page_title: Mandan
section_title: Language
hierarchical_section_title: Mandan / Language
caption_attribution_description: English: Aquatint by Karl Bodmer (1809 - 1893)
context_page_description: The Mandan are a Native American tribe of the Great Plains who have lived for centuries primarily in what is now North Dakota. They are enrolled in the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation. About half of the Mandan still reside in the area of the reservation; the rest reside around the United States and in Canada.
  The Mandan historically lived along both banks of the Upper Missouri River and two of its tributaries—the Heart and Knife rivers— in present-day North and South Dakota. Speakers of Mandan, a Siouan language, they developed a settled, agrarian culture. They established permanent villages featuring large, round, earth lodges, some 40 feet in diameter, surrounding a central plaza. Matrilineal families lived in the lodges. The Mandan were a great trading nation, trading especially their large corn surpluses with other tribes in exchange for bison meat and fat. Food was the primary item, but they also traded for horses, guns, and other trade goods.
context_section_description: The Mandan language or Nų́ų́ʔetaa íroo belongs to the Siouan language family. It was initially thought to be closely related to the languages of the Hidatsa and the Crow. However, since the Mandan language has been in contact with Hidatsa and Crow for many years, the exact relationship between Mandan and other Siouan languages (including Hidatsa and Crow) has been obscured. For this reason, linguists classify Mandan most often as a separate branch of the Siouan family.
  Mandan has two main dialects: Nuptare and Nuetare. Only the Nuptare variety survived into the 20th century, and all speakers were bilingual in Hidatsa. Linguist Mauricio Mixco of the University of Utah has been involved in fieldwork with remaining speakers since 1993. As of 1999, there were only six fluent speakers of Mandan still alive. As of 2010, programs in local schools encourage students' learning the language.
  The Mandan and their language received much attention from European Americans, in part because their lighter skin color caused speculation they were of European origin. In the 1830s, Prince Maximilian of Wied spent more time recording Mandan over all other Siouan languages and additionally prepared a comparison list of Mandan and Welsh words (he thought that the Mandan may have been displaced Welsh). The theory of the Mandan–Welsh connection was also supported by George Catlin, but researchers have found no evidence of such ancestry.
  Mandan has different grammatical forms that depend on the sex of the addressee. Questions asked of men must use the suffix -oʔša while the suffix -oʔrą is used when asking of women. Likewise the indicative suffix is -oʔs when addressing men and -oʔre when addressing women, and also for imperatives: -ta (male), -rą (female). Mandan, like many other North American languages, has elements of sound symbolism in their vocabulary. A /s/ sound often denotes smallness/less intensity, /ʃ/ denotes medium-ness, /x/ denotes largeness/greater intensity:
  síre "yellow"
  šíre "tawny"
  xíre "brown"
  sró "tinkle"
  xró "rattle"
caption: A pair of Mandan men in a print by Karl Bodmer, 19th century. Yellow Feather at left, "son of a celebrated chief". He was killed by a Sioux around a year after Bodmer painted him.[8]
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