Omaha–Ponca is a

Siouan language Siouan or Siouan–Catawban is a language family of North America that is located primarily in the Great Plains, Ohio and Mississippi valleys and southeastern North America with a few other languages in the east. Name Authors who call the entire ...

spoken by the Omaha (''Umoⁿhoⁿ'') people of

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...

and the

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 ...

(''Paⁿka'') people of Oklahoma and

. The two dialects differ minimally but are considered distinct languages by their speakers.

Use and revitalization efforts

There are today only 60 speakers of Omaha, and 12 fluent speakers, all over 70; and a handful of semi-fluent speakers of Ponca. The

University of Nebraska A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...

offers classes in the Omaha language, and its Omaha Language Curriculum Development Project (OLCDP) provides Internet-based materials for learning the language. A February 2015 article gives the number of fluent speakers as 12, all over age 70, which includes two qualified teachers; the Tribal Council estimates about 150 people have some ability in the language. The language is taught at the Umónhon Nation Public School. An Omaha Basic iPhone app has been developed by the Omaha Nation Public Schools (UNPS) and the Omaha Language Cultural Center (ULCC). Members of the Osage Nation of Oklahoma have expressed an interest in partnerships to use the language as a basis of revitalizing the

Osage language Osage (; Osage: ''Wažáže ie'') is a Siouan language that is spoken by the Osage people of Oklahoma. Their original territory was in present-day Missouri and Kansas but they were gradually pushed west by European-American pressure and treati ...

, which is similar. Louis Headman edited a dictionary of the Ponca People, published by the

University of Nebraska Press The University of Nebraska Press, also known as UNP, was founded in 1941 and is an academic publisher of scholarly and general-interest books. The press is under the auspices of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the main campus of the Unive ...

Phonology

Consonants

One consonant, sometimes written ''l'' or ''th,'' is a velarized lateral approximant with

interdental Interdental consonants are produced by placing the tip of the tongue between the upper and lower front teeth. That differs from dental consonants, which are articulated with the tongue against the ''back'' of the upper incisors. No language is kn ...

release, , found for example in ''ní btháska'' "flat water" (

Platte River The Platte River () is a major river in the State of Nebraska. It is about long; measured to its farthest source via its tributary, the North Platte River, it flows for over . The Platte River is a tributary of the Missouri River, which itsel ...

), the source of the name

. It varies freely from to a light , and derives historically from Siouan *r. Initial consonant clusters include approximates, as in and . Consonants are written as in the IPA in school programs, apart from the alveopalatals ''j, ch, chʰ, zh, sh, shʼ'', the glottal stop ''’'', the voiced velar fricative ''gh'', and the dental approximant ''th''. Historically, this ''th'' has also been written ''dh, ð, ¢'', and the ''sh'' and ''x'' as ''c'' and ''q''; the tenuis stops ''p t ch k'' have either been written upside-down or double (''pp, kk,'' etc.). These latter unusual conventions serve to distinguish these sounds from the ''p t ch k'' of other Siouan languages, which are not specified for voicing and so may sound like either Omaha–Ponca ''p t ch k'' or ''b d j g''. The letters ''f, l, q, r, v'' are not used in writing Omaha-Ponca.

Vowels

The simple vowels are , plus a few words with in men's speech. The letter ‘o’ is phonemically /au/, and phonetically �w There are two or three nasal vowels, depending on the variety. In the Omaha and Ponca Dhegiha dialects *õ and *ã have merged unconditionally as , which may range across and is written in Omaha and in Ponca. The close front nasal vowel remains distinct. Nasalized vowels are fairly new to the Ponca language. Assimilation has taken place leftward, as opposed to right to left, from nasalized consonants over time. "Originally when the vowel was oral, it nasalized the consonant and a nasalized vowel never followed suit, instead, the nasalized vowel came to preceded it"; though this is not true for the Omaha, or its 'mother' language." Omaha/Ponca is a tonal language that utilizes

downstep Downstep is a phenomenon in tone languages in which if two syllables have the same tone (for example, both with a high tone or both with a low tone), the second syllable is lower in pitch than the first. Two main kinds of downstep can be distin ...

(accent) or a lowering process that applies to the second of two high-tone syllables. A downstepped high tone would be slightly lower than the preceding high tone.”: ''wathátʰe'' "food", ''wáthatʰe'' "table". Vowel length is distinctive in accented syllables, though it is often not written: "heart", "(inside) wall". Omaha-Ponca is a daughter language to the Siouan mother language, but has developed some of its own rules for nasalization and aspiration. What were once allophones in Proto-Siouan have become phonemes in the Omaha–Ponca language. Many contrasts in the Omaha/Ponca language are unfamiliar to speakers of English. Below are examples of

minimal pair In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate ...

s for some sounds which in English would be considered allophones, but in Omaha/Ponca constitute different phonemes: In many languages nasalization of vowels would be a part of assimilation to the next consonant, but Omaha/Ponca is different because it is always assimilating. For example: iⁿdáthiⁿga, meaning mysterious, moves from a nasalized /i/ to an alveolar, stop. Same thing happens with the word iⁿshte, meaning, for example, has the nasalized /i/ which does not assimilate to another nasal. It changes completely to an alveolar fricative.

Morphology

Omaha Ponca language adds endings to its definite articles to indicate animacy, number, position and number. Ponca definite articles indicate animacy, position and number

Syntax

Omaha-Ponca's syntactic type is subject-object-verb.Syntax
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Notes

References

* Boas, Franz
"Notes on the Ponka grammar"
''Congrès international des américanistes'', Proceedings 2:217-37. * Dorsey, James Owen.
Omaha and Ponka Letters
'' Washington: Government Printing Office, 1891 * Dorsey, James Owen.
The Cegiha Language
'' Washington: Government Printing Office. 1890 * Dorsey, Rev. J. Owen
Omaha Sociology
'' Washington: Smithsonian, Bureau of American Ethnology, Report No. 3, 1892–1893

External links

native-language.org * . Extensive language learning materials, including audio.
Omaha Ponca dictionary

OLAC resources in and about the Omaha-Ponca language Chairman Elmer Blackbird Delivers Introduction (in Omaha-Ponca)
.mp3
Ponca Hymns sung by the congregation of White Eagle United Methodist Church
{{DEFAULTSORT:Omaha-Ponca language Omaha (Native American) people Ponca Subject–object–verb languages Indigenous languages of Oklahoma Western Siouan languages