Keres (), also Keresan (), is a
Native American language
Native may refer to:
People
* Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth
* Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory
** Native Americans (disambiguation)
In arts and entert ...
, spoken by the
Keres Pueblo people in
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex
, Offi ...
. Depending on the analysis, Keres is considered a small
language family or a
language isolate with several
dialects. 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.
Family division
In 2007, there was an estimate total of 10,670 speakers.
* Eastern Keres: total of 4,580 speakers (1990 census)
**
Cochiti Pueblo ''Kotyit dialect'': 600 speakers (2007)
**
San Felipe Pueblo ''Katishtya dialect'': 2,340 speakers (2007)
**
Kewa Pueblo
Kewa Pueblo ( Eastern Keres , Keres: ''Díiwʾi'', Navajo: ''Tó Hájiiloh'') is a federally-recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people in northern New Mexico, in Sandoval County southwest of Santa Fe. The pueblo is recorded as the Santo ...
(formally Santo Domingo Pueblo) ''Kewa dialect'': 2,850 speakers (2007)
**
Zia Pueblo
Zia Pueblo ( Eastern Keres: Tsi'ya, Ts'iiy'a , es, Pueblo de Zía) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sandoval County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 646 at the 2000 census; Male: 310 Female: 336 The pueblo after which the CDP ...
''Ts'ia dialect'': 500 speakers (2007)
**
Santa Ana Pueblo
Santa Ana Pueblo ( Eastern Keres: Tamaya ʰɑmɑjːɑ is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sandoval County, New Mexico, United States. As of the 2000 census, the CDP had a total population of 479. It is part of the Albuquerque Metropolitan Sta ...
''Tamaiya dialect'': 390 speakers (2007)
* Western Keres: total of 3,391 speakers (1990 census)
**
Acoma Pueblo ''Áakʼu dialect'': 1,930 speakers (2007)
**
Laguna Pueblo ''Kawaika dialect'': 2,060 speakers (2007)
Genetic relationships
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
The Caddoan languages are a family of languages native to the Great Plains spoken by tribal groups of the central United States, from present-day North Dakota south to Oklahoma. All Caddoan languages are critically endangered, as the number ...
, and
Iroquoian in a superstock called Keresiouan. None of these proposals has been validated by subsequent linguistic research.
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 (e.g. /t tʰ tʼ/), and to the larger than average number of
fricatives (i.e. /s sʼ ʂ ʂʼ ʃ ʃʼ h/) and
affricates
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pa ...
, the latter also showing the three-way distinction found in
stops.
The large number of vowels derives from a distinction made between
long
Long may refer to:
Measurement
* Long, characteristic of something of great duration
* Long, characteristic of something of great length
* Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate
* Longa (music), note value in early music mensu ...
and short vowels (e.g. /e eː/), as well as from the presence of
tones and voicelessness. Thus, a single vowel quality may occur with seven distinct realizations: /é è e̥ éː èː êː ěː/, all of which are used to distinguish words in the language.
Consonants
The chart below contains the consonants of the
proto
Proto or PROTO may refer to:
Language
* Proto-, an English prefix meaning "first"
Media
* ''Proto'' (magazine), an American science magazine
*Radio Proto in Cyprus
Music
* ''Proto'' (Holly Herndon album), 2019
* ''Proto'' (Leo O'Kelly ...
-Keresan (or pre-Keresan) from
Miller & Davis (1963) 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'' (1964), ''Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics'' (1987), and ''The Phonemes of Keresan'' (1946), and the ''Grammar of Laguna Keres'' (2005).
:
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'' (1964),
''The Phonemes of Keresan'' (1946),
and Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics (1987).
Notes:
* Western Keres does not have phonemic /oː/ or /o/, though both vowels may occur phonetically.
Eastern Keres words containing /o/ show /au/ in Western Keres.
For instance, the first vowel in the word-sentence ''Sraúka̠cha̠'' – “I see you”:
** Kotyit Keres:
�óːkʰɑ̥tʃʰɑ̥** Kʼawaika Keres:
�ɑ̌ukʰɑ̥tʃʰɑ̥
Voiceless vowels
All Keresan short vowels may be
devoiced in certain positions. The phonemic status of these vowels is controversial.
Maring (1967) 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:
ɑ̌ːkʊ̥''because''
* Word-medial devoicing:
�ìpʰi̥ʃɑ́''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:
Syllable structure
Most Keresan syllables take a CV(V) shape.
The maximal syllable structure is CCVVC and the minimal syllable is CV. In native Keresan words, only a glottal stop /ʔ/ ⟨ʼ⟩ can close a syllable, but some loanwords from Spanish have syllables that end in a consonant, mostly a nasal (i.e. /m n/ but words containing these sequences are rare in the language.
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’ /jˀɑ̂ːkḁʂûːni/ >
ɑ̂ːkḁʂûːni~
ɑ̂ːkʂûːni* Word-final coda: ''úwàakạ'' ‘baby’; /úwɑ̀ːkḁ/ >
�wɑ̀ːkʰḁ~
�wɑ̀ːkʰ
Phonotactics
The only sequence of consonants (i.e.
consonant cluster) that occurs in native Keresan words is a sequence of a fricative /ʃ ʂ/ and a stop or affricate. Clusters are restricted to beginnings of syllables (i.e. the
syllable onset). When the alveolo-palatal consonant /ʃ/ occurs as C
1, it combines with alveolar and palatal C
2, whereas the retroflex alveolar /ʂ/ precedes bilabial and velar C
2s, 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 (Kʼawaika)
and more recently for Acoma (Áakʼu) 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 (written using a sequence of C and ⟨y⟩), and retroflex consonants, which are represented using a sequence of C and the letter ⟨r⟩. These
graphemes
In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system.
The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called '' graphem ...
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:
Vowel symbols
Vowel sounds are represented straightforwardly in the existing spellings for Keresan. Each vowel sound is written using a unique letter or digraph (for long vowels and
diphthongs). However, there are two competing representations for the vowel /ɨ/. Some versions simply use the
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA may also refer to:
Organizations International
* Insolvency Practitioners A ...
⟨ɨ⟩ whereas others use the letter ⟨v⟩ (the sound /v/ as in ''veal'' does not occur in Keresan). Voiceless vowels have also been represented in two ways; either underlined or with a dot below (see table).
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 alphabet and alphabetical order
Although Keresan is not normally written, there exists only one dictionary of the language in which words are listed in any given order. In thi
dictionaryof Western Keres, digraphs count as single letters, although ejective consonants are not listed separately; occurring after their non-ejective counterparts. The glottal stop ⟨ʼ⟩ and long vowels (e.g. ⟨aa ee ii⟩ etc.) are not treated as separate letters.
Sample texts
Orthography marking tone
;Woodpecker and Coyote
:Ái dítʼîishu srbígà kʼánâaya dyáʼâʼu. Shʼée srbígà ái dyěitsị ái náyáa shdyɨ dyáʼa.
Orthography without tone marking
;Boas text
:Baanaʼa, egu kauʼseeʼe, atsi sʼaama-ee srayutse.
Morphosyntax
Keresan is a
split-ergative language in which verbs denoting states (i.e.
stative verbs) 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
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...
es and
reduplication also occur.
Keresan distinguishes
nouns, verbs,
numerals and
particles as word classes. Nouns in Keresan do not normally distinguish
case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Containers
* Case (goods), a package of related merchandise
* Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component
* Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books
* Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ca ...
or
number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual number ...
, but they can be
inflected
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and de ...
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.
Laguna Keres:
Negation
Negation is doubly marked in Keresan. In addition to the adverb ''dzaadi'', verbs index negation through a suffix (e.g. ''-u'').
* ''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
morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology.
In English, morphemes are ...
s, Keresan verbs code not only person and number of the initiator of the action (e.g. “Tammy drinks decaf”) as is common in
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, D ...
, 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 (e.g. the word ''gukacha'' means “S/he sees her/him”, a full sentence in English). The ways the speaker assesses the action (i.e.
evidentiality, as in “I think Tammy arrived from class” vs. “Tammy arrived from class”). Finally, the internal temporal structure of the action (i.e.
aspect, as in “Tammy was sneezing in class” vs. “Tammy sneezed in class”) is also coded in Keresan verbs.
According to Maring (1967), the Keresan verb is organized around the following grammatical categories (pp. 39–40)
* ''Subject/Object relations''
** ''Subject of intransitive verbs:'' marked by a prefix that distinguishes 3-4 persons in the singular (see below).
** ''Subject of transitive verbs:'' marked by a prefix that distinguishes 3-4 persons in the singular (see below).
** ''Object of transitive verbs:'' marked by a prefix that combines with the subject prefix, or by a
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...
* ''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 (i.e. singular and plural forms are not related
etymologically)
* ''Temporal relations''
** ''Future:'' is marked on the verb by a series of prefixes that also encode number
* ''Modality relations''
** ''Indicative''
** ''
Dubitative''
** ''
Hortative
In linguistics, hortative modalities (; abbreviated ) are verbal expressions used by the speaker to encourage or discourage an action. Different hortatives can be used to express greater or lesser intensity, or the speaker's attitude, for or ...
''
*** ''Negative hortative''
** ''Negative''
*** ''Future negative''
* ''Voice relations''
** ''Active''
** ''
Passive''
** ''
Reflexive''
** ''Reciprocal''
* ''Aspect''
** ''Imperfective''
** ''Inceptive''
** ''Repetitive''
** ''Continuative''
** ''Habitual''
** ''Inchoative''
** ''Perfective''
The verbal prefix
In Keres, the verbal prefix carries information from five different grammatical categories:
argument role,
modality
Modality may refer to:
Humanities
* Modality (theology), the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations
* Modality (music), in music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales
* Modaliti ...
,
polarity,
person and number. That is, a single Keresan verb prefix codes who initiated the action and how implicated that entity is (the subject/case), whom underwent the effects of the action (the direct object), the speaker's assessment of the action (the modality) and whether it occurred or not (polarity). On the other hand, information about when the action took place (i.e.
tense) is expressed elsewhere in a clause, mostly by adverbs.
= Number
=
Keresan verbs distinguish three numbers:
singular
Singular may refer to:
* Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms
* Singular homology
* SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS)
* Singular or sounder, a group of boar ...
,
dual (two entities) and
plural
The plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the ...
(more than two entities); and four
persons:
first (the speaker), second (the hearer), third (a known, definite or salient entity being talked about) and
fourth (a non-salient, unknown or indefinite entity being talked about, also known as obviative) persons. The plural and dual forms are often marked by reduplication of part of the stem (''gukacha'' ‘s/he saw it’ vs ''guʼukacha'' ‘the two of them saw it’).
= Argument role
=
Languages encode two main types of actions: those in which the main participant initiates an action that produces change in an object (e.g. ''kick
a ball, buy
a gift, cook
a dish, read
a book''); and those in which the action produces no (perceived) change in the world or that have no object (''sneezing, breathing, growing, diving'', etc.). Actions that take an object are encoded by
transitive verbs, whereas those that take no object are expressed via
intransitive verbs.
Intransitive verbs
In
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, D ...
like English, all intransitive verbs behave similarly (‘They sneeze/breathe/dive/think’/etc.). In Keresan, actions that take no object are conceptualized in two distinct ways depending on how the initiator of the action is implicated. More active-like intransitive verbs (e.g. ‘to sneeze’) are coded through one set of morphemes, whereas actions conceptualized as involving the initiator at a lesser degree (e.g. ‘to believe’) are coded using a separate set of prefixes.
Ideas expressed in Indo-European languages with adjectives are most often encoded by verbs in Keresan. That is, in Keresan one express the idea in the sentence ‘He is selfish’ by saying something along the lines of ‘He ''selfishes''’. In such “actions”, the entity that is characterized by them is not implicated in the action directly (i.e. it's beyond their control), and thus belong in the Inactive intransitive category. The different sets of prefixes are shown below:
Transitive verbs
Aspect
Aspect in Keresan is signalled by suffixes.
Time (tense) adverbials
The category of tense is expressed in Keresan via adverbs that indicate when the action about which one is speaking took place.
Lexicon
New words are coined through a number of roots that are combined to pre-existing ones. Compounding is a common strategy for word building, although
derivation also occurs.
Numerals
The Keresan numeral system is a base 10 system. Numerals 11–19, as well as those between the multiple of tens, are formed by adding the word ''kʼátsi'' (/ kʼátsʰɪ / 'ten') ''f''ollowed by the word ''dzidra (''/tsɪtʂa/ 'more'). Numerals 20 and above are formed by adding a multiplicative adverb (''-wa'' or ''-ya'') to the base number and the word ''kʼátsi''.
Loanwords from Spanish
European colonizers arriving in the
Southwest US brought with them
material culture and concepts that were unknown to the peoples living in the area. Words for the new ideas introduced by Spaniards were often
borrowed into Keres directly from
Early Modern Spanish, and a large number of these persists in Modern Keresan.
Proto-language
Selected Proto-Keresan reconstructions of plants, animals, and toponyms by Miller and Davis (1963):
:
In popular media
Keres was one of the seven languages sung in the Coca-Cola "It's Beautiful" commercial during the
2014 Super Bowl featuring "
America the Beautiful".
See also
*
Keresan Sign Language
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Nathan Romero, "Chochiti Keres: About Me and My Language: The politics of saving a vanishing language: The politics of writing" Language Documentation Training Center, University of Hawaii, Manoa (UHM)
*
Grammatical and Lexical Notes on the Keres Language (Acoma-Laguna Dialect) of the Keresan StockKeres Language Project�
Keres Audio Dictionary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keresan Languages
Indigenous languages of the North American Southwest
Indigenous languages of the Southwestern United States
Indigenous languages of New Mexico
Puebloan peoples
Acoma Pueblo
Laguna Pueblo
Language families
Pueblo linguistic area