Kansa language facts for kids

Kansa is a Siouan language of the Dhegihan group once spoken by the Kaw people of Oklahoma. Vice President Charles Curtis spoke Kansa as a child. The last mother-tongue speaker, Ralph Pepper, died in June 1982.

Classification

Kansa is a Dhegiha Siouan language, a broader category containing other languages such as Quapaw, Omaha, Ponca and Osage. This group of languages falls under Mississippi Valley Siouan, which is grouped under the largest category of The Siouan Language Family.

History

The speakers of Kansa, known as the Kaw people, lived together with the Siouan-speakers in a united nation known as the Dhegiha Siouan group. This group was originally situated north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River and then moved west down the Ohio River. After this migration, the Dhegiha Siouan group split into five subgroups or tribes that were known as the Poncas, Osages, Omahas, Quapaws and the Kaws. Later on the Kaw migrated west of Missouri river and were called the "People of the Southwind." The languages of the 5 tribes originating from the single Dhegiha group are extremely similar and have been considered as dialects of each other.

Geographic distribution

The language was only spoken in Kansas and is no longer spoken natively since all of the speakers have died. Members of the tribe now use English, but some are able to understand certain phrases or words in the language. There are, however, language revitalization efforts ongoing.

Scholarship and resources

Pioneering anthropologist and linguist James Owen Dorsey collected 604 Kansa words in the 1880s and also made about 25,000 entries in a Kansa-English dictionary which has never been published. Dorsey also collected 24 myths, historical accounts, and personal letters from nine Kansa speakers.

In 1974, linguist Robert L. Rankin met Walter Kekahbah (d. 1979), Ralph Pepper (d. 1982), and Maud McCauley Rowe (d. 1977), the last surviving native speakers of Kansa. Rankin made extensive recordings of all three, especially Rowe, and his work over the next 31 years documented the language and helped the Kaw Nation to develop language learning materials.

Phonology

Kansa has 29 consonants and 8 vowels.

/ɛ/ is phonetically open-mid, whereas /o/ is phonetically close-mid. Additionally, /a/ and /o/ can also be pronounced as [ə] and [u] respectively.

Grammar

Kansa does not use tenses or a plural of a noun. Unlike English, they position the verb at the end of a sentence and the verb contains details about who or what performs and receives the action. For example, ni kóⁿbla means "Water, I want it." Also, a word like síⁿga can mean "squirrel" or "squirrels."

Vocabulary

The Kansa language has a lot of words similar to the other tribes originated from the Dhegiha Siouan group. The following table lists compares cognates in Kansa and Osage:

Language revitalization

As of 2012, the Kaw Nation offers online language learning for Kansa second language speakers.

The 2nd Annual Dhegiha Gathering in 2012 brought Kansa, Quapaw, Osage, Omaha and Ponca speakers together to share best practices in language revitalization.