowel becomes low if it comes after a high and followed by a phonetic low.
* 'we (incl) prayed';
* 'we (incl) love him';
* 'we (excl) love'
Word-medial high raising
According to Leman, "some verbal prefixes and preverbs go through the process of Word-Medial High-Raising. A high is raised if it follows a high (which is not a trigger for the High Push-Over rule) and precedes a phonetic low. One or more voiceless syllables may come between the two highs. (A devoiced vowel in this process must be underlyingly low, not an underlyingly high vowel which has been devoiced by the High-Pitch Devoicing rule.)"
* 'he is eating';
* 'when I sang';
* 'I didn't give him to him'
Tone
Syllables with high pitch (tone) are relatively high pitched and are marked by an acute accent, , , and . The following pairs of phrases demonstrate pitch contrasts in the Cheyenne language:
* ('if I am hungry')
* ('if you are hungry')
* ('dog')
* ('dogs')
As noted by Donald G. Frantz, phonological rules dictate some pitch patterns, as indicated by the frequent shift of accent when suffixes are added (e.g. compare 'raccoon' and 'raccoons'). In order for the rules to work, certain vowels are assigned inherent accent. For example, the word for 'badger' has a permanent accent position: (sg.), (pl.)
Nonnasal reflexes of Proto-Algonquian *''k''
The research of linguist Paul Proulx provides an explanation for how these reflexes develop in Cheyenne: "First, *''n'' and *''h'' drop and all other consonants give glottal catch before *''k''. *''k'' then drops except in element-final position. Next, there is an increment before any remaining *''k'' not preceded by a glottal catch: a secondary ''h'' (replaced by ''š'' after ''e'') ) in words originating in the Cheyenne Proper dialect, and a vowel in those originating in the Sutaio (So'taa'e) dialect. In the latter dialect the *''k'' gives glottal catch in a word-final syllable (after the loss of some final syllables) and drops elsewhere, leaving the vowel increment. Sutaio k clusters are all reduced to glottal catch."
Grammar
Cheyenne is a
morphologically polysynthetic language with a sophisticated,
agglutinating verb system contrasting a relatively simple noun structure. Many Cheyenne verbs can stand alone in sentences, and can be translated by complete English sentences. Aside from its verb structure, Cheyenne has several grammatical features that are typical of Algonquian languages, including an animate/inanimate
noun class
In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some ...
ification paradigm, an obviative third person and distinction of
clusivity in the first person plural pronoun.
Order and mode
Like all Algonquian languages, Cheyenne shows a highly developed modal paradigm. Algonquianists traditionally describe the inflections of verbs in these languages as being divided into three "orders," with each order further subdivided into a series of "modes," each of which communicates some aspect of modality. The charts below provide examples of verb forms of every order in each mode, after Leman (2011) and Mithun (1999).
Independent order
This order governs both declarative and interrogative statements. The modes of this order are generally subdivided along lines of
evidentiality.
Conjunct order
This order governs a variety of dependent clause types. Leman (2011) characterizes this order of verbs as requiring other verbal elements in order to establish complete meaning. Verbs in the conjunct order are marked with a mode-specific prefix and a suffix marking person, number and animacy.
Imperative order
The third order governs commands. Cheyenne, in common with several other North American languages, distinguishes two types of
imperative mood
The imperative mood is a grammatical mood that forms a command or request.
The imperative mood is used to demand or require that an action be performed. It is usually found only in the present tense, second person. They are sometimes called ' ...
, one indicating immediate action, and the other indicating delayed action.
Verb morphology
The Cheyenne verb system is very complex and verb constructions are central to the morphosyntax of the language, to the point that even adjectives and even some nouns are largely substantive in nature. Verbs change according to a number of factors, such as
modality,
person
A person (: people or persons, depending on context) is a being who has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations suc ...
and
transitivity, as well as the
animacy of the referent, each of these categories being indicated by the addition of an
affix
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. The main two categories are Morphological derivation, derivational and inflectional affixes. Derivational affixes, such as ''un-'', ''-ation' ...
to the basic verb stem. There are also several
instrumental
An instrumental or instrumental song is music without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through Semantic change, semantic widening, a broader sense of the word s ...
,
locative and
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a determiner, a clause, a preposition, or a sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, or level of certainty by ...
ial affixes that add further information to the larger verb construction. This can result in very long, complex verbs that are able to stand alone as entire sentences in their own right.
All Cheyenne verbs have a rigid templatic structure. The affixes are placed according to the following paradigm:
person – (tense) – (directional) – (preverb) – ROOT – (medial) – final
Pronominal affixes
Cheyenne represents the participants of an expression not as separate
pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (Interlinear gloss, glossed ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the part of speech, parts of speech, but so ...
words but as affixes on the
verb
A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...
. There are three basic pronominal prefixes in Cheyenne:
*first person
*second person
*third person
These three basic prefixes can be combined with various suffixes to express all of Cheyenne's pronominal distinctions. For example, the prefix can be combined on a verb with the suffix -me to express the first person plural exclusive.
Tense
Tense in Cheyenne is expressed by the addition of a specific tense morpheme between the pronominal prefix and the verb stem. Verbs do not always contain tense information, and an unmarked present tense verb can be used to express both past and "recent" present tense in conversation. Thus, could mean both 'I see him' and 'I saw him' depending on the context.
Far past tense is expressed by the morpheme , which changes to , , or before the -h, -t, -k and a vowel, respectively. Thus:
*
*
Similarly, the future tense is expressed by the morpheme , which changes to after the pronominal, after and in the third-person, with the third-person prefix dropped altogether.
Directional affixes
These prefixes address whether the action of the verb is moving "toward" or "away from" some entity, usually the speaker.
*toward
*toward (before -h)
*toward (before a vowel)
*toward (before -t)
*away from
Preverbs
Following Algonquianist terminology, Leman (2011) describes "preverbs", morphemes which add adjectival or adverbial information to the verb stem. Multiple preverbs can be combined within one verb complex. The following list represents only a small sample.
*secretly
*previously
*suddenly
*extremely
*slightly
*regularly
*good, well
*much, a lot
*for the purpose of
*slowly, softly
*mistakenly
Medial affixes
This large group of suffixes provide information about something associated with the root, usually communicating that the action is done with or to a body part. Thus: ('he-wash-mouth') = 'he gargled'. Following is a sample of medial suffixes:
*mouth
*face
*arm
*body
*hand
*foot
Medial suffixes can also be used with nouns to create compound words or to coin entirely new words from existing morphemes, as in:
hort-face-dog= 'bulldog'
Final affixes
Cheyenne verbs take different object agreement endings depending upon the animacy of the subject and the transitivity of the verb itself. Intransitive verbs take endings depending upon the animacy of their subject, whereas transitive verbs take endings that depend upon the animacy of their object. All verbs can therefore be broadly categorized into one of four classes: Animate Intransitive (AI), Inanimate Instransitive (II), Transitive Animate (TA) and Transitive Inanimate (TI). Following are the most common object agreement markers for each verb class.
*Animate Intransitive (AI)
*Inanimate Intransitive (II)
*Transitive Animate (TA)
*Transitive Inanimate (TI)
Negation
Verbs are negated by the addition of the infix immediately after the pronominal affix. This morpheme changes to in the absence of a pronominal affix, as occurs in the imperative and in some future tense constructions.
Nouns
Nouns are classified according to animacy. They change according to
grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a Feature (linguistics), feature of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement (linguistics), agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and many other ...
(singular and plural) but are not distinguished according to
gender
Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...
or
definiteness.
Obviation
When two third persons are referred to by the same verb, the object of the sentence becomes obviated, what Algonquianists refer to as a "fourth person." It is essentially an "out of focus" third person. As with possessive obviation above, the presence of a fourth person triggers morphological changes in both the verb and noun. If the obviated entity is an animate noun, it will be marked with an obviative suffix, typically or . For example:
* 'I saw a man'
* 'The woman saw a man'
Verbs register the presence of obviated participants whether or not they are present as nouns. These forms could be likened to a kind of
passive voice
A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing ...
, although Esteban (2012) argues that since Cheyenne is a "reference-dominated language where case marking and word order are governed by the necessity to code pragmatic roles," a passive-like construction is assumed. This phenomenon is an example of typical Algonquian "person hierarchy," in which animacy and first personhood take precedence over other forms.
Number
Both animate and inanimate nouns are pluralized by the addition of suffixes. These suffixes are irregular and can change slightly according to a complex system of phonological rules.
*, Inanimate plural
*Animate plural
Possession
Possession is denoted by a special set of pronominal suffixes. Following is a list of the most common possession prefixes, although rarely some words take different prefixes.
*first person
*second person
*third person
Generally, possessive prefixes take a low pitch on the following vowel.
When a third person animate noun is possessed by another third person, the noun becomes
obviated and takes a different form. Much of the time, this obviated form is identical to the noun's regular plural form, with only a few exceptions. This introduces ambiguity in that it is not always possible to tell whether an obviated noun is singular or plural.
Historical development

Like all the Algonquian languages, Cheyenne developed from a reconstructed ancestor referred to as
Proto-Algonquian (often abbreviated "PA"). The sound changes on the road from PA to modern Cheyenne are complex, as exhibited by the development of the PA word 'man' into Cheyenne :
*First, the PA suffix drops ()
*The
geminate vowel sequence simplifies to (
semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are ''y ...
s were phonemically vowels in PA; when PA * or * appeared before another vowel, it became non-syllabic) ()
*PA * changes to ()
* is added before word-initial vowels ()
*Due to a vowel chain-shift, the vowels in the word wind up as , and (PA * sometimes corresponds to Cheyenne and sometimes to Cheyenne ; PA * almost always corresponds to Cheyenne , however) ().
PA *''θk'' has the Sutaio reflex ' in 'she tells lies', but the Cheyenne-Proper reflex k'' in 'tree-bark'. According to linguist Paul Proulx, this gave off the appearance that "speakers of both Cheyenne dialects—perhaps mixed bands—were involved in the Arapaho contact that led to this unusual reflex of PA *k.".
Lexicon
Some Cheyenne words (with the Proto-Algonquian reconstructions where known):
*''
ame'' 'grease' (from PA )
*''
he'e'' 'his liver' (from PA ')
*''
hē'e'' 'woman' (from PA ')
*''
hetane'' 'man' (from PA )
*''
matana'' 'milk' (from PA ')
Translation history
Early work was done on the Cheyenne language by Rodolphe Charles Petter, a
Mennonite
Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...
missionary based in
Lame Deer, Montana, from 1916. Petter published a mammoth dictionary of Cheyenne in 1915.
Current translations
Currently there are many online resources that allow for the instant translation from any language to the Cheyenne language. There are online vocabulary lists, pronunciation guides, dictionaries, etc. Along with these resources, there are numbers of published books regarding the history of the language that also explain its grammar. These resources can be found online or in libraries that carry these published books.
The latest edition of an online Cheyenne dictionary is accessible from cheyennelanguage.org.
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Cheyenne online dictionary maintained at
Chief Dull Knife CollegeModern Southern Cheyenne alphabet and pronunciation keyFREELANG Cheyenne-English and English-Cheyenne online dictionaryCheyenne language flashcardsat
Quizlet, based on
Cheyenne Language WebsiteMartin Luther's Small Catechism in CheyenneLomax Collection Recording of Cheyenne (1956), ConversationOLAC resources in and about the Cheyenne language
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cheyenne Language
Language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
Plains Algonquian languages
Indigenous languages of the North American Plains
Indigenous languages of Oklahoma
Indigenous languages of Montana
Agglutinative languages
Endangered languages of the United States
Tonal languages in non-tonal families