Gros Ventre | |
---|---|
'ɔ'ɔ́ɔ́ɔ́naakíit'ɔ | |
Native to | United States |
Region | Montana |
Ethnicity | Gros Ventre |
Extinct | 2007, with the death of Theresa Lamebull [1] |
Revival | 45 self-identified speakers as of 2009-2013 [2] |
Algic
| |
Official status | |
Official language in |
United States ( Fort Belknap Indian Community, MT) |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 |
ats |
Glottolog |
gros1243 |
ELP | Gros Ventre |
Historical extent of the language | |
Gros Ventre is classified as Critically Endangered by the
UNESCO
Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger |
Atsina, or Gros Ventre (also known as Aaniiih, Ananin, Ahahnelin, Ahe, A’ani, and ʔɔʔɔɔɔniiih), [3] was the ancestral language of the Gros Ventre people of what is today Montana, United States of America. The last fluent speaker died in 2007, [1] though revitalization efforts are underway.
Atsina is the name applied by specialists in Algonquian linguistics. Arapaho and Atsina are dialects of a common language usually designated by scholars as "Arapaho-Atsina". Historically, this language had five dialects, and on occasion specialists add a third dialect name to the label, resulting in the designation, "Arapaho-Atsina-Nawathinehena". [1] Compared with Arapaho proper, Gros Ventre had three additional phonemes /tʲ/, /ts/, /kʲ/, and /bʲ/, and lacked the velar fricative /x/.
Theresa Lamebull taught the language at Fort Belknap College (now Aaniiih Nakoda College), and helped develop a dictionary using the Phraselator when she was 109. [4]
As of 2012, the White Clay Immersion School at Aaniiih Nakoda College was teaching the language to 26 students, up from 11 students in 2006. [3] [5]
Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | plain | b ⟨b⟩ | t ⟨t⟩ | k ⟨k⟩ | ʔ ⟨’⟩ | ||
palatalized | bʲ ⟨bʸ⟩ | tʲ ⟨tʸ⟩ | kʲ ⟨kʸ⟩ | ||||
Fricative | θ ⟨3⟩ | s ⟨s⟩ | h ⟨h⟩ | ||||
Affricate | ts ⟨c⟩ | tʃ ⟨č⟩ | |||||
Nasal | n ⟨n⟩ | ||||||
Approximant | w ⟨w⟩ | j ⟨y⟩ |
Short | Long | |
---|---|---|
Close | ɪ ⟨i⟩ | iː ⟨ii⟩ |
Mid | ɛ ⟨e⟩ | eː ⟨ee⟩ |
Back | ɔ ⟨o⟩ | oː ⟨oo⟩ |
ʊ ⟨u⟩ | uː ⟨uu⟩ |