Indigenous American language archive, the weekly magazine

Ray Cambell

May 2016 Sioux Languages

The Siouxan languages are a widely spread family in the United States. The Dakota and
Lakota languages are in the Western Sioux group, and collectively known as The Sioux
Language. Lakota and Dakota are distinguished by a few sound changes and spoken by
different groups of Sioux. Lakota spelling is standardized in some places but both languages
have different spelling from user to user and group to group. The Dakota Sioux spelling
comes from the book Tokaheya Dakota Iapi Kin – beginning Dakota, by Nicolette Knudson,
Jody Snow and Clifford Canku. All words in this magazine were taught from natives unless
otherwise stated.

The words underneath are from Lakota Sioux. The standard comes from The New Lakota
Dictionary, and is used in various colleges and reservations.
šuŋgmánitu tȟáŋka – wolf, čhúŋwaŋča – forest, šúŋka – dog, zuzéča – snake, waŋblí –
eagle, wanáp’iŋ – necklace, hoǧáŋ - fish, mní – water, ȟé – mountain, makȟá – earth,
wíŋyaŋ – woman, iǧúǧa – cave, wá – snow, čheží – tongue, waglúla – worm, maȟpíya – sky.
Some of the Sioux words contain ancient world vocabulary which can be found in other
languages around the world, like su – seed and waglúla – worm 'wiggle', ma´ġa – field.
These words don't indicate any special connections as all languages contain some common
words, Sioux languages constitute a widely spread family with no certain connections to
other Indigenous American languages, but they share some words in common with other
Indigenous American languages because of the ancient initial settlement. According to
Indigenous American lore, many indigenous peoples never came from anywhere outside of
America, it is a mainly western and foreign ideology which perpetuates the idea that
indigenous people had to be from somewhere else. We should start to consider that
indigenous people are from their place of residence rather than drawing linguistic and
anthropological comparisons to Europe and Asia in an attempt to explain their origins.
Lakota vowels are a, e, i, o, u which have nasal forms written aŋ, eŋ, iŋ, oŋ, uŋ. Pitch accent
is marked using an acute accent.
Many sounds are more or less the same as the English, ȟ is [χ], ǧ is [ʁ] the uvular r, which
varies with [ʀ] and [ɣ]. č [tʃ] with the aspirated form čh [tʃʰ], š [ʃ], ž [ʒ]. Other aspirated
consonants are kȟ [kˣ], pȟ [pˣ], tȟ [tˣ]. Ejective consonants are č’ [tʃʼ], k’ [kʼ], p’ [pʼ], s’ [sʼ], š’
[ʃʼ], t’ [tʼ]. b, g, h, k, l, m, n, p, s, t, w, y are the same as the English approximately, with w
and y as semivowels.
Pronouns rarely stand alone in Lakota, but can be seen from verb infliction, which depends
on whether or not a verb is transitive, active or stative.
In stative and transitive verbs, the first and second person singular pronouns are ma- and
ni-, in active verbs wa- and ya-. The third person singular is always unmarked. In the first
person plural, uŋ(k)- and -pi are added to the start and end of the verb respectively in all
types of verb. For the second person plural, ni- and -pi are added in stative and transitive
verbs, where ya- and -pi are added to active verbs. The 3rd person plural adds -pi in active
and stative verbs, but -wicha- in transitive verbs.
táku eníčiyapi he? - what is your name?
... emáčiyapi – my name is…
tókheškhe yaúŋ he? - How are you?
wašté – good
híŋhaŋni wašté - good morning
Dakota can be split into Eastern and Western dialects.

Dakota numbers: waŋ´ca, noŋ´pi, ya´mni, to´pa, za´ptaŋ, ŝa´kpe, ŝakowiŋ, ŝahdoġaŋ,
napciŋwaŋka, wikcemna.
mna´ża – lion, aŋpetu – day, þo – mist, pte – cow, su – seed, matuska – crab, hoġaŋ – fish,
mni – water, pa – head, wi – sun, wi´tka – egg, wo´ksape – wisdom, maka – earth, ma´ġa –
field, zuzuhecedaŋ – snake, ŝuŋgmanitu – wolf, ŝuŋciŋca – young wolf, ŝuŋ´ka – general
word for dog, wakaŋ – sacred, wanaþiŋ – necklace.
Dakota differs from Lakota through the common replacement of l with d and other sound
changes. Differences are often more sociolinguistic. Dakota spelling differs, where þ is used
for Lakota p’, c is used for č and ĉ for čh.
Sioux distinguishes between female and male speakers, in Dakota 'I am fine' is taŋyaŋ wauŋ
do or taŋyaŋ wauŋ ye.

Other Siouxan languages

Many of the Western Sioux languages, like Ofo, Biloxi and Osage are now extinct. The Ofo
language contained unusual aspirated consonants like fʰ and sʰ. The first person singular
pronoun was míti,̃ the second person singular was číti.
̃ Unfortunately, the Ofo language was
not fully recorded.
The numbers are nû'fha, nu'pha, ta'ni, to'pa, kifan, akapĕ', fa'kumĭ, pa'tanĭ, kĭ'ctacga,
ĭftaptan'.

These articles will eventually be put together into an ebook.