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Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2008-12-10, 4:02
by ILuvEire
I personally love Australian Aboriginal languages! For me, it's all about grammar, not history (although it's an added bonus). I'm a huge Polynesian lover, especially Maaori and Hawai`ian (although Hawai`ian isn't spoken in Australia.)

Sorry, I just figured I'd add that in there. :)

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2008-12-10, 7:30
by Formiko
ILuvEire wrote:I personally love Australian Aboriginal languages! For me, it's all about grammar, not history (although it's an added bonus). I'm a huge Polynesian lover, especially Maaori and Hawai`ian (although Hawai`ian isn't spoken in Australia.)

Sorry, I just figured I'd add that in there. :)


Unfortunately, Australian aboriginal languages aren't related to Polynesian at all! Maori is just oddly spoken in Kiwi...the major language family is Pama....
Here is a lonk:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous ... _languages

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2008-12-10, 15:00
by Karavinka
1. Civilisation involves construction of cities.
2. A city supports a group of people not directly engaged in food production.
3. If a city is to exist, there must be an excess food production which can support the city.
※ Food surplus, Agrarian revolution is a prerequisite of civilisation.

1. Food surplus is achieved by farming.
2. In order to start farming, cereal crops must be present in the area.
3. No known cereal crop that can be cultivated is native in Australia.
※ The geography did not allow Australians to begin a civilisation.

In the Levant, we found wheat. In China, rice. In America, maize. We cannot build empires unless we have the sufficient conditions. It's not THEM, but the LAND.

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2008-12-10, 15:13
by loqu
Formiko wrote:
ILuvEire wrote:I personally love Australian Aboriginal languages! For me, it's all about grammar, not history (although it's an added bonus). I'm a huge Polynesian lover, especially Maaori and Hawai`ian (although Hawai`ian isn't spoken in Australia.)

Sorry, I just figured I'd add that in there. :)


Unfortunately, Australian aboriginal languages aren't related to Polynesian at all! Maori is just oddly spoken in Kiwi...the major language family is Pama....
Here is a lonk:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous ... _languages


Thunks for the lonk.

OK, now seriously, I did find the link really interesting. I had never heard of those mother-in-law languages before.

Re: ᐊᓂᐦᔑᓈᐯᒧᐏᐣ

Posted: 2008-12-11, 5:54
by Łukasz
Formiko wrote:You're going to make me get my Ojibwe dictionaries out of storage, aren't you? :hmm:


Definitely. I have mine. 8-) ᑭᐑᐊᓂᐦᔑᓈᐯᒼ ᐃᓇ?

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2008-12-11, 6:20
by TaylorS
Ack! the Ojibwe script isn't showing for me. :(

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2008-12-11, 16:55
by Formiko
TaylorS wrote:Ack! the Ojibwe script isn't showing for me. :(


Get this unicode font..it has the most scripts I have seen yet.
http://www.code2000.net/

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2008-12-11, 20:11
by TaylorS
Formiko wrote:
TaylorS wrote:Ack! the Ojibwe script isn't showing for me. :(


Get this unicode font..it has the most scripts I have seen yet.
http://www.code2000.net/


THANK YOU! :D

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2008-12-12, 16:48
by Łukasz
Here's something if you want to type those things. :)

http://www.languagegeek.com/algon/sylla ... oc_na.html

ᑯᒋᒪᓯᓇᐦᐃᑫᐣ᙮

ᐊᓂᐦᔑᓈᐯᒧᐏᐣ

Posted: 2008-12-12, 22:42
by Łukasz
Hmm, why doesn't the Anishinaabe language have it's own forum? :hmm:

Re:

Posted: 2009-01-27, 10:18
by Tukkumminnguaq
Nero wrote:About Agglunation:
English: I truly don't pronounce Cheyenne well: (6 words)
Cheyenne: náohkêsáa'oné'seómepêhévetsêhésto'anéhe (1 word)
)


náohkêsáa'oné'seómepêhévetsêhésto'anéhe (36 letters and 1 word)

Inuit would say:

Inuktituusuungutsialaarungnanngittuaraaluuvunga (48 letters and 1 word)
Inuktituusuungu-tsia-laaq-rungnanngit-tuaraaluk-vunga (6:1 ratio)
(Inuktitut-well-pronounce-dont-truly-I)

Inuktitut has not free order OVS with compound sentence and free order is SOV

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2009-01-27, 10:33
by nighean-neonach
Oh, I recognize the "-vunga" ending from Greenlandic there :)

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2009-01-27, 11:28
by Tukkumminnguaq
nighean-neonach wrote:Oh, I recognize the "-vunga" ending from Greenlandic there :)


Yes, but We use that too, -vunga means present/future, if past it would be '-tunga, -yunga

After a, u, i to -vunga and -yunga (-junga)
After k to -punga, and -tunga
After q to -punga and -tunga
After t to -punga and -tunga

example;

I am sleep
Sinikpunga

I was sleep
Siniktunga

something like that

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2009-02-02, 8:29
by Fiona S.
At my local college they teach Lushotseed (I think that's how it's spelled). They have a beginner year long course and an advanced year long course. It seems pretty interesting... Does anyone know anything about this native american language? All I know is that it is native around Washington state.

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2009-02-02, 8:49
by Formiko
Ayasha wrote:At my local college they teach Lushotseed (I think that's how it's spelled). They have a beginner year long course and an advanced year long course. It seems pretty interesting... Does anyone know anything about this native american language? All I know is that it is native around Washington state.


xʷəlšucid! A Salish language! Definitely the weirdest languages in the world! If you are studying linguistics i would DEFINITELY take that! It puts the South African click languages and Caucasian languages to shame! :)

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2009-02-02, 9:23
by Fiona S.
I'm definately thinking of it... it seems interesting... not sure if I could take it before I transfer to my 4 year university next September, but it might be on the top of my agenda for when I come back. I would like to learn at least one Native American language, and we actually have some people use this language around here (I am surrounded by reservations here).

Are there any resources you know of that might give me an idea of what this language is about? Thanks!

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2009-02-02, 9:35
by Formiko
Ayasha wrote:I'm definately thinking of it... it seems interesting... not sure if I could take it before I transfer to my 4 year university next September, but it might be on the top of my agenda for when I come back. I would like to learn at least one Native American language, and we actually have some people use this language around here (I am surrounded by reservations here).

Are there any resources you know of that might give me an idea of what this language is about? Thanks!


http://www.lingtechcomm.unt.edu/~montler/Klallam/
http://www.native-languages.org/famsal.htm

All Salish languages are similar, so most of those links will help you out.

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2009-02-02, 9:45
by Fiona S.
Thank you very much. =D

I'll definately check those links out.

Re: Re:

Posted: 2009-02-02, 13:11
by Mutusen
Amaqqut wrote:
Nero wrote:About Agglunation:
English: I truly don't pronounce Cheyenne well: (6 words)
Cheyenne: náohkêsáa'oné'seómepêhévetsêhésto'anéhe (1 word)
)


náohkêsáa'oné'seómepêhévetsêhésto'anéhe (36 letters and 1 word)

Inuit would say:

Inuktituusuungutsialaarungnanngittuaraaluuvunga (48 letters and 1 word)
Inuktituusuungu-tsia-laaq-rungnanngit-tuaraaluk-vunga (6:1 ratio)
(Inuktitut-well-pronounce-dont-truly-I)

Inuktitut has not free order OVS with compound sentence and free order is SOV


But what is a word? Couldn't we say that this sentence is composed of several word, except the fact that they are written without spaces between them?

Re: Native American Languages

Posted: 2009-02-02, 13:17
by Quetzalcoatl
I think the two languages which the most alive native speakers are Quechua and Nahuatl, and luckily they are not going to die out like most other Native American languages.

Although there are about a million different language families, the phonologies of most languages share some interesting features...

- most NA languages have ejective consonants
- most NA languages have two or three plosive sequences (for example voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, voiceless ejective like in Quechua)
- most NA languages do not have more than 3 to 5 different vowels in their vowel inventories (phonemic length and nasalisation not counted), for example Lakota has a i u which can be short, long or be nasal (therefor 9 phonemes but 3 vowels x 3 modifications)
- the syllable structure of most NA languages is rather simple: CV(C), there are not many language families with big consonant clusters (one exception is for example Salish I think)


All in all I love the sound of NA languages...