Stoney—also called Nakota, Nakoda, Isga, and formerly Alberta Assiniboine—is a member of the Dakota subgroup of the Mississippi Valley grouping of the Siouan languages.[2] The Dakotan languages constitute a dialect continuum consisting of Santee-Sisseton (Dakota), Yankton-Yanktonai (Dakota), Teton (Lakota), Assiniboine, and Stoney.[3]
Stoney is the most linguistically divergent of the Dakotan dialects[4] and has been described as “on the verge of becoming a separate language”. The Stoneys are the only Siouan people that live entirely in Canada,[3] and the Stoney language is spoken by five groups in Alberta.[5][6] No official language survey has been undertaken for every community where Stoney is spoken, but the language may be spoken by as many as a few thousand people, primarily at the Morley community.[7]
Relationship to Assiniboine
Stoney’s closest linguistic relative is Assiniboine.[8] The two have often been confused with each other due to their close historical and linguistic relationship, but they are not mutually intelligible.[2] Stoney either developed from Assiniboine, or both Stoney and Assiniboine developed from a common ancestor language.[9][10]
Phonology
Very little linguistic documentation and descriptive research has been done on Stoney. However, Stoney varieties demonstrate broad phonological similarity with some important divergences.
For example, the following phonemes are reportedly found in Morley Stoney, spoken on the Morley Reserve:
For comparison, these phonemes reportedly characterize the Stoney spoken at Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, which maintains the common Siouan three-way contrast[12] between plain, aspirated, and ejective stops:
Notice that Alexis Stoney, for example, has innovated contrastive vowel length, which is not found in other Dakotan dialects.[13] Alexis Stoney also has long and nasal mid vowels:[10]
^ abParks, Douglas R.; Rankin, Robert L. (2001). "Siouan languages". In DeMaille, Raymond J.; Sturtevant, William C. (eds.). Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 13: Plains. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. pp. 94–114.
^ abcParks, Douglas R.; DeMallie, Raymond J. (1992). "Sioux, Assiniboine, and Stoney Dialects: A Classification". Anthropological Linguistics. 34 (1/4): 233–255. JSTOR30028376.
^Taylor, Alan R. (1981). "Variation in Canadian Assiniboine". Siouan and Caddoan Linguistics Newsletter.
^Andersen, Raoul R. (1968). An inquiry into the political and economic structures of the Alexis band of Wood Stoney Indians, 1880-1964. Columbia: University of Missouri PhD dissertation.
^Taylor, Alan R. (1981). "Variation in Canadian Assiniboine". Siouan and Caddoan Linguistics Newsletter.
^Cook, Eung-Do; Owens, Camille C. (1991). "Conservative and innovative features in Alexis Stoney". Papers from the American Indian Languages Conferences Held at the University of California, Santa Cruz, July and August 1991.: 135–146.
^DeMallie, Raymond; Miller, David Reed (2001). "Assiniboine". In DeMaille, Raymond J.; Sturtevant, William C. (eds.). Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 13: Plains. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. pp. 572–595.
^Cook, Eung-Do; Owens, Camille C. (1991). "Conservative and innovative features in Alexis Stoney". Papers from the American Indian Languages Conferences Held at the University of California, Santa Cruz, July and August 1991.: 135–146.
^ abcdErdman, Corrie Lee Rhyasen (1997). Stress in Stoney. Calgary: University of Calgary MA thesis.
^ abBellam, Ernest Jay (1975). Studies in Stoney phonology and morphology. Calgary: University of Calgary MA thesis.
^Parks, Douglas R.; Rankin, Robert L. (2001). "Siouan languages". In DeMaille, Raymond J.; Sturtevant, William C. (eds.). Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 13: Plains. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. pp. 94–114.
^Cook, Eung-Do; Owens, Camille C. (1991). "Conservative and innovative features in Alexis Stoney". Papers from the American Indian Languages Conferences Held at the University of California, Santa Cruz, July and August 1991: 135–146.
^Ullrich, Jan (2008). New Lakota Dictionary (Incorporating the Dakota Dialects of Yankton-Yanktonai and Santee-Sisseton). Lakota Language Consortium. p. 4. ISBN978-0-9761082-9-0. To be precise, Ullrich states that Stoney "is completely unintelligible to Lakota and Dakota speakers", while Assiniboine is not comprehensible to them, "unless they have been exposed to it extensively" (p. 2).
