The Koroa were one of the groups of Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands who lived in the Mississippi Valley before French colonization. The Koroa lived in the Yazoo River basin in present-day northwest Mississippi .
59-589: The Koroa are believed to have spoken a dialect of Tunica . However, French missionaries described the Koroa (which they spelled Courouais) as speaking the same language as the Yazoo but a different tongue from the Tunica. They may have described a distinct dialect or a related Tunican language . Jacques Marquette referred to this tribe by the name Akoroa . The Koroa may be the tribe identified by Hernando de Soto 's expedition as
118-612: A language isolate , Granberry (1994) suggested that Tunica was related to Calusa , with Calusa possibly being relatively a recent arrival from the lower Mississippi region . Another possibility was that similarities between the languages were derived from long-term mutual contact. In 2010, the Tunica-Biloxi tribe formed the Tunica Language Project in partnership with the Linguistics Program at Tulane University in
177-586: A /ʔ/, when they are completely unaspirated . Meanwhile, /b/, /d/, and /g/ do not occur frequently, as is the case with /f/. The fricatives /s/ and /š/ are pronounced with a stronger hiss than in English, and /ʔ/ is said to have a very strong closure. The semi-vowels /j/ and /w/ are always voiced , as is the nasal /m/. On the other hand, /n/, /l/, and /r/ can be voiced or voiceless . The /l/ and /r/ are voiced between vowels or before /ʔ/ or continuants. However, they are voiceless before voiceless consonants except /ʔ/ or at
236-480: A continuing effort to revitalize the Tunica language. Tribal members read from a new children's book in Tunica at a 2010 pow wow. Only about half of the tribal members live within 75 miles (121 km) of the reservation, in Avoyelles Parish . The Tunica-Biloxi Language & Culture Revitalization Program uses webinars to teach the language to those who do not live near the reservation. The phonology of Tunica
295-661: A different geographic area of Canada than the Acadians of present-day Nova Scotia, who were expelled by the British from their homeland (Acadie) beginning in 1755 during the Seven Years' War with France. Many deported Acadians eventually made it to Louisiana from 1764 - 1788, after several years of living in exile along the eastern Atlantic seaboard, Canada, St. Pierre and France. In the later 19th century, immigrants from Scotland , Belgium , Italy , and Germany also settled here, following
354-468: A distinctive history of European immigrants, dominated by the French in its early history, it is considered the most northern of the 22 " Acadiana " parishes. These have a tradition of settlement by French-speaking refugees from Acadia (now eastern Canada) in the late 18th century. They contributed strongly to the development of culture in this area, as did Africans and the indigenous Native Americans. The parish
413-466: A high rate of fatalities from Eurasian infectious diseases, warfare, and social disruption. The reduced Tunica tribe lived close to the Ofo and Avoyelles tribes, in present-day Louisiana. They communicated by Mobilian Jargon or French . The small population and the use of a jargon made Haas note that the eventual deterioration of the Tunica language was inevitable. Although Tunica is usually classified as
472-611: A little bit," ka'škuto'hku "several, quite a few," and ʔa'mari "enough." They can be used as minimal clauses, substitutes for nouns, modifiers of nouns, and modifiers of active verbs. Postpositions are used to modify locatives and predicates. Adjectives can be used as predicate words, as noun modifiers used as predicative words, or as modifiers of the interrogative-indefinite pronoun ka'nahku . Comparatives can be used as modifiers of adjectives, static verbs, adverbs, nouns, or quantificative na'mu . Adverbs can be used to modify auxiliary and active verbs. Auxiliary verbs are always in
531-430: A minor third. Elsewhere in the phrase, the tone is like a low melody: lɔ'ta wiwa'nǎn "Do you want to run?" The falling-rising melody is a fast drop by a fourth, followed by a fast rise by a minor third. However, only one word uses it: hőn "Yes." Every syllable in Tunica begins with a single consonant. Sometimes, double or triple consonants may occur in the middle of words or phrases, but no more than two consonants in
590-424: A phrase is typically spoken with a slightly higher pitch than the following syllables are. The exception is the last syllable when the high or the falling melody is used or the last syllable during the use of the low or the rising melody. The phrase-final melody then determines much of the stress in the rest of the phrase. When there is use of the high melody, the last syllable is about a minor third higher pitch than
649-541: A predicative word position. Active verbs are either finite or infinitive in form. Finite verbs take subjective pronominal referentials and are predicative words. Infinitives are taken as predicate complements. Sometimes, they are inflected for an objective referential. Static verbs are always inflected for an objective referential and are always predicative words. Sentence connectives connect or contrast two sentences or sometimes two words. Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana Avoyelles ( French : Paroisse des Avoyelles )
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#1732856213484708-569: A row occur at the end of a phrase. The smallest phonetic group in Tunica is a phrase , but a word and a phrase can be differentiated by certain processes. Those that affect grammatical elements that merge to form words are vocalic contraction , vocalic assimilation , vocalic syncope , consonantic syncope, haplology , and patterns in stress. Those that affect words that combine into phrases are vocalic apocope , consonantic apocope, amalgamation , and stress losses. More specific information and basic examples are detailed below: The morphology of Tunica
767-456: A sentence are made up of words, phrases, or clauses acting in one of the following: predicative words, independent subjects, independent objects, subject or object modifiers, predicate modifiers, predicate complements, or sentence connectives. The syntactic elements can all be made into clauses that are either main or subordinate, and subordinate clauses can be dependent, complementary, relative, or adverbial. There are three types of sentences that
826-634: Is ta'- + wi'š(i)mi'li "red water". The pronominal prefixes signify possession when they attached to a noun and preclude the need for articular prefixes with the same stem. Some stems, called inalienably-possessed noun stems, cannot be used without a pronominal prefix. They include those of kinship, body parts, and miscellaneous terms. Kinship terms are those such as -e'si "father" or ' -gači "mother." Body part terms are those such as -e'sini "head" or -e'neri "horns." Finally, miscellaneous terms can be nouns like -e'htiwa'hkuni "breechcloth" or -e'tisa "name." Gender-number suffixes can be used only in
885-654: Is a parish located in central eastern Louisiana on the Red River where it effectively becomes the Atchafalaya River and meets the Mississippi River . As of the 2020 census , the population was 39,693. The parish seat is Marksville . The parish was created in 1807, with the name deriving from the French name for the historic Avoyel people, one of the local Indian tribes at the time of European encounter. Today
944-441: Is a minor third higher than any syllable that comes before it other than ta'- . The falling melody causes the last syllable to start at a minor third higher than the second-last syllable: it goes down quickly: ʔa'hkiš ma'rʔikî "Go back!" The low melody that occurs as the last syllable is lower than the last stressed syllable, which is a little higher than the syllables that it immediately follows. All unstressed syllables between
1003-408: Is adverbial. There are other special constructions that also take place in certain specific environments. For example, quantificatives and nouns can be in apposition to other nouns that independent subjects or objects: ʔuhkʔo'nisɛ'mǎn, ho't ʔaku'hpanʔuhkɛ'nì "He assembled all (of) his people, it is said" < "he assembled, it is said, his people, all." Additionally, a possessive nexus can serve in
1062-417: Is as follows. Nouns can be divided into the categories of indeterminative and determinative . The indeterminative nouns have a stem without any affixes , and the determinative nouns are distinguished by the articular prefix or the pronominal prefix. Determinative nouns belong are definitive, non-definitive, and locative, which may be distinguished by different prefixes or suffixes. The articular prefix
1121-608: Is as follows. Tunica has seven vowels , all of which are usually short but may be lengthened in stressed syllables , and all of which are voiced completely, except if a /u/ is at the end of a phrase in a word with stress on the second-last syllable, when it is unvoiced after a /k/ or /hk/. Vowels are paired with a certain melody in last or occasionally second-last syllable of a word. The melodies are high, low, rising, falling, and falling-rising. Vowels may appear only following or preceding consonants , never adjacent to one another. Also, /i/, /a/, and /u/ may appear in any position, but
1180-645: Is land and 33 square miles (85 km ) (3.8%) is water. The parish is bounded on the east by what was just the Red River in the first millennium CE, and is now the Red River and Atchafalaya River . The formation of the Atchafalaya River happened when the Mississippi River changed course, breaking up the Red River. In the 20th century the Old River Control Structure was built at this area to control
1239-442: Is noted for its brand of Cajun / Creole style music and its gumbo , a popular soup with roots in the three major ethnicities noted above. The central part of Avoyelles Parish is sited on a large plateau, slightly above the floodplain of the waterways. Travel by water was long the primary way to move around this area. The Indians used canoes, and the early French settlers developed their own boats, known as pirogues. Records from
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#17328562134841298-445: Is similar to the definite article in English and appears as ta'- before all stems not beginning with /ʔ/ or /t/. The prefix appears as t- before stems beginning with /ʔ/, and it is omitted by haplology before stems beginning with /t/: te'tiha'yihta "on the road"; te'ti "the road" < te'ti "road" All proper nouns, unless their stems begin with /t/, must begin with the articular prefix. For instance, ta'wišmi'li "Red River"
1357-399: Is the most commonly used locative suffix, and its meaning is comparable to the English "in, into" or "on, over," but in Tunica, it is used as "at, to." That can be seen in the sentence "He stayed at home," which breaks down into ʔu'riš ʔunanì < "at his house" ʔu'riš(i) < ʔuhk- + ri- "house" + ši . -štihki "toward, in the direction of" is the second suffix. Usually, it
1416-740: Is used with the names of directions: ta'sapʔaraštihk "to the west" < ta- + sa'pʔara "west" + -štihki . The final locative suffix is -hat "on, onto." It is typically used only with ta'hali "the ground." It can be seen in the sentence "He spat on the ground" as ta'haltǎn, ču'hʔuhkɛ'nì ; ta'halta < ta'- + ha'l(i) "ground, land" + -hat . The syntax of Tunica is as follows. The possible word classes that are found in Tunica include independent personal pronouns , nouns , interrogative-indefinite pronouns, quantificatives, postpositions , adjectives , comparatives, adverbs, auxiliary verbs , active verbs, static verbs, sentence connectives , and exclamatives and imitatives. Syntactic elements of
1475-672: The Coligua or Cologoa . They may have met the Spanish expedition in 1541 near present-day Little Rock, Arkansas . The Koroa lived on both sides of the Mississippi River when the French encountered them in the late 17th century. At least one of their villages was on the river's east bank. In 1682, La Salle visited a Koroa village on the Western side of the Mississippi twice, both on the descent and
1534-585: The Tunica-Biloxi Indian Tribe . They are the largest Native American tribe in Avoyelles Parish and have a reservation that extends into Marksville. Descendants of other smaller tribes are also enrolled in this tribe. Avoyelles Parish is known for its French colonial history and tradition of French language use. The contemporary Creole traditions, in both music and food, reflect European, African and Native American influences. While Avoyelles has
1593-502: The United States by Native American Tunica peoples. There are no native speakers of the Tunica language, but there were 32 second-language speakers in 2017, and as of 2023 , there are 60 second-language speakers. Tunica-Biloxi tribal member William Ely Johnson worked with Swiss ethnologist Albert Gatschet to help him document the language in 1886. This initial documentation was further developed by linguist John R. Swanton in
1652-618: The Catholic churches in Mansura and Marksville document the founding of a trading post and a Catholic school by French colonists. The merchants wanted to conduct fur trading with the Tunica Tribe and the missionaries hoped to convert the natives to Christianity. The trading post was built near the Avoyel/Tunica settlement; it was preserved until the mid-1960s. Historic roadside markers on LA 1 identify
1711-672: The French Creoles. Together they established today's towns and villages. Their direct ties to Europe set them apart from the Acadians (Cajuns) of southern Louisiana, who came from a culture established for generations in Canada. At the turn of the 19th century, free people of color of African-French descent also settled in Avoyelles. Many came from New Orleans, which had a large community of free people of color. Others were refugees from Saint-Domingue , where slaves had rebelled to gain independence as
1770-773: The French words commonly used today in the parish date to terms used during the Napoleon period in France, indicating that this was the period of immigration. They have not been used in France for many generations. The Spanish influence in Louisiana was more dominant in New Iberia — this was named after colonists from the Iberian Peninsula, commonly known as Spain and Portugal. There are no Spanish surnames in Avoyelles. A few families from French Canada (Quebec) settled in Avoyelles. They were from
1829-552: The Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes. A museum and a National Park commemorate this early culture. The Tunica people had bands whose territory extended into the central Mississippi Valley. They absorbed the smaller remnant of Avoyel people nearly two centuries ago. Through the years, they also intermarried with the more numerous Biloxi people . The peoples organized politically in the 20th century and were federally recognized in 1981 as
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1888-511: The Koroa. The tribe's leaders had the murderers executed. Many members of the Koroa tribe joined with the Tunica , Chickasaw , or Natchez tribes after European diseases had severely depleted their population. Tunica language The Tunica or Luhchi Yoroni (or Tonica , or less common form Yuron ) language is a language isolate that was spoken in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valley in
1947-491: The Tunica language produces: simple, compound, and complex. Simple sentences must contain only one predicative word. Compound sentences have two or more main clauses. Complex sentences have a main clause and one or more of the different types of subordinate clauses that are mentioned above. The following are brief descriptions of possible syntactic elements of a clause: may be words when used as adjectives, comparatives, adverbs, and locatives and may be phrases and clauses when it
2006-542: The US Army Corps of Engineers built a system of levees along the Mississippi River. It reduced immediate flooding in Marksville and other towns, but has caused indirect damage to the wetlands. This has ultimately caused more serious flooding as the speed of the river has increased. According to the U.S. Census Bureau , the parish has a total area of 866 square miles (2,240 km ), of which 832 square miles (2,150 km )
2065-595: The US expanded its rule, local documents began to be recorded in the English of the new government. The United States arranged for the Lewis and Clark Expedition and others to survey the Louisiana Territory. It hired local French soldiers, surveyors and doctors, many of whom eventually settled in the area. Many of the French people who settled Avoyelles Parish immigrated from France in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Many of
2124-428: The age of 18 living with them, 51.70% were married couples living together, 15.70% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.20% were non-families. 25.00% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.90% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.60 and the average family size was 3.11. In the parish the population was spread out, with 26.80% under
2183-467: The age of 18, 9.20% from 18 to 24, 29.00% from 25 to 44, 21.30% from 45 to 64, and 13.70% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 96.40 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.90 males. The median income for a household in the parish was $ 23,851, and the median income for a family was $ 29,389. Males had a median income of $ 27,122 versus $ 18,250 for females. The per capita income for
2242-529: The banks of the old Mississippi River channel in Marksville, three large burial mounds have been preserved from the Mississippian culture , which flourished especially along the upper Mississippi, the Ohio River and other tributaries, from about 900 AD to 1500 AD. Mounds of its major city, Cahokia , are preserved in western Illinois across the Mississippi from St. Louis, Missouri. The trading network reached from
2301-418: The definitive case of the determinative category so whenever one is used, there must also be a determining prefix attached to the stem. Below is a table showing the gender-number suffixes: Sometimes, gender-number suffixes are put on an inflected verb form to convert it to a relative clause. It could be that a noun has the appropriate suffix, and the verb of the clause then takes the same one. Other times, only
2360-512: The determinative and the indeterminative. The determinative category can be divided into definitive, non-definitive, and locative. Indeterminative nouns can be predicative words, subjects of predications, objects of transitive and transimpersonal active verbs and of static verbs, and complements of impersonal and transimpersonal active verbs and of static verbs. Personal pronouns are inflected depending on person, number, and gender, but they do not have special forms that indicate whether they fall into
2419-508: The determinative or indeterminative categories. They substitute for nouns, and they can be used like nouns, except in the locative case. The interrogative-indefinite pronouns are ka'ku "who, someone, anyone" and ka'nahku "what, something, anything." They can substitute for nouns when they do not occur in the locative case. Also, ka'nahku does not appear as an independent subject. Quantificatives include numerals and others like ho'tu "all, everything," na'mu "many, much," ka'šku "a few,
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2478-458: The early 1900s. The last known native speaker, Sesostrie Youchigant , died in 1948. In the 1930s, linguist Mary Haas worked with him to describe what Youchigant remembered of the language, and the description was published in A Grammar of the Tunica Language in 1941. That was followed by Tunica Texts in 1950 and Tunica Dictionary in 1953. By the 17th century, the people had suffered
2537-408: The end of a phrase: ši'lka "blackbird," ši'hkal "stone." Similarly, /n/ is voiced between vowels or before /ʔ/ and is voiceless at the end of a phrase or before voiceless consonants except /ʔ/. Tunica has both stressed and unstressed syllables, and stressed syllables can have a higher pitch than other syllables, depending on the position of the syllable in a phrase. The first stressed syllable of
2596-477: The flow of the three rivers. At the 2020 United States census , there were 39,693 people, 15,163 households, and 9,840 families residing in the parish, up from 42,073 residents in 2010. At the census of 2000, there were 41,481 people, 14,736 households, and 10,580 families living in the parish. The population density was 50 people per square mile (19 people/km ). There were 16,576 housing units at an average density of 20 per square mile (7.7/km ). In 2000,
2655-465: The following gender-number classes: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine dual, feminine dual, masculine plural, or feminine plural. There are rules to help determine classification of nouns: Nouns in Tunica are also classified according to what position they take. There are three positions that are available and that encompass every noun in the Tunica language: horizontal, squatting, and vertical. Humans and four-legged non-humans can take any of
2714-416: The last stressed syllable and the last syllable take on the same stress as the latter. Unless it is also the last stressed syllable, the first stressed syllable is higher than any following syllable except that last stressed syllable: ʔu'riš ma'rʔuwa'nì "He went back home, they say." When the rising melody occurs, the last syllable starts lower than the last stressed syllable and goes upward quickly by about
2773-523: The more southern Acadian parishes. But, few families in Avoyelles are of Acadian descent. From the 1800s until the mid-1900s, local Confederate units and local newspaper reports in The Villager always referred to the Avoyelles French families as Creoles, the term for native-born people of direct descent from early French colonists and born in the colony. Following the disastrous Great Flood of 1927 ,
2832-509: The nation of Haiti . Others came from other colonies in the French West Indies. The blending of these three cultures: Native American, European and African, created a distinct Louisiana Creole culture noted in the local language, food, Catholic religion, and family ties. In the 21st century, the Avoyelles Parish culture has been classified as "Cajun" because of the perceived similarities in speech, food, and various folk traditions with
2891-447: The others appear only in syllables with stress. Vowels do not typically occur at the end of a phrase, and when any vowel precedes n in the same syllable, it becomes nasalized . The transcription style (represented in bolded symbols below) is based on Mary Haas' work Tunica Language . The IPA symbols are in brackets next to each consonant. The consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, and /t͡ʃ/ are always fairly aspirated unless they occur before
2950-465: The parish is the base of the federally recognized Tunica-Biloxi Indian Tribe, who have a reservation there. The tribe has a land-based gambling casino on their reservation. It is located in Marksville , the parish seat, which is partly within reservation land. Native Americans occupied this area beginning around 300 BC. Varying indigenous cultures flourished there in the following centuries. Today on
3009-500: The parish was $ 12,146. About 21.70% of families and 25.90% of the population were below the poverty line , including 32.50% of those under age 18 and 25.00% of those age 65 or over. All primary public schools are run by the Avoyelles Parish School Board . It operates 10 schools with an enrollment over 6,000 students. The school board website is Avoyelles Parish School Board . The 1020th Engineer Company (Vertical) of
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#17328562134843068-668: The positions, but elongated non-human animates (like fish or snakes) always take the horizontal position. Smaller non-human animates, like frogs and birds, always take the squatting position . Inanimates are always horizontal or vertical: abstract nouns are always horizontal, and inanimate objects that take an erect position, like trees, are vertical. The preverbs are often used with active verb predicative words: There are many postfixes, which express different meanings like certain tenses and negation. Sometimes, more than one postfix may be attached to one word, and each postfix has its own governing rules. There are two possible noun categories:
3127-633: The racial makeup of the parish was 68.47% White , 29.49% Black or African American , 1.01% Native American , 0.17% Asian , 0.19% from other races , and 0.66% from two or more races. 0.97% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 17.64% reported speaking French or Cajun French at home, while 2.12% speak Spanish . In 2020, its racial makeup was 63.58% non-Hispanic white, 26.83% Black or African American, 0.88% Native American, 0.87% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 4.1% multiracial, and 3.74% Hispanic or Latino American. In 2000, there were 14,736 households, out of which 36.30% had children under
3186-408: The return journey. His party was feasted there, and saw Quinipissas , whom they described as the Koroa's allies, living in the village. A 1698 French missionary expedition also found them living in the same area as the Tunica, Yazoo, and Houspé , and Father Antoine Davion was assigned to missionize them. In 1702, a French Catholic missionary named Nicolas Foucault was killed while serving among
3245-442: The same syntactical functions that a noun can. For example, ta'čɔhak ʔu'rǐhč, hi'yuhɔ'nì "The chief's house was (made of) grass" ( ta'čɔhaku "the chief", possessor noun, + ʔu'rihči "his house", alienably possessed noun, the combination serving as independent subject). There are certain rules that are observed to form sentences in the correct order: There are also certain rules in the order of clauses: Noun can belong to one of
3304-434: The second-last syllable. The first syllable with stress is usually a major second higher than the following syllables are except for the last. All other syllables may not be spoken with any kind of pitch, and the same goes for other unstressed syllables. For example, ta'čiyak ʔura'pʔikʔahčá "You will kill the squirrel" shows the melody. ta'- is a major second higher than the syllables that follow it except for -ča , which
3363-470: The site of the historic Catholic mission school. Franco-European settlers first called this area Hydropolis, meaning water city, referring to the marshes and bayous. The major mode of transportation was by Indian canoe and pirogue (a French-style dug-out canoe). Church records identify settlers with all their family members listed, as well as some property; in some cases they listed slaves by name. Church records and documentation were recorded in French during
3422-436: The verb takes the suffix. Examples of the use of the gender-number suffixes follow: Finally, there are three possible locative suffixes to put nouns in the locative case. The nouns will also have a determining prefix attached. Gender-number suffixes and locative suffixes are mutually exclusive, but a locative noun may have a number. Also, locative suffixes can take stems and convert them into adverbs and postpositions . -ši
3481-499: The years of initial settlement, then in Spanish during their brief rule in the late 18th century, with a return to French after France reacquired the area under Napoleon Bonaparte in the early 19th century. After his troops failed to regain control over Saint-Domingue (now Haiti ), Napoleon withdrew from North America. He sold the large Louisiana Purchase territory in 1803 to the United States under President Thomas Jefferson . As
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