Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-tnzcf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T09:15:34.271Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some Traits of the Dakota Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Franz Boas
Franz Boas*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the following I will discuss a few features of the language of the Dakota Indians which seem to have a wider linguistic interest.

The first refers to the phonetic rendering of a close association of ideas. The initial vowel of Dakota words is preceded by a glottal closure. When, therefore, a word with terminal consonant precedes a word with initial vowel there is a decided break following the consonant. The consonant does not become glottalized but the glottal closure follows it.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 13 , Issue 2-Part1: April-June , June 1937, pp. 137 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © 1937 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 According to the customary orthography of Dakota q, i, , are nasalized vowels; ž, š correspond to French j and English sh; č to English ch, medial; ġ, h are velar spirants.

2 c = sh English.

3 IJAL 7.112.

4 IJAL 9.32.

5 Personal communication.

6 Edward Sapir in F. Boas, Handbook of American Indian Languages 1.638; Washington, 1911.

7 Melville Jacobs, A sketch of Northern Sahaptin Grammar, University of Washington, Bulletin in Anthropology, Vol. 4, pp. 136, 139.

8 Gladys Reichard, Wiyot Grammar and Texts, University of California Publications in Anthropology and Ethnology, Vol. 22, p. 29.

9 Leo J. Fracktenberg, Coos, in F. Boas, Handbook of American Indian Languages 2.383, Washington, D. C.

10 Manuscript by May Edel.

11 Franz Boas and Ella Deloria, Notes on the Dakota IJAL 7.117.

12 M. Andrade, Handbook 3.246.

13 IJAL 4.57

14 From Handbook 1.617.

15 F. Boas, Grammatical Notes on the Language of the Tlingit Indians, Philadelphia, University Museum, Anthropological Publications 8.1.113 (1917).

16 Gladys Reichard, Grammar of Coeur d'Alêne, manuscript (to appear in third volume of the Handbook of Am. Indian Languages 1937).