Catawba language

Consonants • // rarely occurs. • [] occurs as an allophone of //. Vowels : : : • Short vowel sounds // can be heard as lax, ranging to []. • // can range to [], and a short // can range to a central vowel [] or a back vowel sound []. == Orthography ==

A Catawba alphabet was created by the Catawba Language Project for the Catawba language, as part of a revitalization effort for the language and the creation of an app for it. • The aspirated is used in the word: 'thank you'. • The ⟨ʔ⟩ is written in different ways like ⟨ɂ⟩ and ⟨ˀ⟩ in some texts. • The ⟨o⟩ and ⟨ǫ⟩ is some time occurs in words like example, meaning 'ask', meaning 'call', meaning 'ice', and meaning Santee Tribe. ==Errata==

Red Thunder Cloud, an impostor, born Cromwell Ashbie Hawkins West, claimed to be Catawba and the last speaker of the Catawba language. He was promoted by anthropologist Frank Speck, who introduced West to the Catawba community. The Catawba told Speck that West was not Catawba, but Speck ignored them and continued to promote West and include him in his work, even recommending him as an expert to other anthropologists. (Speck at one time he also insisted that the Cherokee language was Siouan.) At his death in 1996 it was revealed that West was neither Catawba nor even Native American, but had learned what he knew of the language from books, and from listening to the last known native speaker, Samuel Taylor Blue and his half-sister, Sally Gordon, when Speck brought him to the Catawba reservation. This had apparently been enough to fool the non-Native ethnologists who wrote about him. ==References==