Picuris (also Picurís) is a language of the

Northern Tiwa The Taos language of the Tiwa languages, Northern Tiwa branch of the Tanoan language family is spoken in Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. Sociolinguistics In data collected in 1935 and 1937, George L. Trager (1946) notes that Taos was spoken by all mem ...

branch of

Tanoan Tanoan , also Kiowa–Tanoan or Tanoan–Kiowa, is a family of languages spoken by indigenous peoples in present-day New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Most of the languages – Tiwa (Taos, Picuris, Southern Tiwa), Tewa, and Towa – a ...

spoken in

Picuris Pueblo Picuris Pueblo (; Tiwa: P'įwweltha ’ī̃wːēltʰà is a historic pueblo in Taos County, New Mexico, United States. It is also a census-designated place (CDP) and a federally recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people. The 2010 censu ...

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

Genealogical relations

Picuris is partially

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

with

Taos dialect The Taos language of the Northern Tiwa branch of the Tanoan language family is spoken in Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. Sociolinguistics In data collected in 1935 and 1937, George L. Trager (1946) notes that Taos was spoken by all members of the Tao ...

, spoken at Taos Pueblo. It is slightly more distantly related to Southern Tiwa (spoken at

Isleta Pueblo Pueblo of Isleta ( tix, Shiewhibak , kjq, Dîiw'a'ane ; nv, Naatoohó ) is an unincorporated community and Tanoan pueblo in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United States, originally established in the . The Southern Tiwa name of the pueblo ...

and Sandia Pueblo).

Phonology

: * The consonants are only found in recent Spanish loanwords. * G. Trager (1942, 1943) analyzed Picuris as also having aspirated stops , ejective stops , and labialized . These are considered by F. Trager (1971) to be sequences of , , and . * Velar has strong frication. * Stops are unaspirated while may be slightly aspirated. * The

affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. ...

freely varies with a more forward articulation : for example, F. Trager recorded the word "witch" with an initial but the related word "witch chief" with initial .F. Trager does not give further details about whether the forward articulation is dental or alveolar. If Picuris is like Taos, then the most forward articulation would be alveolar. G. Trager states that the articulation is consistently post-alveolar (and does not mention free variation). * The sequence is only found in a single word . * Alveolar has an assimilated velar variant when it precedes labio-velar . * Nasal in a low-toned syllable is partially devoiced and denasalized before a glottal stop , as in "

chokecherry ''Prunus virginiana'', commonly called bitter-berry, chokecherry, Virginia bird cherry, and western chokecherry (also black chokecherry for ''P. virginiana'' var. ''demissa''), is a species of bird cherry (''Prunus'' subgenus ''Padus'') nat ...

" which is phonetically . * Fricative freely varies between a lateral fricative and a central-lateral fricative sequence * Lateral is palatalized before the high front vowel . * Only the

sonorant In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are ...

s can occur in

syllable coda A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of Phone (phonetics), speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered t ...

position.

Vowels

Picuris has 6 vowels. Picuris also has nasalized counterparts for each vowel. : Picuris has three degrees of stress: ''primary'', ''secondary'', and ''unstressed''. Stress affects the phonetic length of

syllable rime A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...

s (lengthening the vowel or the syllable-final sonorant consonant). Additionally, there are three tones: ''high'', ''mid'', and ''low'' — the mid tone being the most frequent.

Text

Two sentences with

interlinear In linguistics and pedagogy, an interlinear gloss is a gloss (series of brief explanations, such as definitions or pronunciations) placed between lines, such as between a line of original text and its translation into another language. When gloss ...

glosses: : :

Notes

Bibliography

* Harrington, John P.; & Roberts, Helen. (1928). Picuris children's stories with texts and songs. ''Bureau of American Ethnology: Annual report'', ''43'', 289-447. * Nichols, Lynn. (1994). Vowel copy and stress in Northern Tiwa (Picurís and Taos). In S. Epstein et al. (Eds.), ''Harvard working papers in linguistics'' (Vol. 4, pp. 133–140). * Nichols, Lynn. (1995). Referential hierarchies and C-command in Picurís. In S. Epstein et al. (Eds.), ''Harvard working papers in linguistics'' (Vol. 45, pp. 76–92). * Trager, Felicia. (1968). ''Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico: An ethnolinguistic "salvage" study''. (Doctoral dissertation, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY). * Trager, Felicia. (1971). The phonology of Picuris. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''37'', 29-33. * Trager, Felicia. (1975). Morphemic change in Picuris: A case of culture contact? ''Studies in Linguistics'', ''25'', 89-93. * Trager, George L. (1942). The historical phonology of the Tiwa languages. ''Studies in Linguistics'', ''1'' (5), 1-10. * Trager, George L. (1943). The kinship and status terms of the Tiwa languages. ''American Anthropologist'', ''45'' (1), 557-571. * Trager, George L. (1969). Taos and Picuris: How long separated?. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''35'' (2), 180-182. * Zaharlick, Ann Marie (Amy). (1975). Pronominal reference in Picurís. ''Studies in Linguistics'', ''25'', 79-88. * Zaharlick, Ann Marie (Amy). (1977). ''Picurís syntax''. (Doctoral dissertation, American University). * Zaharlick, Ann Marie (Amy). (1979). Picuris and English: Similarities and differences. In R. J. Rebert (Ed.), ''Language descriptions from Indian New Mexico'' (pp. 20–51). Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico, American Indian Bilingual Education Center, pp. * Zaharlick, Ann Marie (Amy). (1980). An outline of Picuris syntax. ''Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences'', ''345'', 147-163. * Zaharlick, Ann Marie (Amy). (1981). A preliminary examination of tone in Picuris. Special Issue: Native Languages of the Americas. ''Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest'', ''4'' (2), 123-129. * Zaharlick, Ann Marie (Amy). (1982). Tanoan studies: Passive sentences in Picuris. ''Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics'', ''26'', 34-48.

External links

Stress, length, and moraic trochees in Northern Tiwa Picurís
{{DEFAULTSORT:Picuris Language Tanoan languages Indigenous languages of New Mexico Indigenous languages of the Southwestern United States Indigenous languages of the North American Southwest