Catawba language
1
9.9
- noun
- The Catawba language is considered critically endangered, with only a few speakers remaining.
Examples
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Scholars have compiled dictionaries to help preserve the Catawba language.
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The Catawba language is part of the Siouan family.
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He studied the phonetics of the Catawba language for his linguistic research.
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Many scholars study the Catawba languages for linguistic research.
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He studied the phonetics of the Catawba language for his linguistic research.
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The Catawba language is considered critically endangered, with only a few speakers remaining.
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Scholars have compiled dictionaries to help preserve the Catawba language.
Synonyms
1
9.9
A Native American language once spoken in the southeastern United States
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a straightforward composition of a proper noun for an ethnic group ('Catawba') and the common noun 'language', so its meaning — the language spoken by the Catawba people — is directly inferable from the parts. This naming pattern (X language = the language of X) is cross-linguistically common and would be transparent to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
Catawba language may come from the tribe name Catawba, a word that likely meant 'people of the river' because the group lived along a river. So the term simply refers to the 'language' spoken by the Catawba people.