księżycowy wrote:As in, am I doing either?
Hildakojon wrote:Well, I meant about the difficulty of those two, but that was still an informative post, so thank you.
Koyukon and Lenape are pretty cool, I'm looking into them. What your thoughts on Koyukon?
księżycowy wrote:Where as I'm not really an expert or anything, I might still be able to help some.
If I'm not mistaken, poly-synthetic means that 'words' are made up of different grammatical parts, right? Like having a noun or verb stem and then having a few prefixes and suffixes?
If I'm right, take your pick!
Many Native American languages are poly-synthetic to my knowledge.
As far as one that doesn't have tones, or doesn't have a large phonetic inventory . . .
Well the Iroquoian, Uto-Aztecan and Algonquian languages (to my knowledge) don't generally have large phonetic inventories. Generally they have only a handful of consonants, vowels can be a little more numerous, but still not that bad in my experience.
If you're just starting off in N.A. languages, I'd be wary or Navajo and similar languages (Athabascan). The grammar of the verbs can be difficult (though not impossible) to understand. Just a suggestion.
Oh, and most of the languages you (and I) mentioned don't have tones. Only Navajo does, but only high and low tones, so even Navajo isn't too bad with the tones.
Hope that helps some . . .
Maybe someone like Formiko or Nero can help out a little more.
księżycowy wrote:Yes indeed, though I've always put it simply, Navajo does have contour tones. But they are still made out of the two basic tones.
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