Hostname: page-component-5db58dd55d-xnzfm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-06-01T14:34:07.642Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Proto-Muskogean Paradigm

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Mary R. Haas
Mary R. Haas*
Affiliation:
University of California
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Muskogean family of languages has two main divisions, the Western and the Eastern. Among extant languages, the Western division is represented only by Choctaw-Chickasaw; the extant languages of the Eastern division may be further divided into three subgroups: (1) Alabama-Koasati, (2) Hitchiti-Mikasuki, and (3) Creek-Seminole. The material on which the present paper is based is taken from my field notes on Choctaw, Koasati, Hitchiti, and Creek (Muskogee). These four languages may be considered representative of the family as a whole, since both divisions and all the subgroups are represented among them.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 22 , Issue 4-Part1: October-December , December 1946 , pp. 326 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © 1946 by the 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 This paper was read at a meeting of the Linguistic Club of the University of California at Berkeley, and has benefited in many ways from the discussion which followed the reading.

2 See Mary R. Haas, The Classification of the Muskogean Languages, Language, Culture, and Personality 41-56 (Sapir memorial volume; Menasha, Wis., 1941).

3 Field work on Creek was made possible through two grants (in 1936 and 1937) from the Department of Anthropology, Yale University. During 1937 some materials were also obtained on Hitchiti and Choctaw. Field work on Koasati and on Creek and Seminole dialects comprised a part of the work done on the history of the towns of the Creek Confederacy under a grant from the American Philosophical Society (Penrose Fund) in 1938-39.

4 A brief description of the phonetics of the languages discussed in this paper is to be found in Haas, op.cit. 42. The only change that has been made in this paper is that the vowels previously written o and o are here written u and u; this is a change of symbols only.

5 V stands for any vowel; C stands for any consonant.

6 The distributive prefix used in Koasati is uh-/V and hu-/C. The diagonal stroke means ‘ before’.

7 Hitchiti makes use of a distributive infix -hu-; this affix is obviously related to the Koasati distributive uh- ~ hu-, but it has assumed a different position in relation to the stem.

8 A description of Creek tenses and aspects is to be found in Mary R. Haas, Ablaut and Its Function in Muskogee, Lang. 16.141-50 (1940).

9 Op.cit. 143.

10 The distributive element in Creek is a suffix -ak-; this is suffixed to the stem, e.g. hic- ‘to see’ + -ak- > hicak- ‘several to see’. The ablaut changes affect the final syllable of the distributive stem and therefore the ablaut base for the progressive tense is hica·k-, the form used in the paradigms quoted here.

11 Cognates illustrating all the sound correspondences mentioned in this paper are to be found in my paper mentioned in fn. 2.