Catawba language

Catawba (/kəˈtɔːbə/) is one of two Eastern Siouan languages of the eastern US, which together with the Western Siouan languages formed the Siouan language family. The last native, fluent speaker of Catawba was Samuel Taylor Blue, who died in 1959.^[4] The Catawba people are now working to revitalize and preserve the Catawba language.

Catawba
Ye Iswąˀ, Katába nieyé wuininare [1]
Native to	United States
Region	South Carolina
Ethnicity	Ye Iswąre (Catawba)
Extinct	1959, with the death of Samuel Taylor Blue
Revival	1989[2]
Language family	Siouan Catawban (Eastern Siouan) Catawba
Language codes
ISO 639-3	chc
Glottolog	cata1286
ELP	Catawba
Linguasphere	64-ABA-ab
Pre-contact distribution of the Catawba language.
Catawba is classified as Extinct by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger [3]

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p ⟨p⟩	t ⟨t⟩		k ⟨k⟩	ʔ ⟨ʔ⟩
	voiced	b ⟨b⟩	d ⟨d⟩		(g ⟨g⟩)
Affricate				tʃ ⟨č⟩
Nasal		m ⟨m⟩	n ⟨n⟩
Fricative			s ⟨s⟩	ʃ ⟨š⟩		h ⟨h⟩
Trill			r ⟨r⟩
Approximant		w ⟨w⟩		j ⟨y⟩

• /ʃ/ rarely occurs.

• [ɡ] occurs as an allophone of /k/.

Vowels

Short vowels Front Back Close i ⟨i⟩ u ⟨u⟩ Mid e ⟨ɛ⟩ Open a ⟨α⟩

Long vowels Front Back Close iː ⟨ii⟩ uː ⟨uu⟩ Mid eː ⟨e⟩ Open aː ⟨a⟩

Nasalised vowels Front Back Close ĩ ⟨į⟩ ũ ⟨ų⟩ Mid ẽ ⟨ę⟩ Open ã ⟨ą⟩

• Short vowel sounds /i, e, a, u/ can be heard as lax, ranging to [ɪ, ɛ~ə, ɑ, ʊ].

• /u/ can range to [o], and a short /a/ can range to a central vowel [ə] or a back vowel sound [ɑ].^[5]

Orthography

A Catawba alphabet was created by the Catawba Language Project for the Catawba language, as part of a revitalization effort for the language and the creation of an app for it.^{[6][further explanation needed]}

 

Sign in Catawba

(Ye Iswąʔre) Catawba alphabet^[7][8]

A a	α	Ą ą	B b	Č č
[aː]	[a]~[ə]	[ã]	[b]	[t͡ʃ]
D d	E e	Ɛ ɛ	Ę ę	G g
[d]	[eː]	[e]	[ẽ]	[g]
H h	ʰ	ʔ	I i	Ii ii
[h]	[ʰ]	[ʔ]	[i]	[iː]
Į į	K k	M m	N n	P p
[ĩ]	[k]	[m]	[n]	[p]
R r	S s	T t	U u	Uu uu
[r]	[s]~[ʃ]	[t]	[u]	[uː]
Ų ų	W w	Y y	Á á	ά
[ũ]	[w]	[j]	[áː]	[á]~[ə́]
Ą́ ą́	É é	Ɛ́ έ	Ę ę	Í í
[ã́]	[é]	[ɛ́]	[ẽ]	[í]
Íí íí	Į́ į́	Ú ú	Úú úú	Ų́ ų́
[íː]	[ĩ́]	[ú]	[úː]	[ṹ]

• The aspirated ⟨ʰ⟩ is used in the word: hawuʰ 'thank you'.
• The ⟨ʔ⟩ is written in different ways like ⟨ɂ⟩ and ⟨ˀ⟩ in some texts.
• The ⟨o⟩ and ⟨ǫ⟩ is some time occurs in words like example, "mǫ(hare)" meaning ask, "wǫ" meaning call, "mǫhee" meaning ice, and "sota" meaning Santee Tribe

Errata

Red Thunder Cloud, an impostor, born Cromwell Ashbie Hawkins West, claimed to be Catawba and the last speaker of the Catawba language. He was promoted by anthropologist Frank Speck, who introduced West to the Catawba community. The Catawba told Speck that West was not Catawba, but Speck ignored them and continued to promote West and include him in his work, even recommending him as an expert to other anthropologists. (Speck is also the source of the theory that Catawba is a Siouan language; at one time he also insisted that the Cherokee language is Siouan.) At his death in 1996 it was revealed that West was neither Catawba nor even Native American, but had learned what he knew of the language from books, and from listening to the last known native speaker, Samuel Taylor Blue and his half-sister, Sally Gordon, when Speck brought him to the Catawba reservation.^[9] This had apparently been enough to fool the non-Native ethnologists who wrote about him.^[9]

References

1. "Catawba-English Dictionary" (PDF). Retrieved 2025-08-04.
2. "Catawba Language". Catawba Nation Archives. Retrieved 2024-05-09.
3. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Report) (3rd ed.). UNESCO. 2010. p. 9.
4. Thomas J. Blummer, Catawba Indian Nation: Treasures in History (The History Press, 2007), p. 101
5. Rudes, Costa, Blair, David (2003). Essays in Algonquian, Catawban, and Siouan Linguistics in Memory of Frank T. Siebert, Jr. Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics. ISBN 978-0-921064-16-9.
6. "Catawba Language Project". catawbalanguage.org. Retrieved 2024-08-22.
7. "Catawba Consonants" (PDF). Retrieved 2025-08-07.
8. "Catawba Vowels" (PDF). Retrieved 2025-08-07.
9. Goddard, Ives (2000). "The Identity of Red Thunder Cloud" (PDF). The Newsletter -- Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas. 19 (1): 7–10. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 October 2023. Retrieved 5 April 2021.

External links

• Ives Goddard, 2000. "The Identity of Red Thunder Cloud", Smithsonian Institution, reprinted from Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas Newsletter. (accessed 2021-05-25)
• Catawba Texts "Catawba Language App"