Stoney—also called Nakota, Nakoda, Isga, and formerly Alberta Assiniboine—is a member of the Dakota subgroup of the Mississippi Valley grouping of the

Siouan languages Siouan ( ), also known as Siouan–Catawban ( ), is a language family of North America located primarily in the Great Plains, Ohio and Mississippi valleys and southeastern North America with a few other languages in the east. Name Authors who ...

. The Dakotan languages constitute a dialect continuum consisting of Santee-Sisseton ( Dakota), Yankton-Yanktonai ( Dakota), Teton (

Lakota Lakota may refer to: *Lakota people, a confederation of seven related Native American tribes *Lakota language Lakota ( ), also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan languages, Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of ...

Assiniboine The Assiniboine or Assiniboin people ( when singular, Assiniboines / Assiniboins when plural; Ojibwe: ''Asiniibwaan'', "stone Sioux"; also in plural Assiniboine or Assiniboin), also known as the Hohe and known by the endonym Nakota (or Nakoda ...

, and Stoney. Stoney is the most linguistically divergent of the Dakotan dialects and has been described as "on the verge of becoming a separate language." Ullrich considers Stoney and Assiniboine distinct languages, saying "The Nakoda language spoken by the Assiniboine is not intelligible to Lakota and Dakota speakers, unless they have been exposed to it extensively. The Stoney form of the Nakoda language is completely unintelligible to Lakota and Dakota speakers. As such, the two Nakoda languages cannot be considered dialects of the Lakota and Dakota language." The Stoneys are the only Siouan people that live entirely in Canada, and the Stoney language is spoken by five groups in Alberta. No official language survey has been undertaken for every community where Stoney is spoken, but the language may be spoken by as many as a few thousand people, primarily at the Mînî Thnî community (renamed from ''Morley'' in 2024).

Relationship to Assiniboine

Stoney's closest linguistic relative is

. The two have often been confused with each other due to their close historical and linguistic relationship, but they are not mutually intelligible. Stoney either developed from Assiniboine, or both Stoney and Assiniboine developed from a common ancestor language.

Phonology

Very little linguistic documentation and descriptive research has been done on Stoney. However, Stoney varieties demonstrate broad phonological similarity with some important divergences.

Morley Dialect

For example, the following phonemes are reportedly found in Morley Stoney, spoken on the Morley Reserve:

Alexis Dialect

For comparison, these phonemes reportedly characterize the Stoney spoken at Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, which maintains the common Siouan three-way contrast between plain, aspirated, and ejective stops: Notice that Alexis Stoney, for example, has innovated contrastive vowel length, which is not found in other Dakotan dialects. Alexis Stoney also has long and nasal mid vowels:

Writing system

Stoney alphabet (Stoney Nakoda First Nation) Stoney alphabet (Alexis Nakota Sioux First Nation)

Word set (includes numbers)

* One — * Two — * Three — * Four — * Five — * Man — * Woman — * Sun — * Moon — * Water —

Phonetic differences from other Dakotan languages

The following table shows some of the main phonetic differences between Stoney,

, and the three dialects (

, Yankton-Yanktonai and Santee-Sisseton) of

Sioux The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin ( ; Dakota/ Lakota: ) are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples (translati ...

References

External links

Ethnologue.com

{{Languages of Montana Indigenous languages of the North American Plains First Nations languages in Canada Western Siouan languages Indigenous languages of Montana