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Concept
Lakota language
Summary
Lakota (Lakȟótiyapi laˈkxɔtɪjapɪ), also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes. Lakota is mutually intelligible with the two dialects of the Dakota language, especially Western Dakota, and is one of the three major varieties of the Sioux language.
Speakers of the Lakota language make up one of the largest Native American language speech communities in the United States, with approximately 2,000 speakers, who live mostly in the northern plains states of North Dakota and South Dakota. Many communities have immersion programs for both children and adults.
The language was first put into written form by European American missionaries around 1840. The orthography has since evolved to reflect contemporary needs and usage.
The Lakota people's creation stories say that language originated from the creation of the tribe. Other creation stories say language was invented by Iktomi.
Lakota has five oral vowels, /i e a o u/, and three nasal vowels, /ĩ ã ũ/ (phonetically [ɪ̃ ə̃ ʊ̃]). Lakota /e/ and /o/ are said to be more open than the corresponding cardinal vowels, perhaps closer to [ɛ] and [ɔ]. Orthographically, the nasal vowels are written with a following , , or ; historically, these were written with ogoneks underneath, . No syllables end with consonantal /n/.
A neutral vowel (schwa) is automatically inserted between certain consonants, e.g. into the pairs , and . So the clan name written phonemically as has become the place name Ogallala.
The voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/ becomes a uvular trill ([ʀ]) before /i/ and in fast speech it is often realized as a voiced velar fricative [ɣ]. The voiceless aspirated plosives have two allophonic variants each: those with a delay in voicing ([ph th kh]), and those with velar friction ([px tx kx]), which occur before /a/, /ã/, /o/, /ĩ/, and /ũ/ (thus, lakhóta, /laˈkhota/ is phonetically [laˈkxota]). For some speakers, there is a phonemic distinction between the two, and both occur before /e/.
Official source
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Related concepts (12)
Dakota language
Dakota (Dakhód'iapi, Dakȟótiyapi), also referred to as Dakhóta, is a Siouan language spoken by the Dakota people of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, commonly known in English as the Sioux. Dakota is closely related to and mutually intelligible with the Lakota language, with much wider variation from Nakoda dialects. It is critically endangered, with only around 290 fluent speakers left out of an ethnic population of almost 250,000.
Dakota people
The Dakota (pronounced daˈkxota, Dakȟóta or Dakhóta) are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided into the Eastern Dakota and the Western Dakota. The four bands of Eastern Dakota are the Bdewákaŋthuŋwaŋ, Waȟpéthuŋwaŋ, Waȟpékhute, and Sisíthuŋwaŋ and are sometimes referred to as the Santee (Isáŋyathi or Isáŋ-athi; 'knife' + 'encampment', 'dwells at the place of knife flint'), who reside in the eastern Dakotas, central Minnesota and northern Iowa.
Sioux language
Sioux is a Siouan language spoken by over 30,000 Sioux in the United States and Canada, making it the fifth most spoken Indigenous language in the United States or Canada, behind Navajo, Cree, Inuit languages, and Ojibwe. Since 2019, "the language of the Great Sioux Nation, three dialects, Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota" is the official Indigenous language of South Dakota. Sioux has three major regional varieties, with other sub-varieties: Lakota ( Lakȟóta, Teton, Teton Sioux) Western Dakota (a.k.a.