Nahónda

Nahónda

Introduction

Nahónda, also known as Nónda and referred to by its own speakers as Nahónda keloma (lit. "Nahónda speak"), is a language centered in Northwestern Montana. It is bordered by the Lakota Nation to the east, by the Cheyenne to the south, and the Blackfeet and Crow Nations to the north. Along its western border lies the Nez Percé Nation. Long considered a language isolate, new analyses has demonstrated it shares a common lineage with Minhast and Nankôre. It has now been classified as a member of the Nahenic language family, a small family that includes Minhast and Nankóre, as well as the recently discovered Neina or Na'ena language in northeast Siberia. Nahónda is the second largest member of this family, around 60,450 members in the First Nations Confederation, with a few expatriate communities the largest of which exists in southern Manitoba at around nine hundred members. Minhast remains the population juggernaut, at 26 million members in the Minhast homeland, and around 3 million more scattered in expatriate communities throughout the rest of the world.

Nahónda is an agglutinative and fusional language which is most apparent in its complex verb forms. It is a split-intransitive language of the Fluid-S subtype. Agents are explicitly marked while patients receive null marking. Like Minhast, it is considered a polysynthetic language as it exhibits polypersonal agreement, noun incorporation, head marking, holophrasis, and adverbial, modal, and evidential markers inside the verb complex. The evolution of Nahónda polysynthesis is complex, reflecting both developments from its Nahenic heritage, and influences from outside sources, especially the Siouan languages and a substrate Iroquoian layer. The influence of other Native North American languages cannot be overstated, as they had a major impact on the phonology, morphology, and lexicon of the Nahónda language. These influences caused it to diverge from it sister languages to the point that earlier linguists considered it to be a member of the Siouan languages, although the Iroquoian language family was also a main contender.

Nouns

Gender

Like Minhast, Nahónda has a four-way gender distinction: masculine, feminine, neuter animate, and neuter inanimate. Just as in Minhast, Nahónda does not attach gender markers on nouns, but rather agreement affixes in the verb complex take up this role, each affix indicating the gender of its cross-indexed nominal argument. The verb's agreement affixes cross-index core roles only, i.e. the agent and patient; nouns that serve in a peripheral role are unmarked. Regardless, all nouns have inherent gender which must be memorized individually in order to select the proper verbal agreement affixes, or correctly identify the gender of a peripheral noun.

Independent and Bound Pronominal Forms

	Agent		Patient
Person	Independent	Bound	Independant	Bound
1st sg.	yat	-t-	ya	-ya-
2nd sg.	intá	-nt-	ta	-n-
3rd masc.sg.	kun	-k-	ka	-Ø-
3rd fem.sg	kcela	-kc-	la	-la-
3rd neut.anim.sg	séha	-s-	seh	-s-
3rd neut.inanim.sg	ma	-m-	tsila	-ts-
4th sg.	wahán	-han-	wa	-w-

	Agent		Patient
Person	Independent	Bound	Independant	Bound
1st du.excl	tsatem	tsat	tsak	at
1st du.incl	tsiháka	tsak	tsihák	ak (an)
2nd dual	tsitá	tsit	tsitá
3rd masc.du	tsakàl	tskál	tsakáhal	tsak
3rd fem.du	tsakìl	tskál	tsakíhil	tsak
3rd mixed.du	tsacé	tsac	tsac	tsac
3rd anim.du	tsamá	tsam	tsam	tsam
3rd inanim.du	tsakìl	tskil	tsašl	tsaš
4th du.	tsákce	tsakc	tsack	tsašk

	Agent		Patient
Person	Independent	Bound	Independant	Bound
1st pl.excl	hakém	km	hak	ak
1st pl.incl.	cayácu	cac	acù	ac
2nd pl	catáha	ctah	táha	ta
3rd masc.pl	ciláha	clah	cíla	cīlà
3rd fem.pl	ciláhe	cláhē	la	la
3rd mixed.pl	cilána	clan	lan	lan
3rd anim.pl	cikíla	cklíha	kíla	kīlá
3rd inanim.pl	ci?áca	cyac	áca	áca
3rd High Public	cihòtape	cotape	hotápe	tapè
4th pl.	cī?áca	cīyac	áca	acà

Demonstratives

Like its relatives Minhast and Nankôre, Nahónda makes a four-way distinction in its demonstratives. Some forms, such as the Proximal and Medio-proximal demonstratives, show in the Agent forms an etymological relationship with Minhast. The Medio-proximal patient and Distal agent forms appear to be derived from the same source as in the corresponding Nankôre form. A common etymology for the Invisible form among all the sister languages has yet to be found. The Nahónda demonstratives are listed in the following table:

	Independent		Clitic		Comments
	Agent	Patient	Agent	Patient
Proximal	saka	ko	=sa	=ko	This one, near the speaker; compare saka with Minhast sap "this" (ABS)
Medio-proximal	na	ho	=na	=ho	This/that one near the listener; compare na with Minhast nax "that" (ABS), ho with Nankôre =hori "that"
Distal	wanko	wo	=wa	=wo	Far from both speaker and listener; compare with Minhast waššī (ABS), Nankôre =nko
Invisible	yanko	yo	=ya	=yo	Used for objects beyond sight or obstructed by another object. It may also be used for a person or thing being referred to within a narrative or other discourse, and sometimes as a decessive. The =nko segment is likely a cognate with the Distal clitic =nko in Nankôre.

The independent forms may serve as attributives, in which case they appear before the noun phrase. Unlike Minhast, which requires the connective min to join the demonstrative to its head, in Nahónda the demonstrative is simply juxtaposed before its head, e.g.:

Wanko šúnkawakánhi owožupi sukakatsa¹
wanko šúnkawakán-hi owožu-pi suka~ka-tsa
DIST horse-AGT grass-PL run-INT-EVID.VIS
I always see that horse racing across the plains.

Verbs

The polysynthetic Nohandaráy verb follows a templatic paradigm (c.f. Northern Iroquioan languages, Ainu, Minhast, etc).

Nohandaray Verb Template

Category	Affix	Additional Notes
Temporal Adverbials	[placeholder]
Precative	[placeholder]
Negator	[placeholder]
Irealis (condittional, Optative, etc)	[placeholder]
Manner Adverbials	[placeholder]

Morphosyntactic Alignment

Nahónda morphosyntactic alignment is classified as the Split Intransitive type, also known as an Active-Stative alignment. Transitive clauses by definition take two core arguments, an Agent, and a Patient. Intransitive clauses take only one core argument. That the verb that core argument takes may denote either a state, e.g. "He is sick", or it may designate an action instigated by the the core argument, e.g. "He jumps". In the first case, the core argument takes marking which indicates it experiences or is affected by the state, while in the second the argument takes another marker which indicates that it instigates an action or event.

Languages of the Split Intransitive type may be further divided into one of two subtype. One type, the Split-S type, divides its verbs into two lexical division: one division is restricted to states; its NP argument is an experiencer or undergoer of the state, and hence takes one type of case marking. The other verbal division expresses events which indicate its core argument functions as an agent; the core argument thus takes marking distinct from that of an experiencer or undergoer. The other Split Intransitive subtype, the Fluid-S type, does not exhibit this verbal distinction: all verbs may serve to indicate state or events; case marking of the core argument depends on its semantic role, it is not preselected based on the verbal class, as Fluid-S type languages do not have distinct verbal classes.

Nahónda belongs to the Fluid-S type of languages. When the core argument of an Intransitive verb functions as a semantic Agent, it takes the marker =yo, whereas it takes the marker =ka when it is an Experiencer or Undergoer.

Footnotes

1) The Siouan languages, particularly Lakota, had a major impact on the Nahónda lexicon. We see this influence in this sample sentence Wanko šúnkawakánhi owožupi sukakatsa. Nahónda šúnkawakán "horse" is borrowed directly from Lakota šúŋkawakȟáŋ, as is owožu "grass". Even the plural marker -pi is borrowed from the Lakota plural marker -pi. The verb sukaka-tsa comes from Nahenic roots, c.f. Minhast sukkan "to be quick" and saru "to see".