Southern Tiwa language explained

Southern Tiwa
States:	United States
Region:	New Mexico
Ethnicity:	Tiwa
Speakers:	1,600, mostly older adults
Date:	2007
Ref:	e18
Familycolor:	American
Fam1:	Kiowa-Tanoan
Fam2:	Tanoan
Iso3:	tix
Glotto:	sout2961
Glottorefname:	Southern Tiwa
Lingua:	64-CAA-b
Fam3:	Tiwa
Map:	Lang Status 60-DE.svg

The Southern Tiwa language is a Tanoan language spoken at Sandia Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico and Ysleta del Sur in Texas.

Genealogical relations

Southern Tiwa belongs to the Tiwa sub-grouping of the Kiowa–Tanoan language family. It is closely related to the more northernly Picurís (spoken at Picuris Pueblo) and Taos (spoken at Taos Pueblo). Trager stated that Southern Tiwa speakers were able to understand Taos and Picurís, although Taos and Picurís speakers could not understand Southern Tiwa very easily. Harrington (1910) observed that an Isleta person (Southern Tiwa) communicated in "Mexican jargon" with Taos speakers as Taos and Southern Tiwa were not mutually intelligible.

Language variation

Southern Tiwa had three dialectal variants

1. Sandía
2. Isleta
3. Ysleta del Sur (Tigua)

Trager reported that Sandía and Isleta were very similar and mutually intelligible.

In August 2015, it was announced that the Tiwa language would be taught to children at Isleta Elementary School in Pueblo of Isleta, as a part of the school's transfer from federal to tribal control.^[1]

Sound system

Southern Tiwa has 29 consonants:

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
					plain		lateral	plain	lab.	plain	lab.
Plosive	voiced	pronounced as /b/	pronounced as /d/				pronounced as /ɡ/
	voiceless	pronounced as /p/	pronounced as /t/				pronounced as /k/	kʷ	pronounced as /ʔ/
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ				kʰ
	glottalized	pʼ	tʼ				kʼ	kʼʷ
Affricate	voiceless					pronounced as /tʃ/
	glottalized					pronounced as /tʃ/ʼ
Fricative		f		pronounced as /s/	pronounced as /ɬ/	ʃ			pronounced as /h/	hʷ
Rhotic				ɾ
Nasal		pronounced as /m/	pronounced as /n/
Approximant		pronounced as /w/			pronounced as /l/	pronounced as /j/

Stops /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/ and /b, d/ may be fricated in different positions as [f, θ, x] and [β, ð] respectively.

/ɾ/ can also be heard as a trill [r] and a retroflex [ɽ].

Southern Tiwa has five vowels that have both an oral and nasal contrast.

! colspan="2"

Front	Central		Back
oral	nasal	oral	nasal	oral	nasal
High	pronounced as /i/	ĩ	ɨ	ɨ̃	pronounced as /u/	ũ
Mid	ɛ	ɛ̃
Low					ɑ	ɑ̃

Sounds /i, ɨ, u, ɑ/ may also be heard as [ɪ, ɯ, ʊ, a].Southern Tiwa has three tones: high, mid, and low.

Bibliography

• Allen, Barbara J. (1978). Goal advancement in Southern Tiwa. SIL working papers (No. 22). Summer Institute of Linguistics and University of North Dakota.
• Allen, Barbara J.; & Frantz, Donald G. (1978). Verb agreement in Southern Tiwa. In Proceedings of the fourth annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (pp. 11–17).
• Allen, Barbara J.; & Frantz, Donald G. (1983). An impersonal passive in Southern Tiwa. SIL working papers (No. 25). Summer Institute of Linguistics and University of North Dakota.
• Allen, Barbara J.; Frantz, Donald G.; & Gardiner, Donna B. (1981). Phantom arcs in Southern Tiwa. SIL working papers (No. 27). Summer Institute of Linguistics and University of North Dakota.
• Allen, Barbara J.; & Gardiner, Donna B. (1981). Passive in Southern Tiwa. In Proceedings of the ninth annual Southwestern Areal Language and Linguistic Workshop.
• Allen, Barbara J.; Gardiner, Donna B.; & Frantz, Donald G. (1984). Noun incorporation in Southern Tiwa. International Journal of American Linguistics, 50 (3), 292-311.
• Brandt, Elizabeth. (1970). Sandia Pueblo, New Mexico: A linguistics and ethnolinguistic investigation. (Doctoral dissertation, Southern Methodist University).
• Brandt, Elizabeth. (1970). On the origins of linguistic stratification: The Sandia case. Anthropological Linguistics, 12 (2), 46-50.
• Gardiner, Donna. (1977). Embedded questions in Southern Tiwa. (Master's thesis, University of North Dakota).
• Gatschet, Albert. (1891). A mythic tale of the Isleta Indians, New Mexico. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 29, 208-218.
• Harrington, J. P. (1909). Notes on the Piro language. American Anthropologist, 11 (4), 563-594.
• Leap, William L. (1970). The language of Isleta, New Mexico. (Doctoral dissertation, Southern Methodist University).
• Leap, William L. (1970). Tiwa noun class semology: A historical view. Anthropological Linguistics, 12 (2), 38-45.
• Lummis, C. (1910). Pueblo Indian folk stories. New York: The Century Co.
• Sutton, Logan D. (2014). Kiowa-Tanoan: A Synchronic and Diachronic Study. The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
• Trager, George L. (1942). The historical phonology of the Tiwa languages. Studies in Linguistics, 1 (5), 1-10.
• Trager, George L. (1943). The kinship and status terms of the Tiwa languages. American Anthropologist, 45 (1), 557-571.
• Trager, George L. (1946). An outline of Taos grammar. In C. Osgood (Ed.), Linguistic structures in North America (pp. 184–221). New York: Wenner-Green Foundation for Anthropological Research.
• Yumitani, Yukihiro. (1987). A Comparative Sketch of Pueblo Languages: Phonology, Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 12, 135-139.

External links

• UH Documentation Project: Tiwa

Notes and References

1. Web site: A new beginning for education at Isleta Pueblo. Albuquerque Journal. 2015-10-03. Ryan. Boetel. August 2, 2015.