THE CREEK DIALECT
of Maskoki is a harmonious, clearly vocalized form of speech, averse to nasalization. In forms it is exceedingly rich, but its syntax is very simple and undeveloped. An archaic form, called the female language, exists outside of the common Creek, and mainly differs from it in the endings of the verbs.
PHONETICS.
Creek possesses all sounds of the general Maskoki alphabet; but here and in Hitchiti the gutturals g, k, χ are often pronounced with the tongue resting upon the fore or alveolar part of the palate. The alternating processes observed here also occur in most other Indian and illiterate languages: tch, dsh alternate with ts, ds, h with k, χ; g with the other gutturals, b with p, d with t, ā with e, o with u. The accent shifts for rhetoric and syntactic causes, and many unaccented syllables are pronounced long. In the pronunciation of the natives there is a sort of singing modulation, which likes to lengthen the last syllables of a sentence.[131] Syllables not final generally terminate in a vowel.
MORPHOLOGY.
The nominal inflection shows but three cases: The first in -i (or -a, -o, -u), which may be called absolute;[132] the subjective case in -t, -it (-at, -ut), and the objective in -n, -in (-an, -un). The absolute case, when used as a vocative, often lengthens or strongly accentuates the last syllable. The suffix -n indicates the direct and indirect object, and also sometimes the locative case. Diminutives are formed by means of the suffix -odshi, -udshi.
Substantive. The substantive noun does not inflect for number except in a few terms designating persons which form a plural in -agi, -aki: míko chief, míkagi chiefs, to be distinguished from míkalgi class from which chiefs are chosen; húnanwa man, hókti woman; hunantági, hóktagi. It is the archaic form of -akīs, the verbal ending of third person plural of certain verbal inflections. Cf. -a`li in Hitchiti.
The suffix -algi, though sometimes used as a plural suffix, designates collectivity: u-ikaíwa spring of water, u-ikaiwálki place with water-springs, and u-ikaiⁿálki people living at the springs; alíktcha conjurer, alíktchalgi conjurers as one body, taken in a body.
The parts of speech being but imperfectly differentiated, tenses can be expressed in nouns by adding suffixes: míko chief, mikotáti, míko-ō′mā one who was, has been chief; míko-ta`láni a future chief; adsulagitáti the defunct forefathers.