Fox_language
Fox language
Algonquian language spoken in US Midwest and northern Mexico
Fox (known by a variety of different names, including Mesquakie (Meskwaki), Mesquakie-Sauk, Mesquakie-Sauk-Kickapoo, Sauk-Fox, and Sac and Fox) is an Algonquian language, spoken by a thousand Meskwaki, Sauk, and Kickapoo in various locations in the Midwestern United States and in northern Mexico.
Fox | |
---|---|
Meskwaki-Sauk-Kickapoo | |
Meshkwahkihaki | |
Native to | United States, Mexico |
Region | Central Oklahoma, Northeastern Kansas, Iowa, and Coahuila |
Ethnicity | 760 Meskwaki and Sauk and 820 Kickapoo in the US (2000 census)[1] and 423 Mexican Kickapoo (2010 census)[2] |
Native speakers | 700: 250 Sauk and Fox and 400 Kickapoo in the US (2007–2015)[1] 60 Kickapoo in Mexico (2020 census)[3] |
Algic
| |
Latin, Great Lakes Algonquian syllabics | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | Either:sac – Fox and Saukkic – Kickapoo |
qes Mascouten | |
Glottolog | foxx1245 |
ELP | |
Map showing the distribution of Oklahoma Indian Languages | |
Kickapoo is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. |
The three distinct dialects are:
- Fox or Meskwakiatoweni (Meskwaki language)[4] (also called Mesquakie, Meskwaki)
- Sauk or Thâkiwâtowêweni (Thâkîwaki language) (also rendered Sac), and
- Kickapoo (also rendered Kikapú; considered by some to be a closely related but distinct language[5]).
If Kickapoo is counted as a separate language rather than a dialect of Fox, then only between 200 and 300 speakers of Fox remain. Extinct Mascouten was most likely another dialect, though it is scarcely attested.
Most speakers are elderly or middle-aged, making it highly endangered. The tribal school at the Meskwaki Settlement in Iowa incorporates bilingual education for children.[6][7] In 2011, the Meskwaki Sewing Project was created, to bring mothers and girls together "with elder women in the Meskwaki Senior Center sewing traditional clothing and learning the Meskwaki language."[8]
Prominent scholars doing research on the language include Ives Goddard[9] and Lucy Thomason of the Smithsonian Institution and Amy Dahlstrom of the University of Chicago.
The consonant phonemes of Fox are given in the table below. The eight vowel phonemes are: short /a, e, i, o/ and long /aː, eː, iː, oː/.
Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar or palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ||||
Plosive | plain | p | t | tʃ | k | |
preaspirated | ʰp | ʰt | ʰtʃ | ʰk | ||
Fricative | s | ʃ | h | |||
Approximant | j | w |
Other than those involving a consonant plus /j/ or /w/, the only possible consonant cluster is /ʃk/.
Until the early 1900s, Fox was a phonologically very conservative language and preserved many features of Proto-Algonquian; records from the decades immediately following 1900 are particularly useful to Algonquianists for this reason. By the 1960s, however, an extensive progression of phonological changes had taken place, resulting in the loss of intervocalic semivowels and certain other features.[10]
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Mesquakie numerals are as follows:[11]
nekoti | one |
nîshwi | two |
nethwi | three |
nyêwi | four |
nyânanwi | five |
nekotwâshika | six |
nôhika | seven |
neshwâshika | eight |
shâka | nine |
metâthwi | ten |
Besides the Latin script, Fox has been written in two indigenous scripts.[12][full citation needed]
Fox I
"Fox I" is an abugida based on the cursive French alphabet (see Great Lakes Algonquian syllabics). Consonants written by themselves are understood to be syllables containing the vowel /a/. They are:
l[lower-alpha 1] | /pa/ |
t | /ta/ |
s | /sa/ |
d | /ša/[lower-alpha 2] |
tt | /ča/[lower-alpha 3] |
I[lower-alpha 4] | /ya/ |
w | /wa/ |
m | /ma/ |
n | /na/ |
K | /ka/ |
q[lower-alpha 5] | /kwa/[lower-alpha 6] |
Vowels are written by adding dots to the consonant:
l | /pa/ |
l. | /pe/ |
l· | /pi/ |
l.. | /po/ |
Fox II
"Fox II" is a consonant–vowel alphabet. According to Coulmas, /p/ is not written (as /a/ is not written in Fox I). Vowels (or /p/ plus a vowel) are written as cross-hatched tally marks.
+ | /t/ |
C | /s/ |
Q | /š/ |
ı | /č/ |
ñ | /v/[lower-alpha 1] |
═ | /y/ |
ƧƧ | /w/ |
田 | /m/ |
# | /n/ |
C′ | /k/ |
ƧC | /kw/ |
× | /a/ |
/e/[lower-alpha 2] | |
/i/[lower-alpha 3] | |
/o/[lower-alpha 4] |
- Fox and Sauk at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
Kickapoo at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021) - Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía. (2015). Lenguas indígenas en México y hablantes (de 3 años y más) al 2015.
- Lenguas indígenas y hablantes de 3 años y más, 2020 INEGI. Censo de Población y Vivienda 2020.
- Moctezuma Zamarrón, José Luis 2011, El sistema fonológico del Kickapoo de Coahuila analizado desde las metodologías distribucional y funcional. México: INALI
- Meskwaki Settlement School Website, "Meskwaki Settlement School Website". Archived from the original on 2009-02-16. Retrieved 2009-02-03.
- "Meskwaki Education Network Initiative (MENWI)". American Indian Studies Research Institute at Indiana University. Retrieved 2012-07-19.
- Scandale, Maria (2011-02-21). "Meskwaki Tribe Receives Grant for Sewing and Language Project - ICTMN.com". Indian Country Today Media Network, ICTMN.com. Retrieved 2012-07-19.
- Nelson, John (2008-07-27). "Talking the talk". WCFCourier.com. Retrieved 2012-07-19.
- Language change in the speech community: change by loss of a stylistic register, in Historical Linguistics: Toward a Twenty-First Century Reintegration (ISBN 0521583322), page 57
- Sauk Counting Worksheet (Sac and Fox). Retrieved 17 March 2019 from http://www.native-languages.org/numbers/sauk_numbers.htm
- Coulmas
- Jones, William, 1906, p. 90
- Jones, William, 1906, pp. 90-91
- Bloomfield, Leonard (1925). "Notes on the Fox Language". International Journal of American Linguistics. 3 (2/4): 219–232. doi:10.1086/463756.
- Dahlstrom, Amy. "Meskwaki Syntax (Manuscript)". Lucian. University of Chicago.
- Goddard, Ives (1991). "Observations Regarding Fox (Mesquakie) Phonology". Papers of the Twenty-Second Algonquian Conference. 22: 157–181.
- Jones, William (1906). "An Algonquian syllabary". In Lanfer, Berthold (ed.). Boas anniversary volume: Anthropological papers written in honor of Franz Boas. New York: G.E. Stechert. pp. 88–93.
- Voorhis, Paul H. (1974). Introduction to the Kickapoo Language. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-87750-177-0.
- Native Languages of the Americas: Mesquakie-Sauk
- Fox texts (1907), ed. William Jones
- The Owl Sacred Pack of the Fox Indians (1921), ed. Truman Michelson
- The Autobiography of a Fox Indian Woman (1895), ed. Truman Michelson
- "Last Meskwaki code talker remembers". USATODAY.com. 2002-07-04. Retrieved 2012-07-19.
- Meskwaki Language - Alphabet
- OLAC resources in and about the Meskwaki language
- OLAC resources in and about the Kickapoo language
- A Concise Dictionary of the Sauk Language Archived 2020-10-29 at the Wayback Machine , 2005, Gordon Whittaker, The Sac & Fox National Public Library, Stroud, Oklahoma