Fox language facts for kids

Quick facts for kids 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) and 423 Mexican Kickapoo (2010 census)
Native speakers	700: 250 Sauk and Fox and 400 Kickapoo in the US  (2007–2015)e24 60 Kickapoo in Mexico (2020 census)
Language family	Algic Algonquian Fox
Writing system	Latin, Great Lakes Algonquian syllabics
Linguist List	qes Mascouten
Map showing the distribution of Oklahoma Indian Languages
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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.

Dialects

The three distinct dialects are:

• Fox or Meskwakiatoweni (Meskwaki language) (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).

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. 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."

Prominent scholars doing research on the language include Ives Goddard and Lucy Thomason of the Smithsonian Institution and Amy Dahlstrom of the University of Chicago.

Phonology

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/.

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.

Grammar

Vocabulary

Mesquakie numerals are as follows:

Writing systems

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

"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/, t /ta/, s /sa/, d /ša/, tt /ča/, の /ya/, w /wa/, m /ma/, n /na/, K /ka/, 8 /kwa/. The characters d for /š/, tt for /č/, and 8 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/, III /i/, IIII /o/.

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