Talk:Karankawa language

IPA details

Having read several books on the Karankawa, there's a fair bit of correction that can be done. Gatschet identifies 7 distinct vowels among the Karankawa, and more consonants than are given by the article; this is especially noticeable where Gatschet elaborates on certain sounds that are unfamiliar to the European ear.

Here are proposed vowels based on Gatschet's report:

Vowels:

[ä] = a

[ɔ] = â "As heard in ball, straw"

[ɛ] = e (or "ä" in some words) "Of the 3 softened vowels of German, the umlaute...only Ä occurs in this vocabulary"

[ə] = ě "As in butler or poker", it is sometimes dropped out of words entirely as well

[o] = o

[i] = i

[u] = u

[o], [u], [i] and [ä] seemed interchangeable at times, but these are the most likely values given Gatschets expectation of understanding, thus meaning they must be more or less "base" values.

Consonants are as follows, with IPA values and the way Gatschet writes them:

[k] = k

[t͡ʃ] = tch

[d͡ʒ] = dsh He lists this as a sonant sound, aka voiced, so it's an easy correspondence

[t] = t

[d] = d

[p] = p

[b] = b

[ʃ] = sh

[s] = s

[ɦ] = h Gatschet lists it as a "Sonorant" consonant

[j] = y

[l] = l

[n] = n

[m] = m (final-position variant is pronounced shorter, but is still voiced bilabial)

[w] = w

[ħ] = x “Resembles an H forcibly expelled from the vocal tube” and "rarely occurring in European languages"

[ɽ] = r “the Spanish R differed from that of the Indian dialect” alongside conflation: "Carancaque"/"Clamcoet" and "Muwida" from "Marido"

[ɫᶞ] = ḍ deduced, Gatschet states this sounds like “tn”, “dn”, or “dl”, and is shared with Ponca

[t͡s] = ts

[ɫ] = ll "The double L is equal to the thick L of the Polish language"

[ʔ] = '

There is no [kʷ], Gatschet is incredibly explicit about that. He says, to quote, "The following sounds, not unfrequent in other North American languages of the Southwest, are not represented in this dialect: the labials f, v, the lingual or cacuminal k, the palatised l ('l or l'), the two dental aspirates of English: th and dh and the uvular trill r̥", and though he doesn't use proper IPA (looking at you, "r̥"), he does provide enough detail to ascertain his meaning. Cacuminal K is clearly intended to be [kʷ], as this is a fairly common K-based sound in Southwestern languages, and is thus absent from Karankawa. He also lists [w] + vowel as a diphthong, so words like "Kwiam" aren't "kʷiam", but instead [kwiam]

He also notes that instances of "dl", "dn", and "tn" are all representative of [ɫᶞ]. As a final note, he says that while people state they talk with "fatigue", this is due to the number of laryngeal, aka glottal and pharyngeal, sounds in their language: [ɦ], [ħ], and [ʔ] all being prime candidates for this effect and description; this, ultimately, solidifies their place in the interpretation of Gatschet's writing into IPA.

Lastly, there is the use of hyphen "-" marks in certain words. These are representations of lengthening, not glottal stops as some might assume. "Ba-ak" is "baak", not "ba'ak". Gatschet demonstrates this later on when he discusses habits of vowel-lengthening, particularly for the sake of emphasis, and reuses the hyphen mark in exactly the same fashion with "upa-at".

EDIT: A fair bit of the infobox is wrong. "Clamcoet" is just what the French called them, their indigenous name was "Keles" - "wrestlers" - and the lack of conjugation to the point of entirely lacking a distinction between nominative and genitive cases in the language as observed by Gatschet would indicate that such a name will do just fine. Also, a chunk of the vocabulary secured at the bottom of the page is incompatible with Gatschet's recordings, while the author of the attributed source claims their study to be tentative. Many of the cited words may not even originate in Karankawa, but similar nearby peoples instead. I will be fixing spelling to a more uniform standard and correcting wording to reflect Gatschet's list, wherein his list is simultaneously confirmed to be Karankawa proper, and represents the last known stage of the language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.107.46.37 (talk) 10:03, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Since you admit this is all original research I've removed the phonology table from the article --2601:2C3:57F:C308:C008:6612:760B:ABFB (talk) 21:24, 3 November 2018 (UTC)