| Also Known As: Hitchiti,Miccosukee,Mikasuki Seminole
Description:
The Mikasuki language (also Miccosukee or Hitchiti-Mikasuki) is a Muskogean language spoken by around 500 people in southern Florida. It is spoken by the Miccosukee tribe as well as many Seminoles. The now-extinct Hitchiti language was mutually intelligible with Mikasuki.
There are three tones, high, low and falling. Vowel length is distinctive, for example eche ('mouth') vs eeche ('deer'), ete ('eye') vs eete ('fire').
Nouns are marked with suffixes for various functions, some examples:
Free pronouns exist (aane "I", chehne "you", pohne "we") but are rarely used. Verb suffixes are the usual way of marking person.
Mikasuki is written using the Latin alphabet. The vowels are pronounced as follows:
The consonants are:
High tone is indicated with an acute, low tone with a grave and falling tone with an acute (on a long vowel this is typographically split over both vowels, otherwise the grave is placed over the next consonant):
An epenthetic [ə] vowel appears in kl, kw and kn clusters in careful speech...... full article at Wikipedia |
