Kansa is a Siouan language of the Dhegihan group once spoken by the Kaw people of Oklahoma. Vice President Charles Curtis spoke Kansa as a child. The last mother-tongue speaker, Ralph Pepper, died in June 1982.

Classification

Kansa is a Dhegiha Siouan language, a broader category containing other languages such as Quapaw, Omaha, Ponca and Osage. This group of languages falls under Mississippi Valley Siouan, which is grouped under the largest category of the Siouan language family.

History

The speakers of Kansa, known as the Kaw people, lived together with the Siouan-speakers in a united nation known as the Dhegiha Siouan group. This group was originally situated north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River and then moved west down the Ohio River. Following their westward migration, the Dhegiha Siouan group branched into five indigenous tribes (Sioux subgroups) known mainly as Ponca, Osage, Omaha, Quapaw or Kaw people. Later on, many Kaw people migrated west of Missouri river and were called "People of the Southwind." The languages of the 5 tribes originating from the single Dhegiha group are quite similar, and have been regarded as dialects of each other.

Geographic distribution

The Kansa Sioux language was mostly spoken only in the plains region now known as the U.S. state of Kansas, and now because all of the descendants of Native Kansa speakers have died, Kansa is no longer natively spoken. Members of the tribe now use English, while some still understand certain Kansa phrases and words. There are, however, ongoing language revitalization efforts to document and study several Native languages, both to improve understanding of language evolution and to honor the legacy of indigenous peoples.

Scholarship and resources

Pioneering anthropologist and linguist James Owen Dorsey collected 604 Kansa words in the 1880s and also made about 25,000 entries in a Kansa-English dictionary which has never been published. Dorsey also collected 24 narratives, historical accounts, and personal letters from nine Kansa speakers. In 1974, linguist Robert L. Rankin met Walter Kekahbah (d. 1979), Ralph Pepper (d. 1982), and Maud McCauley Rowe (d. 1977), the last surviving native speakers of Kansa. Rankin made extensive recordings of all three, especially Rowe, and his work over the next 31 years documented the language and helped the Kaw Nation to develop language learning materials.

Phonology

Kansa has 29 consonants and 8 vowels. /ɛ/ is phonetically open-mid, whereas /o/ is phonetically close-mid. Additionally, /a/ and /o/ can also be pronounced as [ə] and [u] respectively.

Grammar

Nouns

Kansa does not mark nouns for number or gender. The number of a particular noun can be determined from the verb, an article or from context. For example, the word sínga could be translated to English as "squirrel" or "squirrels" depending on context, in the sentence Sínga miⁿ aⁿdómbabe,, it must be a single squirrel because of the article miⁿ.

Verbs

Kansa is a SOV language and the verbs are inflected based on the person and number of their subjects and objects. For example, in the sentence ni kóⁿbla, the object , , comes before the verb kóⁿbla. Kansa does not have verb tenses.

Orthography

Vocabulary

Kansa has a great deal of vocabulary in common with the other languages of the Dhegiha Siouan group. The following table compares cognates in Kansa and Osage:

Language revitalization

As of 2012, the Kaw Nation offers online language learning for Kansa second language speakers. The 2nd Annual Dhegiha Gathering in 2012 brought Kansa, Quapaw, Osage, Omaha and Ponca speakers together to share best practices in language revitalization.