Quapaw (Okáxpa) Language Dictionary

⚠️ The official Quapaw Nation language dictionary is not yet available online. In the meantime, We encourage you to visit the Supernaw family's online dictionary here. Check back soon for updates!

Dictionary Sources

This dictionary is an evolving body of work; even though our language has been dormant for many decades, there are a handful of researchers and archivists who have and continue to document and analyze it. We cross-reference and verify dictionary entries utilizing many bodies of work as cited in the sections below:

Written Works

The initials in brackets are placeholders for cited works¹ authored by the following individuals:

1 Note that the reliability and accuracy of these sources varies; some sources are relied upon more than others. Click here for more information.

Source Reliability

Click any of the dropdowns below to expand notes on each source's reliability and accuracy. You may click anywhere outside of this pop-up dialog to close it.

George Izard (1827)
A portrait of George Izard.
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
George Izard was a senior Army officer and the second governor of the Arkansas Territory from 1825 to 1828. He took an interest in Native languages during his tenure as governor and compiled a Quapaw vocabulary containing 226 entries. These entries are reliable, with very few noted exceptions.
Lewis F. Hadley (1882) Lewis F. Hadley was a linguist and missionary who lived in Indian Territory (what is now Arkansas) during the late 1800s. His work is extremely unreliable. Most aspects of Hadley’s system of spelling fail to accurately represent the pronunciation of Quapaw. There is no consistency with vowels and consonants, in addition to a lack of understanding of the basic Dhegiha language concepts and sounds. Hadley's work is referred to minimally in our language work.
James Owen Dorsey (1890-1894)
A portrait of James Owen Dorsey.
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
James Owen Dorsey was an ethnologist and linguist who spent most of his professional life documenting the language and culture of the Dhegiha tribes: Quapaw, Omaha, Ponca, Osage, and Kanza (Kaw) Tribes. Dorsey’s primary focus was the Omaha. Dorsey’s Quapaw work consists of folklore, mythology, history, texts, linguistic notes, vocabulary, personal names, and names for other tribes.
Dr. Robert L. Rankin (1973-2014)
A black-and-white photograph of linguist Dr. Robert L. Rankin.
Dr. Robert L. Rankin was a linguist and lecturer at the University of Kansas. He spent most of his life studying and documenting Siouan languages. In 1973, he came to Oklahoma to visit the Quapaw and work with the few remaining speakers. This field work, combined with the previously-noted historic documentation, allowed Rankin to compile the most complete and accurate body of written works regarding Okáxpa. He worked on his Quapaw dictionary (compiled from his own field work and from the work of the aforementioned researchers) until his death in 2014.

List authored by Billy Supernaw Proctor and edited for conciseness by Tehya Deardorff.

Audio Recordings

In addition to written sources, our dictionary is largely compiled from numerous recorded interviews with the following Okáxpa speakers:

Dhegiha References

When tackling a continuity error or similar problem in our language work, we often cross-reference our own information with Quapaw's neighbors in the Dhegiha language family: Osage, Omaha, Kanza (Kaw), and Ponca. Our five tribes were once a united people, so our languages share many similarities. The Dhegiha sources our department utilizes most frequently are as follows: