Miskito language

Many of the Miskito are of mixed race with either African-Native American ancestry or a mix of African-Native American and British ancestry. The Miskito people had strong relationship with the British and they signed the Treaty of Friendship and Alliance. Eventually, the British began to lose interest in the region, and Britain allowed Nicaragua to have uncontested claim over the Mosquito Coast. A treaty was signed in which a Miskito reserve, a self-governing entity that enjoyed semi-sovereign rights, was given to the Miskito people, but Honduras eventually took over the area.

In the 20th century the Miskito language started to dwindle. Honduras, being a former Spanish colony, officially used the Spanish language, and this stifled the proliferation of the Miskito language in the 20th century. In schools, children were forbidden from speaking Miskito for most of the 20th century and could only speak Spanish; young generations had less of an opportunity to practice the language.

In the 1990s, many groups lobbied against the rule and promoted bilingual schools to preserve the Miskito language. Twenty such bilingual schools exist.

G. R. Heath wrote on Miskito grammar in American Anthropologist in 1913 and describes its orthography and phonology as follows:

The vowels a, e, i, o, u correspond almost exactly to the same sound of those letters in German.

The consonants g, j, s, w, y represent the sounds heard in the English words get, jet, set, wet, and yet; and the combination ch stands for the sound heard in the word chest. C by itself will not be used. The other letters have the same power as in English, except that the aspirate h is always to be pronounced, even at the end of a syllable.

Long vowels will be distinguished by the grave accent (`).

The stress accent in Miskuto is almost invariably on the first syllable. Any variations from this rule will be marked by the acute accent, as in Spanish (´).

When the grave and acute accents occur on the same vowel, they combine to form the circumflex (ˆ).

Nasalized vowels are sometimes met with: they resemble the ordinary vowels followed by a sound corresponding to the French n in mon. But as this nasal sound seems to be pronounced not after, but simultaneously with, the vowels, it seems better to mark the vowels with the tilde (˜), to indicate that the vowels themselves are nasalized. Such nasalized vowels are always long, thus: ã, ẽ, ĩ, õ, ũ.

The combination ng is a single sound: the double sound in the English word "longer" will be represented by ngg.[3]

There is still much controversy about Miskito orthography and it cannot be considered settled, even with printed Miskito grammars, Bible translations, and other texts.

• Miskito language (typological overview)
• Miskito grammar
• Miskito Coast Creole

• Adam, Lucien (1891). Langue mosquito. Paris: J. Maisonneuve. (Reprinted 1964, Nendeln/ Liechtenstein: Kraus).
• Richter, Elke (1986). "Observaciones acerca del desarrollo lexical miskito en Nicaragua". Revista de Filología Románica. 1986 (4): 341–346.

Miskito language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

• Miskitu Language Collection of Natalia Bermúdez and Wanda Luz Waldan Peter - archive of audio and video recordings and text transcriptions of historical narratives from native speakers from AILLA.
• Recording of a song in Miskito with an interview in English - from the Collection of Miskito, Quechua and Tseltal of June Nash at AILLA.
• Miskito - English - Spanish Dictionary
• Notes in Miskito Grammar
• Miskito-Spanish Dictionary

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Miskito