Cheyenne (, , informal spelling ) is an indigenous language of North America, spoken mainly in present-day Montana and Oklahoma, in the United States. It is a member of the Algonquian language family, and named for the Cheyenne peoples, who are native to the Great Plains of the United States.
Cheyenne is an endangered language. The endangerment is primarily a result of the English being the most spoken language in the world, due to the global influences of the post-British Empire Anglophilic world and the United States.
Like all other Algonquian languages, it has a complex agglutination and polysynthetic morphology. Cheyenne is either the first language, or the second language, for approximately 789 individuals in the United States.
Classification Cheyenne is one of the Algonquian languages, which is a subcategory of the Algic languages. Specifically, it is a Plains Algonquian language. Although, Plains Algonquian, which also includes Arapaho and Blackfoot, is an areal rather than genetic subgrouping. Name Tsétsėhéstȧhese (more commonly as the Tsitsistas; singular: Tsétsėhéstaestse) is the word the Cheyenne called themselves, which translates to "those who are like this". The Suhtai, also called the Só'taeo'o, Só'taétaneo'o, Sutaio (singular: Só'taétane) traveled with the Tsétsêhéstâhese and merged with them after 1832. The Suhtai had slightly different speech and customs from the Tsétsėhéstȧhese.
Geographic distribution
Cheyenne is spoken on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana and in Oklahoma. 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" in Montana and "critically endangered" in Oklahoma by the UNESCO. 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 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 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 raised high tone as in . Tones are often not represented in the orthography. Vowels can also be voiceless (e.g. ).Linguist Wayne Leman included one more variant in his 1981 article on Cheyenne pitch rules, a lowered-high pitch (e.g. à), but has since recognized that this posited pitch is the same as a low tone. The high and low tones are phonemic, while voiceless vowels' occurrence is determined by the phonetic context, making them allophones of the voiced vowels.
+ VowelsFrontCentralBackMid Low
Consonants The phoneme is realized as in the environment between and (h > s / e _ t). is realized as between and (h > ʃ / e _ k) i.e. – 'my daughter', – '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 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 which is pronounced when it precedes a morpheme which starts with .
+ ConsonantsBilabialDentalPost-alveolarVelarGlottalNasal Plosive Fricative ()
Orthography The Cheyenne orthography of 14 letters is neither a pure phonemic system nor a phonetic transcription; it is, in the words of linguist Wayne Leman, a "pronunciation orthography". 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 – 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']
ʔ h a o e m n p k t v s š x oral − (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) + + + (+) (+) (+) (+) voc (−) + (+) (+) (+) (−) (−) (−) (−) (−) − − − − syl (−) − + + + (−) (−) (−) (−) (−) (−) (−) (−) (−) clos (+) (−) (−) (−) (−) (+) (+) + + + − − − − nas 0 (−) (−) (−) (−) + + − (−) − (−) (−) (−) (−) grv 0 − + (−) + − + + − + − − + dif 0 − − + + (+) + − (+) + + − −
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 [e] 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