Keres language


Keres, also Keresan, is a Native American language, spoken by the Keres Pueblo people in New Mexico. Depending on the analysis, Keres is considered a small language family or a language isolate with several dialects. If it is considered a language isolate, it would be the most widely spoken language isolate within the borders of the United States. The varieties of each of the seven Keres pueblos are mutually intelligible with its closest neighbors. There are significant differences between the Western and Eastern groups, which are sometimes counted as separate languages.

Classification

Keres is now considered a language isolate. In the past, Edward Sapir grouped it together with a Hokan–Siouan stock. Morris Swadesh suggested a connection with Wichita. Joseph Greenberg grouped Keres with Siouan, Yuchi, Caddoan, and Iroquoian in a superstock called Keresiouan. None of these proposals has been validated by subsequent linguistic research.

Internal classification

In 2013, there was an estimate total of 13,190 speakers.
  • Keres
  • * Eastern Keres: total of 4,580 speakers
  • ** Cochiti Pueblo Kotyit dialect: 600 speakers
  • ** San Felipe Pueblo Katishtya dialect: 2,340 speakers
  • **Kewa Pueblo Kewa dialect: 2,850 speakers
  • ** Zia Pueblo Ts'ia dialect: 500 speakers
  • ** Santa Ana Pueblo Tamaiya dialect: 390 speakers
  • * Western Keres: total of 3,391 speakers
  • ** Acoma Pueblo Áakʼu dialect: 1,930 speakers
  • ** Laguna Pueblo Kawaika dialect: 2,060 speakers

    Phonology

Keresan has between 42 and 45 consonant sounds, and around 40 vowel sounds, adding up to a total of about 85 phonemes, depending on the analysis and the language variety. Based on the classification in the World Atlas of Language Structures, Keres is a language with a large consonant inventory.
The great number of consonants relates to the three-way distinction between voiceless, aspirated and ejective consonants, and to the larger than average number of fricatives and affricates, the latter also showing the three-way distinction found in stops.
The large number of vowels derives from a distinction made between long and short vowels, as well as from the presence of tones and voicelessness. Thus, a single vowel quality may occur with seven distinct realizations:, all of which are used to distinguish words in the language.

Consonants

The chart below contains the consonants of the proto-Keresan from Miller & Davis based on a comparison of Acoma, Santa Ana, and Santo Domingo, as well as other features of the dialects compiled from The Language of Santa Ana Pueblo, Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, and The Phonemes of Keresan, and the Grammar of Laguna Keres.

Vowels

Keresan vowels have a phonemic distinction in duration: all vowels can be long or short. Additionally, short vowels can also be voiceless. The vowel chart below contains the vowel phonemes and allophones from the information of the Keresan languages combined from The Language of Santa Ana Pueblo, The Phonemes of Keresan, and Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics.
Notes:
  • Western Keres does not have phonemic or, though both vowels may occur phonetically. Eastern Keres words containing show in Western Keres. For instance, the first vowel in the word-sentence Sraúka̠cha̠ – "I see you":
  • * Kotyit Keres:
  • * Kʼawaika Keres:

    Voiceless vowels

All Keresan short vowels may be devoiced in certain positions. The phonemic status of these vowels is controversial. Maring considers them to be phonemes of Áákʼu Keres, whereas other authors disagree. There are phonetic grounds for vowel devoicing based on the environment they occur, for instance word-finally, but there are also exceptions. Vowels in final position are nearly always voiceless and medial vowels occurring between voiced consonants, after nasals and ejectives are nearly always voiced.
  • Word-final devoicing: because
  • Word-medial devoicing: ''white paint''

    Tones

Acoma Keres has four lexical tones: high, low, falling and rising. Falling and rising tones only occur in long vowels and voiceless vowels bear no tones:
Tonesexamplestranslation
High, here, matrilineal uncle
Lowyoung boy
Risingbecause
Falling, and, whole part

Syllable structure

Most Keresan syllables take a CV shape. The maximal syllable structure is CCVVC and the minimal syllable is CV. In native Keresan words, only a glottal stop ⟨ʼ⟩ can close a syllable, but some loanwords from Spanish have syllables that end in a consonant, mostly a nasal
Due to extensive vowel devoicing, several Keresan words may be perceived as ending in consonants or even containing consonant clusters.
  • Word-internal cluster: yʼâakạ srûunị 'stomach' > ~
  • Word-final coda: úwàakạ 'baby'; > ~

    Phonotactics

The only sequence of consonants that occurs in native Keresan words is a sequence of a fricative and a stop or affricate. Clusters are restricted to beginnings of syllables. When the alveolo-palatal consonant occurs as C1, it combines with alveolar and palatal C2, whereas the retroflex alveolar precedes bilabial and velar C2s, which suggest a complementary distribution. Consonant clusters may occur both word-initially and word-medially.

Orthography

Traditional Keresan beliefs postulate that Keres is a sacred language that must exist only in its spoken form. The language's religious connotation and years of persecution of Pueblo religion by European colonizers may also explain why no unified orthographic convention exists for Keresan. However, a practical spelling system has been developed for Laguna and more recently for Acoma Keres, both of which are remarkably consistent.
In the Keres spelling system, each symbol represents a single phoneme. The letters ⟨c q z f⟩ and sometimes also ⟨v⟩ are not used. Digraphs represent both palatal consonants, and retroflex consonants, which are represented using a sequence of C and the letter ⟨r⟩. These graphemes used for writing Western Keres are shown between ⟨...⟩ below.

Consonant symbols

Signage at Acoma Pueblo

Signs at Acoma Pueblo sometimes use special diacritics for ejective consonants that differ from the symbols above, as shown in the table:
General⟨pʼ⟩⟨tʼ⟩⟨kʼ⟩⟨sʼ⟩⟨tsʼ⟩⟨mʼ⟩⟨wʼ⟩⟨yʼ⟩⟨nʼ shʼ srʼ tyʼ⟩
Acoma signage⟨ṕ⟩⟨t́⟩⟨ḱ⟩⟨ś⟩⟨tś⟩⟨ḿ⟩⟨ẃ⟩⟨ý⟩?

Vowel symbols

Vowel sounds are represented straightforwardly in the existing spellings for Keresan. Each vowel sound is written using a unique letter or digraph. However, there are two competing representations for the vowel. Some versions simply use the IPA ⟨ɨ⟩ whereas others use the letter ⟨v⟩. Voiceless vowels have also been represented in two ways; either underlined or with a dot below.

Diacritics for tone

Tone may or may not be represented in the orthography of Keresan. When represented, four diacritics may be used above the vowel. Unlike the system used for Navajo, diacritics for tone are not repeated in long vowels.

Keres orthography and alphabetical order

Although Keresan is not normally written, there exists one dictionary of the language in which words are listed in any given order. In this of Western Keres, digraphs count as single letters, although ejective consonants are not listed separately; occurring after their non-ejective counterparts. The symbol for the glottal stop ⟨ʼ⟩, for long vowels are not treated as separate letters.
Letters〈f q x z〉are not used to write Keres, whereas the letters ⟨ɨ o v⟩ are only used in some dialects.

Sample texts

Orthography marking tone

;Woodpecker and Coyote

Orthography without tone marking

;Boas text

Morphosyntax

Keresan is a split-ergative language in which verbs denoting states behave differently from those indexing actions, especially in terms of the person affixes they take. This system of argument marking is based on a split-intransitive pattern, in which subjects are marked differently if they are perceived as actors than from when they are perceived as undergoers of the action being described.
The morphology of Keresan is mostly prefixing, although suffixes and reduplication also occur. Keresan distinguishes nouns, verbs, numerals and particles as word classes. Nouns in Keresan do not normally distinguish case or number, but they can be inflected for possession, with distinct constructions for alienable and inalienable possession. Other than possession, Keresan nouns show no comprehensive noun classes.

Word order

Keresan is a verb-final language, though word order is rather flexible.

Negation

Negation is doubly marked in Keresan. In addition to the adverb dzaadi, verbs index negation through a suffix.
  • Gukacha 'S/he saw her/him'
  • Dzaadi gukachau 'S/he didn't see her/him'

    Verbal morphology

The verb is a central grammatical category in Keres, conveying the most information about events in communicative acts. Through its morphemes, Keresan verbs code not only person and number of the initiator of the action as is common in Indo-European languages, but also how the initiator is implicated in the action. For instance, the three verbs that describe Tammy's actions in "Tammy kicked the ball" vs. "Tammy jumped" vs. "Tammy sneezed" require different levels of effort from Tammy, that is when kicking vs. jumping vs. sneezing.
Additionally, the person and number of the undergoer of the action are all coded on the verb. The ways the speaker assesses the action. Finally, the internal temporal structure of the action is also coded in Keresan verbs.
According to Maring, the Keresan verb is organized around the following grammatical categories
  • Subject/Object relations
  • * Subject of intransitive verbs: marked by a prefix that distinguishes 3-4 persons in the singular.
  • * Subject of transitive verbs: marked by a prefix that distinguishes 3-4 persons in the singular.
  • * Object of transitive verbs: marked by a prefix that combines with the subject prefix, or by a suffix
  • Number relations
  • * Singular: usually marked by a prefix
  • * Dual: can be marked by a prefix, partial reduplication or by suffixes
  • * Plural: can be marked by a prefix, partial reduplication, by suffixes or by suppletive stem forms
  • Temporal relations
  • * Future: is marked on the verb by a series of prefixes that also encode number
  • Modality relations
  • * Indicative
  • * Dubitative
  • * Hortative
  • ** Negative hortative
  • * Negative
  • ** Future negative
  • Voice relations
  • * Active
  • * Passive
  • * Reflexive
  • * Reciprocal
  • Aspect
  • * Imperfective
  • * Inceptive
  • * Repetitive
  • * Continuative
  • * Habitual
  • * Inchoative
  • * ''Perfective''