Nakoda—also called Iyâxe/Iyârhe or Stoney—is one of the five main language divisions within the Dakotan group of the Siouan family. These languages are Dakota (Santee-Sisseton), Dakota (Yankton-Yanktonai), Lakota (Teton), Nakoda (Assiniboine) and Nakoda (Stoney). Today, the language is spoken in Alberta.

Several important sound changes have occured in the Nakoda language, which give it a very different sound from the other Dakotan languages. Specifically, the ejective stops (e.g. /t’/) have merged with the aspirated stops (/tʰ/), and the voiceless stops (e.g. /t/) have become voiced (/d/). Thus where Lakota has four or five different voicings: p, pʰ, (pˣ), p’, b, Nakoda has only two: p, b.

Secondly, the fricatives of Stoney have changed. Dakotan /s/ and /z/ are pronounced interdentally [θ] and [ð] (‘thing’ and ‘this’ in English). Dakotan /š/ and /ž/ are moving towards sounding like [s] and [z]. And most strikingly, /x/ and /γ/ have moved back in the throat to become pharyngeal [ħ] and [ʕ]. These two sounds occur in languages such as: Arabic, Haida, and Nuuc̓aanuł.

I have an example of Nakoda written in Cree style syllabics. I am currently conducting further research into syllabics use in the Stoney langauge. If anyone has any information about Nakoda syllabics, I would be very interested. Roman orthographies are the systems used today, two of which are described below. First the sounds of the language are described in a linguistic representation. Equivalents are then given in the other orthographies.

Note:  There are several Roman Orthography conventions on this site that may require further explanation.  On the charts below, there is lots of phonetic terminology that may not be familiar to everyone.

This page uses no characters outside the Unicode standard.

Notes

• Stress is shown by the ácute accent.
• The aspirated stops are pronounced without a h-release (i.e. become deaspirated/pronouced as just voiceless) when they are part of a consonant cluster and at the end of a word.
• There is some variability in the fricatives with some older speakers tending to use the more regular Dakotan values of /s/ /š/ /z/ and /ž/.
• The pharyngeal fricatives may have a degree of rhotacisation (i.e. combining the throaty sound with something like an English ‘r’).

Notes

• The Morley orthography does not mark glottal stops. It also seems to represent /ħ/ and /ʕ/ with the same digraph ‹rh›, as well as /θ/ and /ð/ both with ‹th›. The examples which I have seen in this writing system employ underlines (of at least r̲h̲) as diacritics, although their use is inconsistant. I would greatly appreciate it if anyone with more information on this orthography please email me.
• Neither orthography writes stress.
• That the Alexis orthography writes the interdental sounds /θ/ and /ð/ with ‹s› and ‹z› may indicate that the fricative sound change from alveolar [s] to interdental [t] has not fully taken place.

Last Update: April 10, 2008