Kansa is a Siouan language of the Dhegihan group once spoken by the Kaw people of

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...

. Vice President Charles Curtis spoke Kansa as a child. The last mother-tongue speaker, Ralph Pepper, died in June 1982.

Classification

Kansa is a Dhegiha Siouan language, a broader category containing other languages such as Quapaw, Omaha, Ponca and Osage. This group of languages falls under Mississippi Valley Siouan, which is grouped under the largest category of The Siouan Language Family.

History

The speakers of Kansa, known as the Kaw people, lived together with the Siouan-speakers in a united nation known as the Dhegiha Siouan group. This group was originally situated north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River and then moved west down the Ohio River. After this migration, the Dhegiha Siouan group split into five subgroups or tribes that were known as the Poncas, Osages, Omahas, Quapaws and the Kaws. Later on the Kaw migrated west of Missouri river and were called the "People of the Southwind." The languages of the 5 tribes originating from the single Dhegiha group are extremely similar and have been considered as dialects of each other.

Geographic distribution

The language was only spoken in Kansas and is no longer spoken natively since all of the speakers have died. Members of the tribe now use English, but some are able to understand certain phrases or words in the language. There are, however,

language revitalization Language revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, o ...

efforts ongoing.

Scholarship and resources

Pioneering anthropologist and linguist James Owen Dorsey collected 604 Kansa words in the 1880s and also made about 25,000 entries in a Kansa-English dictionary which has never been published. Dorsey also collected 24 myths, historical accounts, and personal letters from nine Kansa speakers. In 1974, linguist Robert L. Rankin met Walter Kekahbah (d. 1979), Ralph Pepper (d. 1982), and Maud McCauley Rowe (d. 1977), the last surviving native speakers of Kansa. Rankin made extensive recordings of all three, especially Rowe, and his work over the next 31 years documented the language and helped the Kaw Nation to develop language learning materials.Ranney, Dave. “Researchers try to preserve Indian languages.”
accessed 12 Apr 2011

Phonology

Kansa has 29 consonants and 8 vowels. /ɛ/ is

phonetically 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. ...

open-mid An open-mid vowel (also mid-open vowel, low-mid vowel, mid-low vowel or half-open vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned one third ...

, whereas /o/ is phonetically

close-mid A close-mid vowel (also mid-close vowel, high-mid vowel, mid-high vowel or half-close vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned one th ...

. Additionally, /a/ and /o/ can also be pronounced as �and respectively.

Grammar

Kansa does not use tenses or a plural of a noun. Unlike English, they position the verb at the end of a sentence and the verb contains details about who or what performs and receives the action. For example, ni ''kóⁿbla'' means "Water, I want it." Also, a word like ''síⁿga'' can mean "squirrel" or "squirrels."

Vocabulary

The Kansa language has a lot of words similar to the other tribes originated from the Dhegiha Siouan group. The following table lists compares cognates in Kansa and Osage:

Language revitalization

As of 2012, the Kaw Nation offers online language learning for Kansa second language speakers. The 2nd Annual Dhegiha Gathering in 2012 brought Kansa, Quapaw,

Osage The Osage Nation, a Native American tribe in the United States, is the source of most other terms containing the word "osage". Osage can also refer to: * Osage language, a Dhaegin language traditionally spoken by the Osage Nation * Osage (Unicode b ...

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest city ...

and

Ponca The Ponca ( Páⁿka iyé: Páⁿka or Ppáⁿkka pronounced ) are a Midwestern Native American tribe of the Dhegihan branch of the Siouan language group. There are two federally recognized Ponca tribes: the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the Ponca ...

speakers together to share best practices in language revitalization.

References

External links

Kansa language at the Kaw Nation
(extensive online language study resources and texts)

OLAC resources in and about the Kansa language

English to Kansa Dictionary

Kanza Language for Families and Communities

Examining the Development of Kaw Writing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kansa Language Kaw tribe Indigenous languages of Oklahoma Western Siouan languages Languages extinct in the 1980s Native American language revitalization