| Also Known As: Creek,Mvskoke
Description:
The Creek language, also known as Muscogee (Mvskoke in Creek), is a Muskogean language spoken by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Thlopthlocco Tribal Town, Kialegee Tribal Town, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and other Muscogeean peoples.
The traditional Creek alphabet was adopted by the tribe in the late 1800s (Innes 2004). There are 20 letters. Although it is based on the Latin alphabet, some of the sounds are vastly different from those in English — in particular those represented by c, e, i, r, and v. Here are the (approximately) equivalent sounds using familiar English words and IPA.
There are only three major diphthongs in written Mvskoke:
There are no silent letters in Creek; everything is pronounced.
Four consonants in Mvskoke are slightly different from what English speakers would expect, being unaspirated and unvoiced. When placed between two voiced sounds or at the beginning of a word, they can sound slightly different (Innes 2004).
In addition, certain combinations of consonants sound differently to English speakers, giving multiple possible transcriptions. The most prominent case is the 2nd person singular ending for verbs. Wiketv means "to..... full article at Wikipedia |