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58 Tunica

  • Judith M. Maxwell und Patricia Anderson
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Abstract

This chapter introduces the Tunica language (ISO 639-3 tun), a language isolate of the southeastern United States. The Tunica people are actively revitalizing the language after a period of language dormancy, producing a new generation of language speakers. This chapter discusses Tunica grammar and regional (areal) traits it shares with surrounding languages, such as positional verbs, word-order, and active-stative verb alignment. Particular attention is given to Tunica’s robust system of grammatical gender, highlighting the areas in which feminine gender is used as the unmarked default grammatical gender. The authors discuss challenges the Tunica revitalization project has encountered in moving Tunica from a “sleeping” state to a spoken language, as well as the triumphs achieved in areas of domain reclamation and expansion. The chapter closes with a look ahead to the future of Tunica as its number of speakers grow with each passing year.

Abstract

This chapter introduces the Tunica language (ISO 639-3 tun), a language isolate of the southeastern United States. The Tunica people are actively revitalizing the language after a period of language dormancy, producing a new generation of language speakers. This chapter discusses Tunica grammar and regional (areal) traits it shares with surrounding languages, such as positional verbs, word-order, and active-stative verb alignment. Particular attention is given to Tunica’s robust system of grammatical gender, highlighting the areas in which feminine gender is used as the unmarked default grammatical gender. The authors discuss challenges the Tunica revitalization project has encountered in moving Tunica from a “sleeping” state to a spoken language, as well as the triumphs achieved in areas of domain reclamation and expansion. The chapter closes with a look ahead to the future of Tunica as its number of speakers grow with each passing year.

Heruntergeladen am 7.10.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110712742-058/html?lang=de
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