Fox language

The three distinct dialects are:

• Fox or {{Lang|sac|Meskwakiatoweni}} (Meskwaki language){{Cite web |url=http://msswarriors.org/administration/about/mission-vision/ |title=Meskwaki Settlement School - Meskwakiatoweni (Meskwaki language) |access-date=2019-07-23 |archive-date=2019-07-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190723224617/http://msswarriors.org/administration/about/mission-vision/ |url-status=live }} (also called Mesquakie, Meskwaki)
• Sauk or {{Lang|sac|Thâkiwâtowêweni}} (Thâkîwaki language) (also rendered Sac), and
• Kickapoo or Kiikaapoa (also rendered {{Lang|kic|Kikapú}}; considered by some to be a closely related but distinct languageMoctezuma Zamarrón, José Luis 2011, [http://site.inali.gob.mx/pdf/libro_kickapoo.pdf El sistema fonológico del Kickapoo de Coahuila analizado desde las metodologías distribucional y funcional] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140304035454/http://site.inali.gob.mx/pdf/libro_kickapoo.pdf |date=2014-03-04 }}. México: INALI).

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.Meskwaki Settlement School Website, {{cite web |url=http://www.meskwaki.bia.edu/ |title=Meskwaki Settlement School Website |access-date=2009-02-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090216050308/http://www.meskwaki.bia.edu/ |archive-date=2009-02-16 }}{{Cite web

| title = Meskwaki Education Network Initiative (MENWI)

| work = American Indian Studies Research Institute at Indiana University

| access-date = 2012-07-19

| url = http://www.indiana.edu/~aisri/projects/menwi/

| archive-date = 2004-01-03

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20040103071056/http://www.indiana.edu/~aisri/projects/menwi/

| url-status = live

}} 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."{{Cite news

| last = Scandale

| first = Maria

| title = Meskwaki Tribe Receives Grant for Sewing and Language Project - ICTMN.com

| work = Indian Country Today Media Network, ICTMN.com

| access-date = 2012-07-19

| date = 2011-02-21

| url = http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/02/25/meskwaki-tribe-receives-grant-for-sewing-and-language-project-19645

| archive-date = 2024-05-26

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240526093529/https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/

| url-status = live

}}

Prominent scholars doing research on the language include Ives Goddard{{Cite web

| last = Nelson

| first = John

| title = Talking the talk

| work = WCFCourier.com

| access-date = 2012-07-19

| date = 2008-07-27

| url = http://wcfcourier.com/news/local/article_90c8d30e-0501-596a-a914-e5501687f1a8.html

| archive-date = 2020-08-06

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200806162610/https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/article_90c8d30e-0501-596a-a914-e5501687f1a8.html

| url-status = live

}} 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 {{IPA|/a, e, i, o/}} and long {{IPA|/aː, eː, iː, oː/}}.

Other than those involving a consonant plus {{IPA|/j/}} or {{IPA|/w/}}, the only possible consonant cluster is {{IPA|/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.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

According to A Concise Dictionary of the Sauk Language by Gordon Whittaker,{{Cite book |last=Whittaker |first=Gordon |title=A Concise Dictionary of the Sauk Language |date=2005 |publisher=The Sac & Fox National Public Library |year= |edition=1st |location=Stroud, Oklahoma |pages= |language=en}} the language's nouns can be divided into animate and inanimate groups. Animate nouns end in -a (ex: tîtîwa /ˈti:.ti:.wa/, "blue jay (bird)"). To pluralise most animate nouns, the ending is transformed from -a to -aki (ex: tîtîwa -> tîtîwaki). The few exceptions that exist have specific forms, according to the Dictionary.

Inanimate nouns typically end in -i (ex: mâtethi /ˈma:.tet.hi/, "knife"). To pluralise most inanimate nouns, the ending is transformed from -i to -ani (ex: mâtethi -> mâtethani). Like the animate nouns, the few exceptions that exist also have specific forms, according to the Dictionary.{{Cite book |last=Whittaker |first=Gordon |title=A Concise Dictionary of the Sauk Language |date=2005 |publisher=The Sac & Fox National Public Library |edition=1st |location=Stroud, Oklahoma |pages=7–8 |language=en}}

Verbs can be divided into transitive and intransitive; transitive involves two parties (i.e "I give it to you!" / "Kemînêwene!"), while intransitive is one party (i.e "You're alive." / "Kepemâtethi.")

This conjugation is only for verbs that end in -amwa; all other animate transitive verbs take the same conjugation as the animate intransitive verbs.{{Cite book |last=Whittaker |first=Gordon |title=A Concise Dictionary of the Sauk Language |publisher=The Sac & Fox National Public Library |year=2005 |edition=First |location=Stroud, Oklahoma |pages=13 |language=en}}

Meskwaki numerals are as follows:Sauk Counting Worksheet (Sac and Fox). Retrieved 17 March 2019 from http://www.native-languages.org/numbers/sauk_numbers.htm {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191028193726/http://www.native-languages.org/numbers/sauk_numbers.htm |date=2019-10-28 }}

File:Bis carta en lengua kikapu.pdf

Besides the Latin script, Fox has been written in two indigenous scripts.Coulmas (1999: 153–155)

File:Great Lakes Algonquian Syllabics, Second Style.png

"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 {{IPA|/a/}}. They are:

{{notelist}}

Vowels are written by adding dots to the consonant:

File:Great Lakes Algonquian Syllabary, Third Style.png

"Fox II" is a consonant–vowel alphabet. According to Coulmas, {{IPA|/p/}} is not written (as {{IPA|/a/}} is not written in Fox I). Vowels (or {{IPA|/p/}} plus a vowel) are written as cross-hatched tally marks.

{{notelist}}

{{Portal|Language}}

• Sac and Fox Nation
• Sauk language
• Kickapoo language
• Kickapoo whistled speech

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite journal |last=Bloomfield |first=Leonard |year=1925 |title=Notes on the Fox Language |journal=International Journal of American Linguistics |volume=3 |issue=2/4 |pages=219–232 |doi=10.1086/463756 |doi-access=free}}
• {{cite book |last=Coulmas |first=Florian |year=1999 |chapter= |title=The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems |publisher= Blackwell Publishing }}
• {{Cite web |last=Dahlstrom |first=Amy |title=Meskwaki Syntax (Manuscript) |url=https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/adahlstrom/publications-2/selected-manuscripts/meskwaki-syntax-book |website=Lucian |publisher=University of Chicago}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Goddard |first=Ives |year=1991 |title=Observations Regarding Fox (Mesquakie) Phonology |url=https://ojs.library.carleton.ca/index.php/ALGQP/article/view/1053 |journal=Papers of the Twenty-Second Algonquian Conference |volume=22 |pages=157–181}}
• {{cite book |last=Jones |first=William |year=1906 |chapter=An Algonquian syllabary |editor-first=Berthold |editor-last=Lanfer |title=Boas anniversary volume: Anthropological papers written in honor of Franz Boas |pages=88–93 |location=New York |publisher=G.E. Stechert |chapter-url=https://www.loc.gov/item/17001466/}}
• {{Cite book |last=Voorhis |first=Paul H. |url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontoki0013voor |title=Introduction to the Kickapoo Language |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=1974 |isbn=978-0-87750-177-0 |location=Bloomington |url-access=registration}}

• [http://www.native-languages.org/meskwaki-sauk.htm#language Native Languages of the Americas: Mesquakie-Sauk]
• [https://archive.org/details/acr7424.0001.001.umich.edu Fox texts (1907), ed. William Jones]
• [https://archive.org/details/owlsacredpackfo00michgoog The Owl Sacred Pack of the Fox Indians (1921), ed. Truman Michelson]
• [https://archive.org/details/cbarchive_109046_theautobiographyofafoxindianwo1895 The Autobiography of a Fox Indian Woman (1895), ed. Truman Michelson]
• {{Cite news

| title = Last Meskwaki code talker remembers

| work = USATODAY.com

| access-date = 2012-07-19

| date = 2002-07-04

| url = https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/07/06/codetalkers.htm

}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20121213040255/http://www.msswarriors.org/history/MeskinteractiveCD1/Pages/Culture/Language/MeskwakiAlphabet.htm Meskwaki Language - Alphabet]
• [http://www.language-archives.org/language/sac OLAC resources in and about the Meskwaki language]
• [http://www.language-archives.org/language/kic OLAC resources in and about the Kickapoo language]
• [http://sacandfoxnation-nsn.gov/sites/sfnation/uploads/documents/Departments/language/Concise_Dictionary.pdf A Concise Dictionary of the Sauk Language] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201029140621/http://sacandfoxnation-nsn.gov/sites/sfnation/uploads/documents/Departments/language/Concise_Dictionary.pdf |date=2020-10-29 }} , 2005, Gordon Whittaker, The Sac & Fox National Public Library, Stroud, Oklahoma

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