ayearinlanguage:A Year in Language, Day 39: CreeCree is an Algonquian language native to parts of
ayearinlanguage: A Year in Language, Day 39: CreeCree is an Algonquian language native to parts of the United States and Canada. Within Canada it has more speakers than any other native language.Cree is sometimes considered a single language and sometimes several. The status quo amongst linguists is a healthy compromise: it is a dialect continuum. A dialect continuum, as the name implies, is when a language zone exists where every dialect group within its borders is mutually intelligible with its immediate neighbors, but not necessarily with members on the most distant edges. Cree’s continuum runs laterally, with Plains Cree forming the westmost boundary in Alberta and Montagnais in Quebec and Newfoundland forming the eastern end. Another well know dialect continuum is German. The difference in dialects in Cree, just as in German, are largely differences in phonemes, i.e. variations in pronouncing a sound /s/ or /ʃ/ (English “sh”), with the syntax staying relatively static. Cree is a polysynthetic language, meaning that it is one an extreme end of linguistic inflection. While isolating languages like English or Mandarin barely inflect and largely rely on word order for grammar, Cree has free word order and ideas that could take whole sentences or at least very specific word choice in English can be expressed simply by conjugation. Here is an example I shamelessly lifted from Wikipedia: kiskinohamātowikamikw This is Plains Cree. It means “school” and is an inflection of the verb meaning “to know”. Unfortunately I do not know the exact boundaries between the parts of the word, but I do know what the parts mean. The core, as I said, is the root “know”. Added to that is a causative marker, making it something like “cause to know” or “teach”. Added to that is an applicative marker. This is.. a bit complicated, so just know that in this case it changes the meaning to be something like “teach by example”. On top of all this is a reciprocal marker. As the name implies this means the act is done together or to one another. Finally there is an ending that marks it as a place, kind of like in English how “-er” marks something as a person. So the word is, very literally, ‘a place where we teach each other by example’. -- source link