The phonology of Natchez is atypical in having voicing distinction in its sonorants but not in its obstruents; it also has a wide range of morphophonemic processes.
Morphologically, it has complex verbal inflection and a relatively simple nominal inflection (the ergative case marks nouns in transitive clauses), and its syntax is characterized by active-stative alignment and subject-object-verb word order (or more accurately Agent-Object-Verb and Subject-Verb).
The language gradually became endangered, and it is now generally considered extinct in spite of recent revitalization efforts.
Much of what is known of the language comes mostly from its last fluent speakers, Watt Sam and Nancy Raven, who worked with linguist Mary R. Haas in the 1930s.
As of 2011, field linguists from the community were being trained in documentation techniques, and six members of the Natchez tribe in Oklahoma now speak the language, out of about 10,000.
[3] Mary Haas studied the language with Sam and Raven in the 1930s, and posited that Natchez was distantly related to the Muskogean languages,[4] a hypothesis also accepted by Geoffrey Kimball,[5] and initially proposed by John R. Swanton in 1924.
Kimball (2005:402) presents the proposed cognate set in Table 1. as an example of the relation between Natchez and Muskogean languages with reconstructed intermediate forms.
The remaining Natchez fled in scattered bands to live among the Chickasaw, Creek and Cherokee, whom they followed on the Trail of Tears when Indian removal policies forced them to relocate to Oklahoma between 1830 and 1850.
[8] In 1907 when anthropologist John R. Swanton visited the Natchez there were seven fluent speakers left, but in the 1930s when linguist Mary R. Haas did her fieldwork there were only two: Watt Sam (1876 - 1944) and Nancy Raven (1872-1957).
[12] A vocabulary compiled based on the French sources was published by Charles van Tuyl in 1979.
Natchez has a relatively simple consonant inventory, but it stands out by having a voicing distinction in its sonorants but not in its obstruents, the opposite of most languages in the world.
Natchez pronunciation has nasal vowels, but they are not phonemic, and originate from a previous word final /-n/.
[15] The Natchez verb is highly complex and has the following morphological structure: The morphological class of preverbs express temporal distinctions (future, past, pluperfect), as well as abilitative, directional and locative information, and also incorporates nouns.
The "deontative" affix requires the use of the preverb yaː- and the present tense form of the verb.
[24] There are about 20 different suffixes with verbal modificational meanings (including information about tense and aspect) such as interrogative, diminutive, focus, negative, completive, habitual, "but", "when", "and" (connective), future, "still", "keep on", "might".
[29] Plural and dual possessors are formed by using a restrictive relative clause with the verb haːʃiʔiʃ "to exist for someone (to have)".
[36] Natchez oral literature has been documented by John R. Swanton and Mary Haas, both of whom worked with Watt Sam in 1907 and the mid 1930s, respectively.
In these stories Natchez storytellers would employ a special speech register when impersonating the cannibal characters.