Wichita language
Encyclopedia
Wichita is a moribund
Caddoan
language spoken in Oklahoma
by the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes
. Only one fluent speaker remains, Doris McLemore
, although in 2007 there were only three first language learners still alive . Wichita could soon become extinct
, however, the tribe offers classes to revitalize the language and works in partnership with Wichita Documentation Project of the University of Colorado, Boulder.
While at present there is one living native speaker, as late as 2007 there were three living native speakers . This is a sharp decline from the 500 speakers estimated by Paul L. Garvin in 1950.
s. In the Americanist
orthography generally used when describing Wichita, [ts] is spelled, and [j] .
Though neither Rood nor Garvin include nasals in their respective consonant charts for Wichita, Rood’s later inclusion of nasals in phonetic transcription for his 2008 paper (“Some Wichita Recollections: Aspects of Culture Reflected in Language”) support the appearance of at least /n/..
V:- long vowel
V- short vowel
C- consonant
These are transcribed as i, e, a, o/u.
Word-final vowels are devoiced
.
Though Rood employs the vowel /o/ in his transcriptions, Garvin instead uses /u/, and asserts that /u/ is its own phoneme . However, considering the imprecision in vowel sound articulation, what is likely important about these transcriptions is that they signify a back vowel that is not low [+back, -low].
Taylor uses Garvin’s transcription in his analysis, but theorizes a shift of /u/ to /i/ in Wichita medially, but does not have enough examples to fully analyze all the possible envronments. He also discusses a potential shift from /a/ to /i/, but again, does not have enough examples to develop a definitive hypothesis. Taylor finds only /ɛ/ occurs with intervocalic glottal stops.
Rood argues that [o] is not phonemic, as it is often equivalent to any vowel + /w/ + any vowel. For example, [awa] is frequently contracted to [óː] (the high tone is an effect of the elided consonant). There are relatively few cases where speakers will not accept a substitution of vowel + /w/ + vowel for [o]; one of them is [kóːs] 'eagle'.
Rood also proposes that, with three vowels that are arguably high, mid, and low, the front-back distinction is not phonemic, and that one may therefore speak of a 'vertical
' vowel inventory (see below). This also has been claimed for relatively few languages, such as the Northwest Caucasian languages
and the Ndu languages
of Papua New Guinea
.
There is clearly at least a two-way contrast in vowel length
. Rood proposes that there is a three-way contrast, which is quite rare among the world's languages, although well attested for Mixe, and probably present in Estonian
. However, in Wichita, for each of the three to four vowels qualities, one of the three lengths is rare, and in addition the extra-long vowels frequently involve either an extra morpheme
, or suggest that prosody
may be at work. For example,
(Note that it is common in many languages to use prosodic lengthening with demonstratives such as 'there' or 'that'.)
This contrasts with Mixe, where it is easy to find a three-way length contrast without the addition of morphemes.
Under Rood's analysis, then, Wichita has 9 phonemic vowels::
, indicated here by an acute accent.
s are ubiquitous in Wichita. Words may begin with clusters such as [kskh] (kskhaːɾʔa) and [ɾ̥h] (ɾ̥hintsʔa). The longest cluster noted in Wichita is five consonants long, counting [ts] as a single consonant /c/: /nahiʔinckskih/ 'while sleeping'. However, Wichita syllable
s are more commonly CV or CVC.
Nouns do not distinguish between singular and plural, as this information is specified as part of the verb. Wichita also does not distinguish between gender, which can be problematic for English language translation. .
Sentence structure is much more fluid than English, with words are organized according to importance or novelty. Often the subject of the sentence is placed initially. Linguist David S. Rood, who has written many papers concerning the Wichita language, recorded this example, as spoken by Bertha Provost (a native speaker, now deceased) in the late 60s: .
The subject of the sentence is ancestors, and thus the sentence begins with it, instead of God, or creation (when.he.made.us.dwell). This leads one to conclude Wichita has a largely free word-order, where parts of the sentence do not need to be located next to each other to be related. .
Wichita has no indirect speech or passive voice. When using past tense, speakers must indicate if this knowledge of the past is based in hearsay or personal knowledge. Wichita speakers also use a morpheme which amounts to two versions of “we”; one that includes the listener, and one that does not. Wichita also differentiates between singular, dual and plural, instead of the simpler singular or plural designations commonly found. .
Language death
In linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language variety is decreased, eventually resulting in no native and/or fluent speakers of the variety...
Caddoan
Caddoan languages
The Caddoan languages are a family of Native American languages. They are spoken by Native Americans in parts of the Great Plains of the central United States, from North Dakota south to Oklahoma.-Family division:...
language spoken in Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
by the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes
Wichita (tribe)
The Wichita people are indigenous inhabitants of North America, who traditionally spoke the Wichita language, a Caddoan language. They have lived in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas...
. Only one fluent speaker remains, Doris McLemore
Doris McLemore
Doris Jean Lamar McLemore is the last fluent speaker of the Wichita language, a Caddoan language spoken by the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, indigenous to Oklahoma....
, although in 2007 there were only three first language learners still alive . Wichita could soon become extinct
Extinct language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...
, however, the tribe offers classes to revitalize the language and works in partnership with Wichita Documentation Project of the University of Colorado, Boulder.
History
Wichita is a member of the Caddoan language family, along with modern Caddo, Pawnee, Arikara, and Kitsai. When the Europeans began to settle North America, Wichita separated into three dialects; Waco, Towakoni, and KirikirɁi:s (aka, Wichita Proper). However, when the language was threatened and the number of speakers decreased, dialect differences largely disappearedWhile at present there is one living native speaker, as late as 2007 there were three living native speakers . This is a sharp decline from the 500 speakers estimated by Paul L. Garvin in 1950.
Phonology
The phonology of Wichita is unusual, with almost no labials (the two exceptions being /kw/ and /w/. There is only one nasal (depending on conflicting theory one or more nasal sounds may appear, but all theories seem to agree that they are allophones of the same phoneme, at best), and possibly a three vowel system using only height for contrast.Consonants
Wichita has 10 consonantConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s. In the Americanist
Americanist
Americanist may refer to:* a scholar specializing in American studies* Americanist phonetic notation* International Congress of Americanists* Society of Early Americanists...
orthography generally used when describing Wichita, [ts] is spelled
| Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
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... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | labial | ||||
| Plosive 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 &... |
t | k | kʷ | ʔ | |
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
ts | ||||
| 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... |
s | ||||
| Sonorant Sonorant In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; fricatives and plosives are not sonorants. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like and . Other consonants, like or , restrict the airflow enough to cause turbulence, and... |
ɾ ~ n | ||||
| 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... |
j | w | h | ||
Though neither Rood nor Garvin include nasals in their respective consonant charts for Wichita, Rood’s later inclusion of nasals in phonetic transcription for his 2008 paper (“Some Wichita Recollections: Aspects of Culture Reflected in Language”) support the appearance of at least /n/..
- LabialLabial consonantLabial 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...
s are generally absent, occurring in only two roots: kammac to grind corn and camma:ci to hoe, to cultivate. - Apart from the /m/ in these two verbs, NasalNasal consonantA 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 :...
s are allophonic. The allophones [ɾ] and [n] are in complementary distributionComplementary distributionComplementary distribution in linguistics is the relationship between two different elements, where one element is found in a particular environment and the other element is found in the opposite environment...
: It is [n] before alveolars (/t, ts, s/ and in geminate [nn]) and initially before a vowel, and [ɾ] elsewhere. Thus its initial consonant clusters are [n] and [ɾ̥h], and its medial & final clusters are [nts], [nt], [ns], [nn], [ɾʔ], [ɾh]. - Final r and w are voiceless: [ɾ̥], [w̥]
- Glottalized Final Consonants: One aspect of Wichita phonetics is the occurrence of glottalized final consonants. Taylor asserts that when a long vowel precedes a glottal stop (Ɂ), there is no change to the pronunciation. However, when the glottal stop is preceded by a short vowel, the vowel is eliminated. If the short vowel was preceded by a consonant, then the consonant is glottalized. Taylor hypothesizes that these glottalized final consonants show that the consonant was not originally a final consonant, that the proto form (an earlier language from which Wichita split off, that Taylor was aiming to reconstruct in his paper) ended in a glottal stop, and that a vowel has been lost between the consonant and glottal stop.
Original Word Ending Change Result Wichita Example [V:Ɂ#] No Change [V:Ɂ#] [VɁ#] [V:VɁ#] [V:Ɂ#] [hija}](snow) - [CVɁ#] [CɁ#] [ki*sɁ](bone)
V:- long vowel
V- short vowel
C- consonant
- - preceding sound ends word
- Taylor also finds that previous phonetic translations have recorded the phoneme /ts/ (aka /c/), as occurring after /i/, while /s/ is recorded when preceded by /a/.
- /kw, w, p/ Merger; or Why Wichita Has No /p/:
- In Wichita the sounds /kw/ and /w/ are not differentiated when they begin a word, and word-initial /p/ is expressed as /w/. This is unusual, in that while the majority of Caddoan languages pronounce words that used to begin with /w/ as /p/. These three sounds were also merged when preceded by a consonant. Wichita shifted consonant initial /p/ to /kw/ with other medial occurrences of /p/. /kw/ and /w/ remain distinct following a vowel. For example, the word for ‘man’ is /wi˖c/ in Wichita, but /pi˖ta/ in South Band Pawnee, and /pita/ in Skiri Pawnee.
Vowels
Wichita has either three or four vowels, depending on interpretation :| 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... |
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... |
|
|---|---|---|
| High 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 ~ i ~ e | |
| 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... |
ɛ ~ æ | (o/u) |
| Low 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... |
ɒ ~ a |
These are transcribed as i, e, a, o/u.
Word-final vowels are devoiced
Phonation
Phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, phonation is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the definition used among those who study laryngeal anatomy and physiology...
.
Though Rood employs the vowel /o/ in his transcriptions, Garvin instead uses /u/, and asserts that /u/ is its own phoneme . However, considering the imprecision in vowel sound articulation, what is likely important about these transcriptions is that they signify a back vowel that is not low [+back, -low].
Taylor uses Garvin’s transcription in his analysis, but theorizes a shift of /u/ to /i/ in Wichita medially, but does not have enough examples to fully analyze all the possible envronments. He also discusses a potential shift from /a/ to /i/, but again, does not have enough examples to develop a definitive hypothesis. Taylor finds only /ɛ/ occurs with intervocalic glottal stops.
Rood argues that [o] is not phonemic, as it is often equivalent to any vowel + /w/ + any vowel. For example, [awa] is frequently contracted to [óː] (the high tone is an effect of the elided consonant). There are relatively few cases where speakers will not accept a substitution of vowel + /w/ + vowel for [o]; one of them is [kóːs] 'eagle'.
Rood also proposes that, with three vowels that are arguably high, mid, and low, the front-back distinction is not phonemic, and that one may therefore speak of a 'vertical
Vertical vowel system
Vertical vowel system refers to a system of vowels in a language which requires just one vowel dimension to phonemically distinguish vowels. Theoretically, rounding, frontness and backness, and vowel height could be used in one-dimensional vowel systems; however, vertical refers specifically to the...
' vowel inventory (see below). This also has been claimed for relatively few languages, such as the Northwest Caucasian languages
Northwest Caucasian languages
The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Abkhazo-Adyghean, or sometimes Pontic as opposed to Caspian for the Northeast Caucasian languages, are a group of languages spoken in the Caucasus region, chiefly in Russia , the disputed territory of Abkhazia, and Turkey, with smaller communities...
and the Ndu languages
Ndu languages
The Ndu languages are the best known family of the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea. Ndu is the word for 'man' in the languages that make up this group. The languages were first identified as a related family by Kirschbaum in 1922....
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
.
There is clearly at least a two-way contrast in vowel length
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
. Rood proposes that there is a three-way contrast, which is quite rare among the world's languages, although well attested for Mixe, and probably present in Estonian
Estonian language
Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
. However, in Wichita, for each of the three to four vowels qualities, one of the three lengths is rare, and in addition the extra-long vowels frequently involve either an extra morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
, or suggest that prosody
Prosody (linguistics)
In linguistics, prosody is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance ; the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus; or other elements of...
may be at work. For example,
-
- nɪːts.híːːʔɪh 'the strong one'
- nɪːːts.híːːʔɪh 'the strong ones'
-
- hɛːhɪɾʔíːɾas 'let him find you'
- hɛːːhɪɾʔíːɾas 'let him find it for you'
-
- háɾah 'there'
- háːɾɪh 'here it is' (said when handing something over)
- háːːɾɪh 'that one'
(Note that it is common in many languages to use prosodic lengthening with demonstratives such as 'there' or 'that'.)
This contrasts with Mixe, where it is easy to find a three-way length contrast without the addition of morphemes.
Under Rood's analysis, then, Wichita has 9 phonemic vowels::
| Short Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in... |
Long Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in... |
Overlong Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in... |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| High 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 | ɪˑ | ɪː |
| Mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel... |
ɛ | ɛˑ | ɛː |
| Low 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... |
a | aˑ | aː |
Tone
There is also a contrastive high toneTone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
, indicated here by an acute accent.
Consonants
The perfective tense demonstrates that an act has been completed; on the other hand, the intentive tense indicates that a subject plans or planned to carry out a certain act. The habitual act indicates a habitual activity, for example “he smokes, and “not” he is smoking.” Durative tense describes an activity, which is “coextensive with something else.” ”Syllable and phonotactics
While vowel clusters are uncommon (unless the extra-long vowels are clusters), consonant clusterConsonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
s are ubiquitous in Wichita. Words may begin with clusters such as [kskh] (kskhaːɾʔa) and [ɾ̥h] (ɾ̥hintsʔa). The longest cluster noted in Wichita is five consonants long, counting [ts] as a single consonant /c/: /nahiʔinckskih/ 'while sleeping'. However, Wichita syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
s are more commonly CV or CVC.
Grammar and Morphology
Wichita is an agglutinative, polysynthetic language; meaning words have a root verb basis to which information is added, i.e., morphemes (affixes) are added to verb roots. These words may contain subjects, objects, indirect objects, and possibly indicate possession. Thus, surprisingly complex ideas can be communicated with as little as one word: For example, /kiyaʔa:csthirʔa:c/ means ‘one makes himself a fire’. .Nouns do not distinguish between singular and plural, as this information is specified as part of the verb. Wichita also does not distinguish between gender, which can be problematic for English language translation. .
Sentence structure is much more fluid than English, with words are organized according to importance or novelty. Often the subject of the sentence is placed initially. Linguist David S. Rood, who has written many papers concerning the Wichita language, recorded this example, as spoken by Bertha Provost (a native speaker, now deceased) in the late 60s: .
| Wichita | hira:wisɁiha:s | kiyari:ce:hire:weɁe | hikaɁaca:kikaɁakɁicaki | hira:rɁ | tiɁi | na:kirih |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Word Translation | Old.time.people | God | When.he.made.us.dwell | Earth | This | Where.it.is.located |
The subject of the sentence is ancestors, and thus the sentence begins with it, instead of God, or creation (when.he.made.us.dwell). This leads one to conclude Wichita has a largely free word-order, where parts of the sentence do not need to be located next to each other to be related. .
Wichita has no indirect speech or passive voice. When using past tense, speakers must indicate if this knowledge of the past is based in hearsay or personal knowledge. Wichita speakers also use a morpheme which amounts to two versions of “we”; one that includes the listener, and one that does not. Wichita also differentiates between singular, dual and plural, instead of the simpler singular or plural designations commonly found. .
Revitalization efforts
The Wichita and Affiliated Tribes offers language classes, taught by Doris McLemore and Shirley Davilla. The tribe has created an immersion class for children and a class for adults. Linguist David Rood has collaborated with Wichita speakers to create a dictionary and language CDs. The tribe is collaborating with Rood of the University of Colorado, Boulder to document and teach the language through the Wichita Documentation Project.Further reading
- Garvin, Paul. (1950). Wichita I: Phonemics. International Journal of American Linguistics, 16, 179-184.
- Marcy. (1853). (pp. 307–308).
- Rood, David S. (1971). Agent and object in Wichita. LinguaLinguaLingua: An International Review of General Linguistics is a peer-reviewed academic journal of general linguistics that was established in 1949 and is published by Elsevier. Its current editor-in-chief is Johan Rooryck ....
, 28, 100-107. - Rood, David S. (1971). Wichita: An unusual phonology system. Colorado Research in Linguistiscs, 1, R1-R24. (?)
- Rood, David S. (1973). Aspects of subordinationSubordination (linguistics)In linguistics, subordination is a complex syntactic construction in which one or more clauses are dependent on the main clause, such as The dog ran home after it had played with the ball. The italicized text is the subordinate clause...
in Lakhota and Wichita. CLSs, 71-88. - Rood, David S. (1975). Implications of Wichita phonology. Language, 51, 315-337.
- Rood, David S. (1975). Wichita verb structure: Inflectional categories. In Crawford (Ed.), (pp. 121–134).
- Rood, David S. (1976). Wichita grammar. New York: Garland.
- Rood, David S. (1977). Wichita texts. International Journal of American Linguistics-NATS 2.1, 91-128.
- Rood, David S. (1996). Sketch of Wichita, a Caddoan language. In Handbook of North American IndiansHandbook of North American IndiansThe Handbook of North American Indians is a monographic series of edited scholarly and reference volumes in Americanist studies, published by the Smithsonian Institution beginning in 1978. To date, fifteen volumes have been published...
(Vol. 17, pp. 580–608). - Rood, David S. (1998). 'To be' in Wichita. In Hinton & Munro (Eds.), (pp. 190–196).
- Schmitt. (1950).
- Schmitt, Karl; & Schmitt, Iva Osanai. (1952). Wichita kinship past and present. Norman, OK: U. Book Exchange.
- Schoolcraft, Henry. (1851–1857). Historical and statistical information respecting the history, condition, and prospects of the Indian tribes of the US. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo.
- Schoolcraft, Henry. (1953). (pp. 709–711).
- Spier, Leslie. (1924). Wichita and Caddo relationship terms. American Anthropologist, 26, 258-263.
- Vincent, Nigel. (1978). A note on natural classes and the Wichita consonant system. International Journal of American Linguistics, 44, 230-232.
- Whipple. (1856). Reports of explorations and surveys to ascertain the most practicable and economic route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean (pp. 65–68). Washington: War Department. Information on the Waco dialect].
External links
- Wichita and Affiliated Tribes Language Class, with sample vocabulary
- Wichita Language Documentation Project
- Slideshow of Doris Jean Lamar McLemore telling the Wichita creation story in Wichita
- Ethnologue: Wichita
- Exploration of the Red River of Louisiana, in the year 1852 / by Randolph B. Marcy ; assisted by George B. McClellan. hosted by the Portal to Texas History. See Appendix H, which compares the English, Comanche, and Wichita languages.