Tanoan languages explained

Tanoan
Also Known As:	Kiowa–Tanoan
Region:	central North America
Familycolor:	American
Family:	One of the world's primary language families
Glotto:	kiow1265
Glottorefname:	Kiowa–Tanoan
Lingua:	64-C
Child4:	Kiowa
Child1:	Tiwa
Child2:	Tewa
Child3:	Towa
Map:	Tanoan map.svg
Mapcaption:	Distribution of Tanoan languages before European contact. The Pueblo languages are at the left; the nomadic Kiowa at right.
Speakers:	~5,625

Tanoan, also Kiowa–Tanoan or Tanoan–Kiowa, is a family of languages spoken by indigenous peoples in present-day New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Most of the languages – Tiwa (Taos, Picuris, Southern Tiwa), Tewa, and Towa – are spoken in the Native American Pueblos of New Mexico (with one outlier in Arizona). These were the first languages collectively given the name of Tanoan. Kiowa, which is a related language, is now spoken mostly in southwestern Oklahoma. The Kiowa historically inhabited areas of modern-day Texas and Oklahoma.

Languages

The Tanoan language family has seven languages in four branches:

Kiowa–Towa might form an intermediate branch, as might Tiwa–Tewa.

Name

Tanoan has long been recognized as a major family of Pueblo languages, consisting of Tiwa, Tewa, and Towa. The inclusion of Kiowa into the family was at first controversial given the cultural differences between those groups. The once-nomadic Kiowa people of the Plains are culturally quite distinct from the Tiwa, Tewa, and Towa pueblos, which obscured somewhat the linguistic connection between Tanoans and Kiowans. Linguists now accept that a Tanoan family without Kiowa would be paraphyletic, as any ancestor of the Pueblo languages would be ancestral to Kiowa as well. Kiowa may be closer to Towa than Towa is to Tiwa–Tewa. In older texts, Tanoan and Kiowa–Tanoan were used interchangeably. Because of the cultural use of the name Tanoan as signifying several peoples who share a culture, the more explicit term Kiowa–Tanoan is now commonly used for the language family as a whole, with Tanoan being the branch that contains the languages now spoken in New Mexico and Arizona (i.e. Arizona Tewa).

The prehistory of the Kiowa people is little known. As a result, the history is obscure about the separation of the members of this language family into two groups ('Puebloan' and 'Plains') with radically distinct lifestyles. There is apparently no oral tradition of any ancient connection between the peoples. Scholars have not determined when the peoples were connected so that the common linguistic elements could have developed. The earliest traditions and historical notices of the Kiowa record them migrating from the north and west, to the territory now associated with the tribal nation. Today this area is within the modern states of Texas and Oklahoma, which they occupied from the late 18th century.

Historical phonology

The chart below^[1] contains the consonants of the Tanoan proto-language as reconstructed by Hale (1967) based on consonant correspondences in stem-initial position.

		Labial	Apical	Apical Fricated	Velar	Velar Labial	Glottal
Plosive	voiced	pronounced as / b /	pronounced as / d /	pronounced as / dz /	pronounced as /(*ɡ)/	pronounced as / ɡʷ /
	plain	pronounced as / p /	pronounced as / t /	pronounced as / ts /	pronounced as / k /	pronounced as / kʷ /
	glottalized	pronounced as / pʼ /	pronounced as / tʼ /	pronounced as / tsʼ /	pronounced as / kʼ /	pronounced as / kʷʼ /	pronounced as / ʔ /
	aspirated	pronounced as / pʰ /	pronounced as / tʰ /	pronounced as / tsʰ /	pronounced as / kʰ /	pronounced as / kʷʰ /
Nasal		pronounced as / m /	pronounced as / n /
Fricative				pronounced as / s /			pronounced as / h /
Glide						pronounced as / w /

The evidence for pronounced as /

/ comes from prefixes; pronounced as /
ɡ

/ has not been found in stem-initial position and thus is in parentheses above. Hale reconstructs the nasalization feature for nasal vowels. Vowel quality and prosodic features like vowel length, tone, and stress have not yet been reconstructed for the Tanoan family. Hale (1967) gives certain sets of vowel quality correspondences.

The following table illustrates the reconstructed initial consonants in Proto-Tanoan and its reflexes in the daughter languages.

Initial consonants in proto-language and daughter languages! rowspan="2"
consonant	Tiwa	Tewa	Towa	Kiowa	environment		Tiwa	Tewa	Towa	Kiowa
Proto-Tanoan	Tiwa	Tewa	Towa	Kiowa	Proto-Tanoan		Tiwa	Tewa	Towa	Kiowa
pronounced as / h /	pronounced as /h/	pronounced as /h/	∅ ^[2]	pronounced as /h/	pronounced as / dz /		pronounced as /j/	pronounced as /j, dʒ/	pronounced as /z/	pronounced as /d/
pronounced as / ʔ /	pronounced as /ʔ/	pronounced as /ʔ/	pronounced as /ʔ/	∅	pronounced as / d /	before oral vowel	pronounced as /l/	pronounced as /d/	pronounced as /d/
pronounced as / p /	pronounced as /p/	pronounced as /p/	pronounced as /p/	pronounced as /p/	pronounced as / d /	before nasal vowel	pronounced as /n/	pronounced as /n/	pronounced as /n/
pronounced as / pʼ /	pronounced as /pʼ/	pronounced as /pʼ/	pronounced as /pʼ/	pronounced as /pʼ/	pronounced as / n /		pronounced as /n/	pronounced as /n/	pronounced as /n/	pronounced as /n/
pronounced as / pʰ /	pronounced as /pʰ/	pronounced as /f/	pronounced as /ɸ/	pronounced as /pʰ/	pronounced as / w /		pronounced as /w/	pronounced as /w/	pronounced as /w/	pronounced as /j/
pronounced as / b /	pronounced as /m/	pronounced as /m/	pronounced as /m/	pronounced as /b/	pronounced as / ɡʷ /		pronounced as /w/	pronounced as /w/	pronounced as /kʷ/	pronounced as /ɡ/
pronounced as / m /	pronounced as /m/	pronounced as /m/	pronounced as /m/	pronounced as /m/	pronounced as /(*ɡ)/		pronounced as /k/	pronounced as /ɡ/	pronounced as /k/	pronounced as /ɡ/
pronounced as / t /	pronounced as /t/	pronounced as /t/	pronounced as /t/	pronounced as /t/	pronounced as / k /		pronounced as /k/	pronounced as /k/	pronounced as /k/	pronounced as /k/
pronounced as / ts /	pronounced as /tʃ/	pronounced as /ts/	pronounced as /s/	pronounced as /t/	pronounced as / kʷ /		pronounced as /kʷ/	pronounced as /kʷ/	pronounced as /ɡ/	pronounced as /k/
pronounced as / tʰ /	pronounced as /tʰ/	pronounced as /θ/	pronounced as /ʃ/	pronounced as /tʰ/	pronounced as / kʷʼ /		pronounced as /kʷʼ/	pronounced as /kʷʼ/	pronounced as /ɡ/	pronounced as /kʼ/
pronounced as / tsʰ /	pronounced as /s/	pronounced as /s/	pronounced as /ʃ/	pronounced as /tʰ/	pronounced as / kʼ /		pronounced as /kʼ/	pronounced as /kʼ/	pronounced as /kʼ/	pronounced as /kʼ/
pronounced as / s /	pronounced as /ɬ/	pronounced as /s/	pronounced as /c/ ^[3]	pronounced as /s/	pronounced as / kʰ /		pronounced as /x/	pronounced as /x/	pronounced as /h/	pronounced as /kʰ/
pronounced as / tʼ /	pronounced as /tʼ/	pronounced as /tʼ/	pronounced as /tʼ/	pronounced as /tʼ/	pronounced as / kʷʰ /		pronounced as /xʷ/	pronounced as /xʷ/	pronounced as /h/	pronounced as /kʰ/
pronounced as / tsʼ /	pronounced as /tʃʼ/ ^[4]	pronounced as /tsʼ/	pronounced as /tʼ/	pronounced as /tʼ/

As can be seen in the above table, a number of phonological mergers have occurred in the different languages.Cognate sets supporting the above are listed below:

Cognate sets demonstrating initial consonant correspondences^[5] ! !! Tiwa !! Tewa !! Towa !! Kiowa !! meaning(s)
b	pronounced as /mɑ̃/	pronounced as /mãʔ/	pronounced as /mĩ́ː/	pronounced as /bɔ/	"to bring"
m	pronounced as /mæ̃̀n-/	pronounced as /mãn/	pronounced as /mãté/	pronounced as /mɔ̃ː-dɔ/	"hand"
d (+ V)	pronounced as /līlū-/	pronounced as /diː/	pronounced as /délʔɨː/	–	"fowl"
d (+ Ṽ)	pronounced as /ˈnæ̃̄m-/	pronounced as /nãn/	pronounced as /nṍː/	pronounced as /dɔ̃-m/	"sand" (in Taos), "ground" (in Tewa, Kiowa), "space" (in Jemez)
n	pronounced as /næ̃̄/	pronounced as /nãː/	pronounced as /nĩ́ː/	pronounced as /nɔ̃ː/	first person singular
ts	pronounced as /ˈtʃī/	pronounced as /tsíː/	pronounced as /sé/	pronounced as /ta/	"eye"
t	pronounced as /tũ̀/	pronounced as /tṹ/	pronounced as /tɨ̃́/	pronounced as /tõ-/	"to say"
tsʰ	pronounced as /sũ̀/	pronounced as /sũwẽ/	pronounced as /sɨ̃́/	pronounced as /tʰõ-m/	"to drink"
tʰ	pronounced as /ˈtʰɤ̄/	pronounced as /θáː/	pronounced as /ʃó/	pronounced as /tʰa-/	"to break" (in Taos, Tewa, Jemez), "to sever several" (in Kiowa)
ts’	pronounced as /ˈtʃʼɑ̄-/	–	–	pronounced as /tʼɔ-l/	"liver"
t’	pronounced as /tʼɑ́-/	pronounced as /tʼon/	pronounced as /tʼaː/	pronounced as /tʼɔː/	"antelope"
dz	pronounced as /jɑ̄-/	–	pronounced as /zǽː/	pronounced as /dɔ/	"song" (in Taos, Jemez), "to sing" (in Kiowa)

Bibliography

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Notes and References

The original Americanist phonetic symbols differ from the IPA: Amer. (c) = IPA (IPA|ts), Amer (ʒ) = IPA (IPA|dz).
The null set symbol ∅ represents the lack of a consonant, i.e. the reconstructed proto-sound was deleted in the daughter language.
This consonant is transcribed as a palatalized [tʸ] in Hale (1967) and palatalized [kʸ] in Hale (1962).
Taos (and also Picuris) pronounced as //tʃ, tʃʼ// varies between post-alveolar pronounced as /[tʃ, tʃʼ]/ and alveolar pronounced as /[ts, tsʼ]/.
The data here is from Hale (1967), which in turn is gathered from G. Trager's publications (for Taos), Harrington's publications (for Kiowa), Dozier in personal communication to Hale (for Tewa), and Hale's own fieldwork on Jemez.