The Mikasuki language is a Muskogean language

Muskogean languages

Muskogean is an indigenous language family of the Southeastern United States. Though there is an ongoing debate concerning their interrelationships, the Muskogean languages are generally divided into two branches, Eastern Muskogean and Western Muskogean...

 spoken by around 500 people in southern Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

. It is spoken by the Miccosukee

Miccosukee

The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida are a federally recognized Native American tribe in the U.S. state of Florida. They were part of the Seminole nation until the mid-20th century, when they organized as an independent tribe, receiving federal recognition in 1962...

 tribe as well as many Florida Seminoles. The now-extinct Hitchiti

Hitchiti

The Hitchiti were a Muskogean-speaking tribe formerly residing chiefly in a town of the same name on the east bank of the Chattahoochee River, 4 miles below Chiaha, in west Georgia. They spoke the Hitchiti language, which was mutually intelligible with Mikasuki; both tribes were part of the loose...

 language was mutually intelligible with Mikasuki.

Sounds

	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...			Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...			Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...	ɪ	ɪː	ɪ̃
Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...							ʋ	ʋː	ʋ̃
Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...				ɐ	ɐː	ɐ̃

There are three tones, high, low and falling. Vowel length is distinctive, for example eche ('mouth') vs eeche ('deer'), ete ('eye') vs eete ('fire').

		Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...	Dental	Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...		m	n		ŋ
Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...	voiceless	p	t	tʃ	k
	voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...	b
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...		ɸ	ɬ	ʃ		h
Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...			l	j	w

Grammar

Nouns are marked with suffixes for various functions, some examples:

Suffix	Function	Example	Meaning
		embaache	battery
ot	subject marker	embaachot hampeepom	the battery has gone bad
on	object marker	embaachon aklomle	I need a battery
ee	question marker	embachee cheméèło?	do you have a battery?

Free pronouns exist (aane "I", chehne "you", pohne "we") but are rarely used. Verb suffixes are the usual way of marking person.

Writing System

Mikasuki is written using the Latin alphabet. The vowels are pronounced as follows:

Letter	Sound
a, aa	a, aː
a, aa	ã, ãː
e, ee	i, iː
e, ee	ĩː, ĩː
o, oo	o, oː
o, oo	õ; õː
ay	ai
ao	ao

The consonants are:

Letter	Sound
b	b
ch	t͡ʃ
f	ɸ
h	h
k	k
l	l
ł	ɬ
m	m
n	n
ng	ŋ
p	p
sh	ʃ
t	t
w	w
y	j

High tone is indicated with an acute, low tone with a grave and falling tone with an acute (on a long vowel this is typographically split over both vowels, otherwise the grave is placed over the next consonant):

High Tone	Low Tone	Falling Tone
á, áa	à, àa	áǹ, áà

An epenthetic [ə] vowel appears in kl, kw and kn clusters in careful speech.

Verbs

bochonkom	he/she/it touches
chaolom	he/she/it writes
chayahlom	he/she/it walks
eelom	he/she/it arrives
empom	he/she/it eats
eshkom	he/she/it drinks
faayom	he/she/it hunts
ommom	he/she/it makes

Numerals

1	łáàmen
2	toklan
3	tocheenan
4	shéetaaken
5	chahkeepan
6	eepaaken
7	kolapaaken
8	toshnapaaken
9	oshtapaaken
10	pokoolen

Kinship Terms

nakne	man, male
ooche	son
ooshtayke	daughter
táàte	father
tayke	woman, female
wáàche	mother
yaate	person
yaatooche	infant

External links

• A Global Linguistic Database: Mikasuki
• Ethnologue report for Mikasuki