Bidai
Quasmigdo
Native toUnited States
RegionTexas
EthnicityBidai
Extinct19th century?
unclassified (language isolate?
Atakapan?)
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
Glottologbida1238

Bidai (also spelled Beadeye, Bedias, Bidey, Viday, etc.; autonym: Quasmigdo) is an unclassified extinct language formerly spoken by the Bidai people of eastern Texas. Zamponi (2024) notes that the numerals do not appear to be related to those of any other languages and hence proposes that Bidai may be a language isolate.[1]

Word list

Rufus Grimes, a Texan settler in Navasota, Grimes County sent a letter dated November 15, 1887 to Albert S. Gatschet that contained several Bidai words. The word list was published in Gatschet (1891: 39, fn. 2).[1][2]

gloss Bidai
one namah
two nahonde
three naheestah
four nashirimah
five nahot nahonde
six nashees nahonde
boy púskus
corn tándshai

Comparison of numerals

Below is Zamponi's (2024) comparison of Bidai numerals with those of neighboring languages.[1]

language one two three four five six
Bidai namah nahonde naheestah nashirimah nahot nahonde nashees nahonde
W. Atakapa[3] tanuʹk, taʹnuk tsīk lāt (h)imatoʹl nīt, nit latsīʹk
Karankawa[4] náatsa háikia kaxáji hájo hakn náatsa béhema hájo háikia
Tonkawa[5] we·ʔis-pax ketay metis sikit kaskwa sikwa·law
Caddo[6] ’wísts’i’ bít daháw’ híwí’ diːsik’an dáːnkih
Adai[7] nancas nass colle tacache seppacan pacanancus
Mobilian Jargon[8] (a)čaf(f)a tok(o)lo točena ošta taɫape han(n)ale

Anthony Grant (1995) finds the following cognates shared with Choctaw and Mobilian Jargon.[9]

language boy corn
Bidai púskus tándshai
Choctaw poškoš ~ poskos ‘child’ tãci’
Mobilian Jargon posko(š) ~ poškoš ‘baby, child’ tãče ‘baby, child’

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Zamponi, Raoul (2024). "Unclassified languages". The Languages and Linguistics of Indigenous North America. De Gruyter. pp. 1627–1648. doi:10.1515/9783110712742-061. ISBN 978-3-11-071274-2.
  2. ^ Gatschet, Albert S. 1891. The Karankawa Indians, the coast people of Texas. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology.
  3. ^ Gatschet, Albert S. & John R. Swanton. 1932. Dictionary of the Atakapa language accompanied by text material. (Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 108). Washington: Government Printing Office.
  4. ^ Grant, Anthony P. 1994. Karankawa linguistic materials. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics 19(2). 1–56.
  5. ^ Hoijer, Harry. 2018. Tonkawa texts: a new linguistic edition. Edited by Thomas R. Wier. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
  6. ^ Chafe, Wallace. 2018. The Caddo language: a grammar, texts, and dictionary based on materials collected by the author in Oklahoma between 1960 and 1970. Petoskey, MI: Mundart Press.
  7. ^ Grant, Anthony P. 1995. John Sibley’s Adai vocabulary: a contribution to Caddoan lexicography? Paper presented at the 15th annual Siouan and Caddoan Languages Conference, Albuquerque, NM.
  8. ^ Drechsel, Emanuel J. 1996. An integrated vocabulary of Mobilian Jargon, a native American pidgin of the Mississippi Valley. Anthropological Linguistics 38. 248–354.
  9. ^ Grant, Anthony P. 1995. "A note on Bidai." European Review of Native American Studies 9:45–47.
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