Koasati (also Coushatta) is a Native American language of Muskogean origin. The language is spoken by the Coushatta people, most of whom live in Allen Parish north of the town of Elton, Louisiana, though a smaller number share a reservation near Livingston, Texas, with the Alabama people. In 1991, linguist Geoffrey Kimball estimated the number of speakers of the language at around 400 people, of whom approximately 350 live in Louisiana.[2] The exact number of current speakers is unclear, but Coushatta Tribe officials claim that most tribe members over 20 speak Koasati.[3] In 2007, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, in collaboration with McNeese State University and the College of William and Mary, began the Koasati (Coushatta) Language Project as a part of broader language revitalization efforts with National Science Foundation grant money under the Documenting Endangered Languages program.[3][4]
Koasati is most closely related to the Alabama language but, though the Coushatta and Alabama have historically lived near each other, their languages are no longer mutually intelligible without extensive exposure. The language is also related to the Mikasuki language; some native speakers of Coushatta report they can understand Mikasuki without previous exposure to the language.
Koasati has three vowels, all of which occur as short and long and can be nasalized. The following chart is based on Kimball's work. Kimball describes what is normally the close-mid back vowel /o/ as "high back" vowel, hence its placement in the chart below.[5] He notes that /o/ sometimes has the allophone [u] and is raised to [ʊ] in closed word-final syllables.
In 2007, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana developed and approved its own orthographic system.[6] In this system, long vowels are written by doubling the vowel (e.g., [aː] as aa), and nasalized vowels are underlined (e.g., [õ] or [ǫ] as o̱).
Vowel length in Koasati can be contrastive. For example, vowel length distinguishes meaning for palana "bean" and palaana "plate", as well as choba "big" and chooba "horse". Vowel nasalization most often occurs word-finally as a phrase-terminal marker. In Koasati, the end of a phrase is basically marked by either deletion of the final unaccented vowel or the nasalization of the final vowel when deleting it would eliminate phonological information relevant to the phrase's meaning. For example, the final vowel in hopoonilaho̱ "he/she will cook it" is nasalized instead of deleted, and therefore is distinguished from the more emphatic hopoonilaha̱, where the irrealis future suffix -laha- indicates that the action will certainly occur, whereas the irrealis future suffix -laho- does not provide such certainty.
Koasati has the consonants given in the table below, based on Geoffrey Kimball's work.[7] IPA transcriptions occur in brackets when different from the orthography provided by Kimball.
Not included in this chart is a glottal glide (marked ꞉) that Kimball uses in his own consonant chart, presumably to represent the lengthened vowel sounds of Koasati. In the Tribe's official orthography, the [ɬ] is represented by ⟨th⟩ and the [t͡ʃ] is represented by ⟨ch⟩, with no distinction for aspiration. Additionally, Kimball notes that /p/, /t/, and /k/ are aspirated in initial and medial positions. However, the website for the Koasati Language Project explicitly states that these consonants are never aspirated.[8] The [ɦ] occurs most often before [t͡ʃ], as in [haɦt͡ʃí] "river", spelled ⟨hahchi⟩ in the official orthography, thereby distinguished from ⟨hachi⟩ "tail".
Koasati has both light (CV, VC, V) and heavy (CVC) syllables. Consonant clusters occur across syllables but not within. All monomorphemic Koasati words end in light syllables, while the penultimate syllable can be light but is usually heavy, and it is usually preceded by one or more light syllables, as with the construction CV.CVC.CV as in the word holihtá "fence". Other shapes, in which one or more heavy syllables precede a heavy penultimate syllable (e.g. CV.CVC.CVC.CV as in hacokpalpá "butterfly"), or alternate heavy and light syllables (e.g. CVC.CV.CVC.CV. as in pa꞉piyá꞉ka "bridge"), are usually the result of the compounding of two words or a once-productive rule of syncope in which the vowel of every second syllable except the final syllable was deleted. Vowel clusters occur in Koasati, unlike in other Muskogean languages where such clusters are made impossible by metathesis and vowel deletion. These clusters occur in Koasati due to the use of locative prefixes that end in a vowel and class 1A negative transitive verbs since these do not undergo the processes of metathesis and vowel deletion. Clusters beginning with /a꞉/ and /i꞉/ are most frequent, and all clusters are generally spoken with a glottal stop between vowels.
Koasati has low [ ` ], high [ ´ ], and high rising–falling [ ˇ ] pitch accents, as well as a fourth unmarked mid-level tone. All noun roots must have one high-pitch accented syllable. The location of the accent depends on the properties of the penultimate syllable. With a few exceptions, the accent falls on the final syllable unless the penultimate syllable contains a long vowel. These pitch accents can be contrastive, as with sakihpǫ́ 'It is a mink.' and sakíhpǫ 'It is not air-dried.'. Pitch placement on verbs is motivated by morphology. Most indicative verbs take the high accent, though a few take the low accent. Intensive verbs take the high rising–falling accent.
Koasati is a polysynthetic language with fairly extensive verbal prefixing and suffixing.
Two sets of prefixes mark noun possession in Koasati. The am-set generally identifies alienable possession and a relatively small set of kinship terms and body parts, while the ca-set identifies inalienable possession and most kinship terms and body parts. These prefixes mark person and number on possessing nouns as follows:
Kimball identifies the following position classes for prefixes and suffixes that can be added to Koasati verb roots:
Unlike its frequently used cognates in other Muskogean languages, the general locative prefix a- (Position 2) is falling out of use. Positions 4 and 5 relate to the am- and ca- sets discussed above with nouns. They contain the direct and indirect object prefixes respectively and are used to cross-reference the direct and indirect objects of verbs, as well as mark possession on nominalized verbs. For example, the Position 5 prefix ac- is used to mark possession on the root of the nominalized verb meaning "to photograph" in the following way:
st-
INSTR-
ac-
1SG.POSS-
ahó꞉ba
photograph
"my photograph" ("a photograph of me")
A sampling of verbal prefixes, in this case, specific locative prefixes of Position 3, follows:
Kimball recorded over seventy suffixes to fill the fifteen suffix positions. All but eleven of these suffixes can technically co-occur with all other suffixes that do not occupy the same position class. Kimball provides the following example as a possibility:
o-st-oh-im-ilá-꞉ci-halpí꞉sa-laho-꞉li-má꞉mi-mpa-y-on
go:&-INSTR-DISTR-3.DAT-arrive-PL-ABIL-IRR-DEDUC-HSY-CNSQ-SW:FOC
im-ca-yím-ko-˛
3.STAT.OBJ-1SG.STAT-believe-3.NEG(1A)-PHR:TERM
"They say that they all might be able to go and bring it to him, but on the contrary, I do not believe them." Unknown glossing abbreviation(s) (help);
In the first word, all units that follow the root -ilá- "arrive" are suffixes filling the various position classes.
A sample of suffixes, in this case, Position 5 suffixes of ability, follows:
Kimball notes that of these, only -halpi꞉sa- "to be able to" is used frequently.
Muskogean languages such as Koasati have a three-way number distinction in their verbs, with singular, dual, and plural forms. Some of these forms are suppletive. For example,
'To dwell', in the first person, with full suppletion (singular aat, dual asw, plural is):
(The angle braces, ⟩ ⟨, separate the two parts of the root.)
'To smell' is non-suppletive hofn:
'To go about', partially suppletive (SG/DU aay, PL yomahl):