Fox language

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 toUnited States, Mexico
RegionCentral Oklahoma, Northeastern Kansas, Iowa, and Coahuila
Ethnicity760 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]
Latin,
Great Lakes Algonquian syllabics
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
sac – Fox and Sauk
kic – Kickapoo
qes Mascouten
Glottologfoxx1245
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

Dialects

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.

Revitalization

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.

Phonology
See also: Sauk people § Language

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]

Grammar

Vocabulary

Mesquakie numerals are as follows:[11]

nekotione
nîshwitwo
nethwithree
nyêwifour
nyânanwifive
nekotwâshikasix
nôhikaseven
neshwâshikaeight
shâkanine
metâthwiten

Writing systems
Letter in the Kickapoo language written in Coahuila, Mexico in the 1950s

Besides the Latin script, Fox has been written in two indigenous scripts.[12]

"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 /pa/,[13] t /ta/, s /sa/, d /ša/, tt /ča/, I /ya/,[14] w /wa/, m /ma/, n /na/, K /ka/, q /kwa/.[15] The characters ⟨d⟩ for /š/, ⟨tt⟩ for /č/, and ⟨q⟩ for /kw/ derive from French ⟨ch⟩, ⟨tch⟩, and ⟨q(u)⟩.

Vowels are written by adding dots to the consonant: l. /pe/, l· /pi/, l.. /po/.

"Fox II" is a consonant–vowel alphabet, though 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, approximately × /a/, II /e/,[16] III /i/,[17] IIII /o/.[18]

Consonants are (approximately) + /t/, C /s/, Q /š/, ı /č/, ñ /v/,[19] ═ /y/, ƧƧ /w/, 田 /m/, # /n/, C′ /k/, ƧC /kw/.

See also

References
  1. Fox and Sauk at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021) closed access
    Kickapoo at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021) closed access
  2. Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía. (2015). Lenguas indígenas en México y hablantes (de 3 años y más) al 2015.
  3. Lenguas indígenas y hablantes de 3 años y más, 2020 INEGI. Censo de Población y Vivienda 2020.
  4. Meskwaki Settlement School - Meskwakiatoweni (Meskwaki language)
  5. Moctezuma Zamarrón, José Luis 2011, El sistema fonológico del Kickapoo de Coahuila analizado desde las metodologías distribucional y funcional. México: INALI
  6. Meskwaki Settlement School Website, "Meskwaki Settlement School Website". Archived from the original on 2009-02-16. Retrieved 2009-02-03.
  7. "Meskwaki Education Network Initiative (MENWI)". American Indian Studies Research Institute at Indiana University. Retrieved 2012-07-19.
  8. 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.
  9. Nelson, John (2008-07-27). "Talking the talk". WCFCourier.com. Retrieved 2012-07-19.
  10. 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
  11. Sauk Counting Worksheet (Sac and Fox). Retrieved 17 March 2019 from http://www.native-languages.org/numbers/sauk_numbers.htm
  12. Coulmas
  13. Written as a tall loop, similar to a cursive b or l.
  14. The cursive form of capital I is a more graphically accurate approximation for /ya/; the actual character is a small clockwise loop with a long tail.
  15. The actual character for /gwa/ or /kwa/ is shaped more like a cursive g or a with a long, winding tail that goes in a loop, almost like a figure-8 shape.
  16. If the cross-hatching does not show up (perhaps because this line has been copied without formatting), this is like a small capital H with the cross-bar sticking out on either side.
  17. Resembles Chinese 卅 but lower and wider.
  18. Resembles Chinese 卌, but lower and wider.
  19. Actually, like one script n stacked on another.
  • Bloomfield, Leonard. 1925. "Notes on the Fox Language." International Journal of American Linguistics 3:219-32.
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