the representative of the western group of Maskoki dialects, differs
in its _phonetics_ from the eastern dialects chiefly by the more
general vocalic nasalization previously alluded to. Words cannot begin
with two consonants; the Creek _st_ is replaced by _sht_, and
combinations like _tl, bt, nt_ do not occur (Byington's Grammar,
p. 9). In short words the accent is laid upon the penultima.
The cases of the noun are not so distinctly marked as they are in the
eastern dialects by the case-suffixes in _-t_ and _-n_, but have often
to be determined by the hearer from the position of the words in the
sentence. But in other respects, case and many other relations are
pointed out by an extensive series of suffixed or enclitic syllables,
mostly monosyllabic, which Byington calls article-pronouns, and writes
as separate words. They are simply suffixes of pronominal origin, and
correspond to our articles _the, a_, to our relative and
demonstrative pronouns, partly also to our adverbs, prepositions and
conjunctions. They form combinations among themselves, and supply
verbal inflection with its modal suffixes or exponents. Adjectives
possess a distinct plural form, which points to their origin from
verbs, but in substantives number is not expressed except by the verb
connected with them, or by means of separate words.
There are two classes of personal pronouns, the relative and the
absolute (the former referring to something said previously), but the
personal inflection of the verb is effected by prefixes, the
predicative suffix _'h_ being added to the end of each form in the
affirmative conjugation. Only the first person of the singular is
marked by a suffix: _-li_ (increased by _'h_: _-li'h_). The lack of a
true substantive verb _to be_ is to some extent supplied by this
suffix _-'h_. Verbal inflection is rich in tenses and other forms, and
largely modifies the radix to express changes in voice, mode and
tense. The sway of phonetic laws is all-powerful here, and they
operate whenever a slight conflict of syllables disagreeing with the
delicate ear of the Cha'hta Indian takes place.
Of abstract terms there exists a larger supply than in many other
American languages.
Several dialects of Cha'hta were and are still in existence, as the
Sixtown dialect, the ones spoken from Mobile bay to New Orleans, those
heard on the Lower Mississippi river, and that of the Chicasa. The
dialect now embodied in the literary language of the present Cha'hta
is that of the central parts of Mississippi State, where the American
Protestant missionaries had selected a field of operation.
Rev. Cyrus Byington (born 1793, died 1867) worked as a missionary
among this people before and after the removal to the Indian
territory. He completed the first draft of his "Choctaw Grammar" in
1834, and an extract of it was published by Dr. D. G. Brinton.[85] His
manuscript "Choctaw Dictionary," now in the library of the U. S.
Bureau of Ethnology, fills five folio volumes, contains about 17,000
items (words, phrases and sentences), and was completed about 1833.
The missionary alphabet used by him, which is also the alphabet of
Cha'hta literature, is very imperfect, as it fails to express _all_
sounds of the language by _signs for each_, and entirely neglects
accentuation. The pronunciation of Cha'hta is so delicate and pliant
that only a superior scientific alphabet can approximately express its
peculiar sounds and intonations.
[Footnote 85: Published in Proceedings of American Philosoph.
Society, 1870 (56 pages), 8vo.]
Cha'hta has been made the subject of linguistic inquiry by Fr. Müller,
Grundzüge d. Sprachwissenschaft, II, 232-238, and by Forchhammer in
the Transactions of the Congrès des Américanistes, 2d session, 1877,
8vo.; also by L. Adam.