Yuchi (Euchee) is the language of the ''Tsoyaha'' (Children of the Sun), also known as Yuchi people, now living in

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New M ...

. Historically, they lived in what is now known as the southeastern

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

, including eastern

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to t ...

, western Carolinas, northern

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

, and

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = " Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...

, during the period of early European colonization. Many speakers of the Yuchi language became allied with the

Muscogee Creek The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern Woodlandsforcibly relocated with them to

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign i ...

in the early 19th century. Some

audio tape An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present- ...

s in the Yuchi language exist in the collections of the Columbus State University Archives in

Columbus, Georgia Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it of ...

Classification

George Catlin - Chee-a-ex-e-co, Daughter of Deer without a Heart - 1985

Yuchi is classified as a

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The numb ...

, because it is not known to be related to any other language. Various linguists have claimed, however, that the language has a distant relationship with the Siouan family: Sapir in 1921 and 1929, Haas in 1951 and 1964, Elmendorf in 1964,

Rudus A Rudus is a sword or cutlass associated with the Malay culture of Sumatra. Together with the ''pemandap'', the rudus is among the largest swords of Malay people. Rudus is also a symbol of certain Malay state in the Island, e.g. the Province of B ...

in 1974, and Crawford in 1979.

Geographic distribution

Yuchi is primarily spoken in northeastern

, where Yuchi people live in present-day

Tulsa Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

, Okmulgee, and Creek counties, within the

Muscogee (Creek) Nation The Muscogee Nation, or Muscogee (Creek) Nation, is a federally recognized Native American tribe based in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The nation descends from the historic Muscogee Confederacy, a large group of indigenous peoples of the Southe ...

tribal jurisdictional area Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area is a statistical entity identified and delineated by federally recognized American Indian tribes in Oklahoma as part of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 Census and ongoing American Community Survey. Many of these ...

. In 1997, 12 to 19 elders spoke the language out of an estimated Yuchi population of 1,500 speakers. In 2009, only five fluent speakers, whose first language was not English, remained, and in 2011 only one.

History

Yuchi The Yuchi people, also spelled Euchee and Uchee, are a Native American tribe based in Oklahoma. In the 16th century, Yuchi people lived in the eastern Tennessee River valley in Tennessee. In the late 17th century, they moved south to Alabama, G ...

people lived in Tennessee at the time of European contact. In the early 18th century, they moved to northwestern Georgia in the southeastern

, under pressure from the powerful Cherokee in Tennessee. There they settled near the Muscogee Creek and were allied with them. In the 1830s, speakers of the Yuchi language were forcibly relocated with the

Muscogee people The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsIndian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign i ...

Contradictions in linguistic study and linguistic history

The spoken Yuchi language has changed over time, in part due to relocation. In 1885 in an article in ''Science'', Swiss linguist Albert S. Gatschet wrote about various linguistic idiosyncrasies in Yuchi. He said that adjectives are not expressed with number, but nouns are, by the addition of the particle ''ha'' (coming from the original term ''wahále'', meaning ''many''), which made the word essentially plural. He also said that the language was no longer in an archaic state due to the lack of a "dual," and that the language had temporal and personal inflection. Gatschet did much field study and documentation regarding the language. Many of his original vocabulary lists can be found at the

National Anthropological Archives The National Anthropological Archives is a collection of historical and contemporary documents maintained by the Smithsonian Institution, which document the history of anthropology and the world's peoples and cultures. It is located in the Smi ...

or on their website. In 1907, American Frank G. Speck published ''Ethnology of Yuchi Indians''. He said that Yuchi had only one dialect, that inflection was not a characteristic, and that there were no true plurals. These conclusions contradict Gatschet's published 1885 study. The two authors did agree on linguistic idiosyncrasy, and the case of the third person. In 1997, the Euchee United Cultural Historical Educational Efforts (E.U.C.H.E.E.) published a work entitled ''Euchees: Past and Present'', providing more current information regarding the language. The organization claimed that there were two currently spoken dialects: the Duck Creek/Polecat and the Bigpond variations, which were spoken by Yuchi people of those communities in Oklahoma. This contradicts Speck's 1907 claim of one dialect.

Current status

Due to assimilation into

Muscogee The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsEnglish-speaking culture, only a few elderly speakers of the Yuchi language remain. In 2000 the estimated number of fluent Yuchi speakers was 15, but this number dwindled to 7 by 2006, 5 by 2010, and 4 by 2013. In 2016, Yuchi elder Josephine Wildcat Bigler died. Speaking Yuchi as her first language, she had been active in recording and preserving the language for future generations. Her sister, Maxine Wildcat Barnett, was the last

tribal elder The term Elder, or its equivalent in another language, is used in several countries and organizations to indicate a position of authority. This usage is usually derived from the notion that the oldest members of any given group are the wisest, and ...

to speak fluent Yuchi, passing away August 27, 2021. The Euchee Language Project teaches Yuchi classes in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, free of charge. The Yuchi people and language are the subject of a chapter in ''Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages'' (2003), a book on

endangered languages An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead langu ...

by Canadian writer Mark Abley.

Linguistics

The language had no standard

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...

until the 1970s, when linguists James Crawford and Addie George (Yuchi) created a phonetic transliteration. Yuchi people have adopted this to write the language.

Morphosyntax

Yuchi is an

agglutinative In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative lang ...

language, in which words are pieced together from pre-existing

morphemes A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone ar ...

to make entirely new words. The word order of the language is subject–object–verb. The language uses clitics and particles to express a variety of things, including possessives, cases,

affixes In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They a ...

ideas In common usage and in philosophy, ideas are the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophers have considered ideas to be a fundamental ontological category of being. ...

, locatives, instrumentals, simulatives, ablatives, and

demonstratives Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular frame ...

.Wolff, Hans.
Yuchi Phonemes and Morphemes, with Special Reference to Person Markers
" International Journal of American Linguistics. 14.4 (1948): 240-43. JSTOR. Library of Congress. Web. 12 September 2009.

Phonology

The language has 49 sounds, 38 of which are consonants, and the remaining 11 are vowels. This number is more than twice that of most Southeastern Native American languages.

Vowels

Yuchi has oral and nasal vowels. Oral vowels are defined as being created by the raising of the soft palate to the nasopharyngeal wall, creating a velopharyngeal space within the oral cavity; nasal vowels, on the other hand, are typically defined as being created by the lowering of the soft palate, allowing air to escape through the nasal cavity. Two vowel charts appears below. Note that the vowels below represent the ''phonetic'' inventory, meaning the set of all (or most) sounds in the language. The ''phonemic'' inventory, those sounds which contrastively mark differences in meaning, are highlighted in the list below the vowel charts. The phonemic vowels of Yuchi are ; some levels of phonological or morphological variation must therefore be occurring in order for all of the sounds above to be possible.

Phonological variation

Phonological variation often occurs in different kinds of morphological environments. For example, the phoneme is often pronounced as in 1st-person singular and impersonal 3rd-person pronouns by Big Pond speakers. Also, the phonemes and can become in unstressed environments.

Length

Vowel length indicates grammatical function, such as superlative or comparative adjective forms or emphasis. It may also indicate contracted morphemes, and thus is not a phonological process but rather a morphological one.

Consonants

Yuchi has been analyzed as having from 19 to 40 consonants, chiefly depending on whether the glottalized and labialized consonants are counted, or considered to be sequences with and , respectively. Some of the latter are included in the table in parentheses:

Stress and intonation

Stress

Stress in Yuchi is fairly regular. All major parts of speech have syllable-final stress, and syllable-initial secondary stress; also, particles (one-syllable words) are stressed. There are some minimal pairs to be found due to stress; some representative samples include: : – "Creek person, tribe"Linn, 2001, p. 85 : – "go see someone" : – he sees : – she seesEdmondson, 2011 (recording) : – "weeds" : – "squirrel" As mentioned above, most nouns have syllable-final primary stress; there are, however, some regularized exceptions to this rule, the most common of which are nouns with lexicalized suffixes in the stem, which have stress on the penultimate syllable. Also, contractions within compounded nouns have primary stress on the contraction. There are various other exceptions, but the two mentioned above are the most frequent and the most important in helping us to understand why Yuchi nouns often appear to have irregular stress patterns. Both regular and non-regular stress patterns are exemplified below, all glossed. All data come from Wagner, 1974, unless otherwise noted. : – young man : – sparks of fire : – water : – earth : – the sun : ~ – today, morningLinn, 2001, p. 87 : – misty rain : – meat Verb stems typically have primary stress on the ultimate syllable, as well. The two major exceptions are reduplicated verbs, which have equal stress on both the last and reduplicated syllables of the stem, and verb compounds with the head root , in which primary stress is syllable-initial. Some examples include: : – to hold it up : – light

Intonation

Intonation varies depending upon the kinds of sentences being uttered. Declarative, negative, and command speech acts have falling intonation, while information questions and yes/no questions have rising pitch. Morphologically, intonation can also change the reception of a word and its intended meaning, as we see in the following example of three different intonation patterns for the word "What": : – "What?" (requesting information) : – "What?" (didn't hear) : – "What?" (frightened/surprised)

Contractions

One of the most significant aspects of Yuchi morphophonology is the prevalence of contractions. Contraction should not here be taken to mean only a shortening of words; rather, it is more useful to think of contraction as a deletion of sounds that in turn affects surrounding vowels. What can be contracted is dependent upon two major factors, the sound which begins the contracted syllable, and the stress of the syllable. In order for a syllable to be contracted, it must begin with a

sonorant In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are ...

consonant, that is, a voiced sound with a relatively free passage of air. In Yuchi, this includes sounds such as (where indicates a glottalized sound), the fricative , and . A syllable must also be unstressed in order to contract.Linn, 2001, p. 60 Contraction causes phonetic changes in the vowels directly preceding the deleted syllable. In order for Yuchi speakers to understand the grammatical features of the words being used in contracted forms, vowel features alternate to match the deleted sounds. So, for example, if the morpheme was contracted, the vowel preceding it would become nasalized to indicate that a nasal sound has been lost. Contraction must necessarily come before the phonetic change in vowels. For example, consider the following word: : – 'Did you look in the box?' can contract here because it is an unstressed syllable beginning with a sonorant: . CCC clusters are relatively rare, occurring in only six variations as noted by Wolff, four of them beginning with fricatives; such a construction as above would therefore likely be odd to speakers of Yuchi. Contractions take on several forms and occur in many other environments. Those seeking additional information about the many kinds of contraction in Yuchi are advised to seek out Dr. Mary Linn's "A Grammar of Euchee." A list of the most commonly contracted morphemes is below, along with their grammatical function. * ne- : 2nd-person singular actor * we-: 3rd-person non-Yuchi actor or patient, singular or plural * 'o-: 3rd-person plural Yuchi actor or patient (women's speech) * hi-: 3rd-person inanimate patient, singular or plural * ho-: 3rd-person inanimate patient and participant, singular or plural * 'yu-: verb root * -ne-: habitual aspect * -e: active verbalizer

Grammar

Like many

Indigenous languages of the Americas Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...

, Yuchi grammar is

. Words are formed by the addition of various prefixes and suffixes to a mono- or polysyllabic stem. Yuchi features separate male and female registersGatschet 1885, p. 253. and an idiosyncratic noun classification system wherein nominal distinction is made regarding

animacy Animacy (antonym: inanimacy) is a grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is. Widely expressed, animacy is one of the most elementary principles in languages around th ...

, Yuchi ethnicity, kinship and, for inanimate nouns, shape or spatial position. Much of the information in this section is drawn from Wagner (1938); some of Wagner's conclusions, particularly regarding his interpretation of Yuchi kinship terminology and certain aspects of his description of Yuchi pronouns, have been disputed.

Verbs

The Yuchi verb consists of a mono- or polysyllabic stem modified almost exclusively by suffixing. Yuchi features

attributive verb An attributive verb is a verb that modifies (expresses an attribute of) a noun in the manner of an attributive adjective, rather than express an independent idea as a predicate. In English (and in most European languages), verb forms that can be ...

s, which is to say that the language makes very little distinction between verbs and adjectives as parts of speech. For this reason, Yuchi verbs and adjectives are virtually identical.

Tense

The concept of temporal verb inflection is only weakly realized in Yuchi and corresponds more closely in some cases to

aspect Aspect or Aspects may refer to: Entertainment * ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art * Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company * Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England * ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...

rather than tense. The past tense is generally expressed via suffixing of the verb stem. *-djinincomplete past ("ate") *-dji'nfwacomplete past ("had eaten") *-djinfa'habitual past ("used to eat") *-djinfwadji'nemphatic past ("happened to eat") *-djigo'uncertain past ("perhaps ate") There are also two ways of expressing future tense. The first, which usually denotes intentions or events of the immediate future, is expressed by lengthening, stressing and nasalizing the final syllable of the verb stem. The second, pertaining to the distant future, is expressed by the suffix -''e'le''.

Modality

Modality of the verb is also expressed through suffixing. *-no imperative ("go!") *-wo exhortative ("should go") *-go potential ("might go") *-ho emphatic ("did go") *-te ability ("can go")

Nouns

Nouns are classified according to a broad animate versus inanimate paradigm which is expressed using a variety of article suffixes. Within the animate class, nouns are further subdivided into two sub-classes. The first of these includes all humans belonging to the Yuchi tribe, and is itself further divided according to a very complex system of kinship relations and gendered speech registers. The second sub-class of animate nouns encompasses all human beings outside of the Yuchi tribe, as well as animals, and the sun and moon.Wagner 1938, p. 321. The animate (Yuchi) suffixes express a very complex system of kinship and gendered speech in much the same way as do third person pronouns. *-noany male or female Yuchi (used by men and women) *-sen'oany younger (for men, related) female (used by men and women) *-s'en'oyounger male relative (used by women only) *-enoolder female relative (used by men and women) *-onoyounger unrelated male or any other unrelated person (used by women only) *-inoolder male relative (used by women only) *-weno'all other animate beings Inanimate nouns are divided into three groups: vertical, horizontal, and round objects or those otherwise do not conform to either of the other two groups. Each of these groups is represented by a suffix. *-fa vertical *-'e horizontal *-dji round

Number

The concept of

plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This d ...

ity in Yuchi is not as strongly developed as in English, leading one early descriptivist to claim that Yuchi has "no true plural." Animate nouns can, however, be pluralized by the addition of suffixes that correspond closely to their singular counterparts. Although tribal affiliation and

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures us ...

distinctions carry over into the plural, kinship does not. *-he'noYuchi tribe members (male speech) *-o'noYuchi tribe members (female speech) *-we'noall other animate beings Inanimate nouns can be made plural by the suffix ''-ha'', which replaces the singular inanimate suffixes listed above.Wagner 1938, p. 323. In addition to suffixing, several words related to kinship are pluralized via

reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwar ...

of the stem.

Pronouns

The Yuchi

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not c ...

is extremely complex. Except in a few emphatic forms, the pronoun is always suffixed to a verb or noun stem, and appears in eight distinct sets.Wagner 1938, p. 324. The first pronoun set, termed the ''Subjective Series'',Wagner 1938, p. 325. denotes the subject relationship of the pronoun to the verb. Series 1 and 2 are close variations that respectively represent a general and specific object, whereas the "independent series" represents freestanding pronouns. :: Third person pronouns follow a complex pattern of kinship and gendered speech that corresponds very closely to the animate noun suffixes. *ho- / ho- / hodiany male or female Yuchi (used by men and women) *se- / sio- / sediany younger (for men, related) female (used by men and women) *s'e- / s'io- / s'ediyounger male relative (used by women only) *e- / eyo- / ediolder female relative (used by men and women) *o- / o- / odiyounger unrelated male or any other unrelated person (used by women only) *i-any older male relative (used by women only) *we- / yo- / wedi'all animate, non-Yuchi beings First person pronouns in the plural are inclusive and exclusive, and there are several kinship-specific third person forms. :: A few of the third person singular pronouns double as plural pronouns as well. *ho- / ho- / hodiany male or female Yuchi (used by men and women) *o- / o- / odiin the plural, refers to any younger Yuchi regardless of kinship or gender (used by women only) *i-in the plural, refers to any older Yuchi regardless of kinship or gender (used by women only) *we- / yo- / wedi'all animate, non-Yuchi beings The next set, termed the ''Objective Series'',Wagner 1938, p. 330. denotes the direct or indirect object relationship of the pronoun to the verb. It otherwise functions identically to the Subjective Series; the two pronoun sets are distinguished by their relative positions within the verb complex. :: The third person singular pronouns are identical to those of the Subjective Series. *ho- / ho- / hodiany male or female Yuchi (used by men and women) *se- / sio- / sediany younger (for men, related) female (used by men and women) *s'e- / s'io- / s'ediyounger male relative (used by women only) *e- / eyo- / ediolder female relative (used by men and women) *o- / o- / odiyounger unrelated male or any other unrelated person (used by women only) *i-any older male relative (used by women only) *we- / yo- / wedi'all animate, non-Yuchi beings :: As above, the third person plural pronouns are identical to those of the Subjective Series. *ho- / ho- / hodiany male or female Yuchi (used by men and women) *o- / o- / odiin the plural, refers to any younger Yuchi regardless of kinship or gender (used by women only) *i-in the plural, refers to any older Yuchi regardless of kinship or gender (used by women only) *we- / yo- / wedi'all animate, non-Yuchi beings

Reflexive pronouns

Reflexive pronoun A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that refers to another noun or pronoun (its antecedent) within the same sentence. In the English language specifically, a reflexive pronoun will end in ''-self'' or ''-selves'', and refer to a previously n ...

s are amalgamations of the Objective Series 1 and Subjective Series 1 ("Reflexive Series 1") or Subjective Series 2 ("Reflexive Series 2") pronouns. :: Reflexive third person pronouns function the same, in terms of kinship and gendered speech, as their non-reflexive counterparts. *hode'- / hondio'-any male or female Yuchi (used by men and women) *siode'- / siodio'-any younger (for men, related) female (used by men and women) *s'iode'- / s'iodio'-younger male relative (used by women only) *e'yode- / eyondio'-older female relative (used by men and women) *ode'- / odio'-younger unrelated male or any other unrelated person (used by women only) *yode'- / yondio'-any older male relative (used by women only) Plural reflexive pronouns demonstrate clusivity in the first person, and are identical to non-reflexives in terms of kinship and gendered speech. :: Plural reflexive pronouns function identically to their non-reflexive counterparts in the third person. *hode'- / hondio'-any male or female Yuchi (used by men and women) *ode'- / odio'-in the plural, refers to any younger Yuchi regardless of kinship or gender (used by women only) *yode'- / yondio'-in the plural, refers to any older Yuchi regardless of kinship or gender (used by women only)

Other affixes

Instrumental prefixes

The relationship between an action and the instrument by which it is carried out is expressed via the prefix ''hi''-. This prefix has become fused in some cases with certain verb stems, forming a sort of instrumental verbal compound of idiomatic meaning.Wagner 1938, p. 358.

Locative affixes

The concept of location is important to the Yuchi verb complex. Similar in some ways to the English

preposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...

, these prefixes denote the location or direction of the verb's action. *a-static location *ti-inside of an object *f'o-inside the earth or under water *toya-into water *ta-on top of *po-under *kya-through *la-out of *pe-above or over *yu-up in the air *ya-across Additionally, there are four very general locative suffixes that can be used in place of the prefixes listed above. *-he on / at / away from *-le along / back to *-ke over there *-fa to / towards

Negation

An entire verbal complex can be negated using one of two prefixes, ''na''- or ''ha''-, both of which are identical in meaning.

Interrogatives

In direct speech wherein the sentence does not begin with an interrogative pronoun, interrogatives are formed with the suffix -''le''. If the question implies some action in the future, the suffix -''yi'' is used instead.Wagner 1938, p. 357.

Notes

External links

The Euchee Language ProjectAlbert S. Gatschet's original list of Yuchi vocabulary (1878–1891)Albert S. Gatschet's original list of Yuchi vocabulary (1832–1907)
* *
Joseph Mahan Collection
, at Columbus State University Archives. Collection includes audio/visual recordings of Yuchi language (not yet available online) *
OLAC resources in and about the Yuchi language

gOnE Enû O’wAdAnA: A New Generation of Yuchi Speakers
Cultural Survival {{DEFAULTSORT:Yuchi Language Yuchi Language isolates of North America Indigenous languages of Oklahoma Indigenous languages of the North American Southeast Endangered indigenous languages of the Americas Endangered language isolates Native American language revitalization Macro-Siouan languages Subject–object–verb languages