Ofo language

The Ofo language was a language spoken by the Mosopelea tribe until c. 1673 in what is now Ohio, along the Ohio River. The tribe moved down the Mississippi River to Mississippi, near the Natchez people, and then to Louisiana, settling near the Tunica.

Ofo
Native toUnited States
RegionMississippi
EthnicityMosopelea
Extinctearly 20th century
Language codes
ISO 639-3ofo
Glottologofoo1242

In the 18th century, the Mosopelea were known under the names Oufé and Offogoula. On the basis of the presence of the phoneme /f/ in these names, it was once suspected that Ofo was a Muskogean language. However, anthropologist John R. Swanton discovered an aged female speaker of Ofo, Rosa Pierrette in 1908 while he was conducting fieldwork among the Tunica, he was then able to confirm that the language was Siouan and was similar to Biloxi. Pierrette had spoken Ofo as a child but Swanton says she told him that the rest of her tribe "had killed each other off" when she was 17.[1]

Phonology

Ofo follows a process similar to Grassmann's Law, with /h/ counting as an aspirated consonant: /oskʰa/ 'crane' + /afʰã/ 'white' > /oskəfʰa/ 'white egret' and /apʰeti/ 'fire' + either /təsʰihi/ 'to burn' or /təsʰihi/ 'to breathe' > /apesʰihi/ 'smoke'.[2]

The inventory is as follows:[3]

Labial Dental Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive tenuis ptt͡ʃk
aspirated pʰtʰt͡ʃʰkʰ
Fricative tenuis fsʃxh
aspirated fʰsʰ
Sonorant wlj
bd
Nasal mn

Vowels
Front Central Back
High i, iː
ĩ, ĩː 		u, uː
ũ, ũː
Mid e, eː ə o, oː
Low a, aː
ã, ãː

All vowels, including /ə/, may bear stress.

Morphology

Ofo is considered to be a mildly-polysynthetic language.[3]

Possession

Ofo distinguishes between alienable and inalienable possession by the use of a prefix for first-, second-, and third-person singular as well as first-person dual. That can be abbreviated to 1sg, 2sg, 3sg, and 1du, respectively. The alienable possessions include the following: 1sg {ba-, aba-}, 2sg {č-, ača-}, 3sg {}, 1du {ã-}. The inalienable possessions include the following: 1sg {mi-}, 2sg {čĩ-}, 3sg {ĩ-}, 1du {ã-}.

Negation

Ofo uses the enclitic suffix -ni, to demonstrate negation. That enclitic is usually after the predicate.

Pluralization

Ofo uses the enclitic suffix -tu to pluralize the subject, the object, or both.

Instrumental prefixes

Instrumental prefixes describe the manner in which an action is carried out. Some instrumental prefixes are below:

  • atə- 'by extreme temperature'
  • tu-, du- 'by pulling/hand'
  • ta- 'by mouth'
  • pa- 'by pushing'
  • la- 'by foot'
  • ka- 'by striking'
  • pú- 'by pressure'
  • po- 'by blowing/shooting'

Person
Ofo pronouns
"mí̃ti, mí̃*te" 'I, me' "čí̃*ti" 'you'
"í̃*ti" 'he' "á̃ti, á̃*ti" 'we'

Gender

Ofo appears to have no grammatical gender.

Space, time, and modality

Irrealis mood consists of the suffix -abe. It is the equivalent to the future in English:

  • óktat-,abe, 'he will kill you'
  • tcóktat-abĕ, 'you will work'
  • atcikthé-be, 'I will kill you'

Continuative aspect is formed using the word nóñki.

Iterative aspect is created by reduplication:

  • è-te-te, 'sick, keep on suffering'
  • šni-šni-we, 'itch, keep on itching'
  • tó-fku-fku-pi, 'wink, blink, keep on winking or blinking'

Syntax

The documentation of Ofo does not provide enough information to develop a complete syntax of the language. However, structures also found in related languages have been found.[3]

Ofo appears to have a head-dependent ordering in sentences, which gives it an object-verb word order. The order of verbs may be described as being clause-final. Many cases appear to support that. An example can be seen below:

b-aphú̂ska a-tci-tp-ábe

my-fist I-you-hit-IRREALIS

'I will hit you with my fist'

Case

Only some forms are known because of a lack of documentation.

Dative case appears in Ofo and can be interpreted as resembling an accusative pronoun in English.

tcilétci ó̃tcĭku

your.tongue me.you.give

'hold your tongue!'

athé ãtcókpe

dress me.you.put on

'you help me dress'

Complements and causatives

There is no information in the Ofo data to support Ofo having explicit complement clauses. However, it is apparent that embedded clauses precede the main clause.

détõ-ni á-kiu-bĕ

(he).go-COND I-come-IRREALIS

'if he goes, I will come'

The causative is marked by the enclitic -we.

ifphé-we

teach-CAUSATIVE

'to teach'

Sources
A Dictionary of the Biloxi and Ofo Languages
  • Holmer, Nils, M., An Ofo Phonetic Law, International Journal of American Linguistics, 13:1, 1947.
  • Moseley, Christopher and R. E. Asher, ed. Atlas of the Worlds Languages (New York:Routelege, 1994) Map 5
  • Dorsey, J. Owen, and John R. Swanton. 1912. "A Dictionary of the Biloxi and Ofo Languages". Bureau of American

Ethnology Bulletin 47. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office.

  • Swanton, John R. c.1908 [Ofo-English dictionary], Typed and Autographed Document, 613 cards. National

Anthropological Archives, 2455-OFO, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

  • Swanton, John R. 1909. A New Siouan Dialect. "Putnam Anniversary Volume: Anthropological Essays Presented to Prederic Ward Putnam in Honor of His Seventieth Birthday", pp. 477–86. New York: G. E. Stechert.

References
  1. Swanton, John Reed (1909). A new Siouan dialect. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The Torch Press. p. 483.
  2. de Reuse, Willem J. (1981). "Grassmann's Law in Ofo". International Journal of American Linguistics. 47 (3): 243–244. doi:10.1086/465693. S2CID 224809424.
  3. Rankin, Robert. "The Ofo Language of Louisiana: Philological Recovery of Grammar and Typology". LAVIS III: Language Variety in the South: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. University of Alabama, 2004. PDF file.
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