Question about numbered nouns in the Chahta language
Hi, I’ve been learning a bit about Native American languages and had some questions about how the Choctaw people refer to certain terms.
A few months ago, the city government of McAlester, Oklahoma, finally began the process of installing bilingual signs around downtown. That gave my classmates and me the idea to create bilingual maps using a GIS program that displays two languages, and we decided to choose Choctaw as a start point.
I noticed that 1st Street had been translated as “Hina ʋmmona,” while Choctaw Avenue was translated as “Chahta Hina.” I find this curious because in this case, the word order changes, with the street number coming at the end.
And I was wondering if this is the same for larger roads. According to dictionaries, there are several entries for “Highway,” including “hina pʋtha,” which describes a large/wide road, and “hina chito,” which, according to the Choctaw Nation Dictionary, is the translation for Interstate Freeway.
I wonder how I could translate more complicated concepts like “Highway I-40”, would it be “Hina Chito I-40” or “I-40 Hina Chito”? As well as other more complicated concepts like “State Highway 3.” I know that ‘Ulhtih’ is the translation for “State” according to the dictionaries we have at school.
I want the labels shown in the program to be grammatically correct in the language. But I haven't found much help in the language resources we have. Since they don't really explain how these modern concepts apply to the language's grammar, any help would be greatly appreciated to assist us with this project :D