| Nez Perce | |
| Nativename: | niimiipuutímt |
| States: | United States |
| Region: | Idaho |
| Ethnicity: | 610 Nez Perce people (2000 census) |
| Speakers: | 20 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| Ref: | [1] |
| Familycolor: | American |
| Fam1: | Penutian? |
| Fam2: | Plateau Penutian? |
| Fam3: | Sahaptian |
| Iso3: | nez |
| Glotto: | nezp1238 |
| Glottorefname: | Nez Perce |
| Map: | Lang Status 20-CR.svg |
Nez Perce, also spelled Nez Percé or called nimipuutímt (alternatively spelled nimiipuutímt, niimiipuutímt, or niimi'ipuutímt), is a Sahaptian language related to the several dialects of Sahaptin (note the spellings -ian vs. -in). Nez Perce comes from the French phrase French: nez percé, "pierced nose"; however, Nez Perce, who call themselves nimiipuu, meaning "the people", did not pierce their noses.[2] This misnomer may have occurred as a result of confusion on the part of the French, as it was surrounding tribes who did so.[2]
The Sahaptian sub-family is one of the branches of the Plateau Penutian family (which, in turn, may be related to a larger Penutian grouping). It is spoken by the Nez Perce people of the Northwestern United States.
Nez Perce is a highly endangered language. While sources differ on the exact number of fluent speakers, it is almost definitely under 100. The Nez Perce tribe is endeavoring to reintroduce the language into native usage through a language revitalization program, but (as of 2015) the future of the Nez Perce language is far from assured.[3]
The phonology of Nez Perce includes vowel harmony (which was mentioned in Noam Chomsky & Morris Halle's The Sound Pattern of English), as well as a complex stress system described by Crook (1999).
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | sibilant | lateral | plain | lab. | plain | lab. | |||||
| Plosive/ Affricate | plain | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /ink/ | (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /ink/ | ||
| ejective | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /ink/ | (pronounced as /ink/) | |||
| Fricative | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| Sonorant | plain | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| glottalized | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||
The sounds pronounced as /kʷ/, pronounced as /kʼʷ/, pronounced as /qʷ/, pronounced as /qʼʷ/ and pronounced as /ʃ/ only occur in the Downriver dialect.
Nez Perce has an average-sized inventory of five vowels, each marked for length. Unusually for a five-vowel system, however, it lacks a mid front vowel pronounced as //e//, with low front pronounced as //æ// in its place. Such an asymmetrical configuration is found in less than five percent of the languages that distinguish exactly five vowels, and among those that do display an asymmetry, the "missing" vowel is overwhelmingly more likely to be a back vowel pronounced as //u// or pronounced as //o// than front pronounced as //e//. Indeed, Nez Perce's lack of a mid front vowel within a five-vowel system appears unique, and contrary to basic tendencies toward triangularity in the allocation of vowel space. A potential reason for this peculiarity is discussed in the section on vowel harmony below.
| High | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Low | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ |
Stress is marked with an acute accent .
Nez Perce distinguishes seven diphthongs, all with phonemic length:
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High (level) | pronounced as /iu̯/ pronounced as /iːu̯/ | pronounced as /ui̯/ pronounced as /uːi̯/ | ||
| Mid (rising) | pronounced as /oi̯/ pronounced as /oːi̯/ | |||
| Low (rising) | pronounced as /æu̯/ pronounced as /æːu̯/ pronounced as /æi̯/ pronounced as /æːi̯/ | pronounced as /au̯/ pronounced as /aːu̯/ pronounced as /ai̯/ pronounced as /aːi̯/ |
Nez Perce displays an extensive system of vowel harmony. Vowel qualities are divided into two opposing sets, "dominant" pronounced as //i a o// and "recessive" pronounced as //i æ u//. The presence of a dominant vowel causes all recessive vowels within the same phonological word to assimilate to their dominant counterpart; hence with the addition of the dominant-marked suffix pronounced as //-ʔajn//:
With very few exceptions, therefore, phonological words may contain only vowels of the dominant or recessive set. Despite occurring in both sets, pronounced as //i// is not neutral; instead, it is either dominant or recessive depending on the morpheme in which it occurs.
This system presents a challenge to common concepts of vowel harmony, since it does not appear to be based on obvious considerations of backness, height, or tongue root position. To account for this, Katherine Nelson (2013) proposes that the two sets be considered as distinct "triangles" of vowel space, each by themselves maximally dispersed, where the recessive set is somewhat retracted (further back) in comparison to the dominant:
| High | pronounced as /i/ (→ i) | pronounced as /u/ → o | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low | pronounced as /æ/ → a | ||
This dual system would simultaneously explain two apparent phonological aberrances: the absence of a mid front vowel pronounced as //e//, and the fact that phonemic pronounced as //i// can be marked either as dominant or recessive. Since the three vowels of a given set are placed with regard to the other vowels of the same set, the low height of the front vowel pronounced as //æ// appears natural (that is, maximally dispersed) against its high counterparts pronounced as //i u//, as in a three-vowel system such as those of Arabic and Quechua. The high front vowel pronounced as //i// meanwhile, is retracted much less in the transition from recessive to dominant - little enough that the distinction does not surface phonemically - and therefore can be placed near to the crux around which the triangle of vowel space is "tilted" by retraction.
The Nez Perce syllable canon is CV(pronounced as /ː/)(C)(C)(C)(C); that is, a mandatory consonant-vowel sequence with optional vowel length, followed by up to four coda consonants. The arrangement of permitted coda clusters is summarized in the following table, where segments in each column can follow those to their right (C' represents any glottalized consonant), except when the same consonant would occur twice:
| C1 | V(pronounced as /ː/) | C2 | C3 | C4 | C5 | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (Any consonant) | (Any vowel) | NOT (k, q, h, C') | "ice" | |||
| NOT (pronounced as /ink/, C') | NOT (k, q, h, C') | "deep water" | ||||
| NOT (p, t, k, q, C') | p, t, c, q, x, y | t, c, s, x | "mushroom sp." | |||
| p, pronounced as /ink/, h, x | t, c, n, y, w, s | p, k, s, x, q | t, c, s | "I smashed with hand" | ||
| a· | c | c’ | e | é· | h | i | í· | k | k’ | l | l’ | ł | ƛ | m | m’ | n | n’ | o |
| ó· | p | p’ | q | q’ | s | t | t’ | u | ú· | w | w’ | x | x̂ | y | y’ | ʔ |
As in many other indigenous languages of the Americas, a Nez Perce verb can have the meaning of an entire sentence in English. This manner of providing a great deal of information in one word is called polysynthesis. Verbal affixes provide information about the person and number of the subject and object, as well as tense and aspect (e.g. whether or not an action has been completed).
Asa Bowen Smith developed the Nez Perce grammar by adapting the missionary alphabet used in Hawaiian missions, and adding the consonants s and t.[4] In 1840, Asa Bowen Smith wrote the manuscript for the book Grammar of the Language of the Nez Perces Indians Formerly of Oregon, U.S.. The grammar of Nez Perce has been described in a grammar and a dictionary with two dissertations.
Nez Perce nouns are marked for grammatical case. Nez Perce employs a three-way case-marking strategy: a transitive subject, a transitive object, and an intransitive subject are each marked differently. It is thus an example of the very rare type of tripartite languages (see morphosyntactic alignment).
Nouns in Nez Perce are marked based on how they relate to the transitivity of the verb. Subjects in a sentence with a transitive verb take the ergative suffix -nim, objects in a sentence with a transitive verb take the accusative suffix -ne, and subjects in sentences with an intransitive verb don’t take a suffix.
The word order in Nez Perce is quite flexible and serves to introduce information on the topic and focus of a sentence.
Verb–subject–object word order
Subject–verb–object word order
Subject–object–verb word order