Mescalero-Chiricahua language facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Chiricahua |
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| Ndee bizaa | ||||
| Native to | USA | |||
| Region | Oklahoma, New Mexico | |||
| Ethnicity | Chiricahua | |||
| Native speakers | 1,500 (2007)e18 | |||
| Language family |
Dené–Yeniseian?
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Chiricahua (also known as Chiricahua Apache) is a Southern Athabaskan language spoken by the Chiricahua people in Oklahoma and New Mexico. It is related to Navajo and Western Apache and has been described in great detail by the anthropological linguist Harry Hoijer (1904–1976), especially in Hoijer & Opler (1938) and Hoijer (1946). Hoijer & Opler's Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache Texts, including a grammatical sketch and traditional religious and secular stories, has been converted into an online "book" available from the University of Virginia.
Virginia Klinekole, the first female president of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, was known for her efforts to preserve the language.
There is at least one language-immersion school for children in Mescalero.
Contents
Phonology
Consonants
Chiricahua has 31 consonants:
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | sibilant | lateral | |||||||
| Stop | unaspirated | p | t | ts | [[Error using : IPA symbol "tˡ" not found in list|tˡ]]~tɬ | tʃ | k | ||
| aspirated | tʰ | tsʰ | tɬʰ | tʃʰ | kʰ | ||||
| ejective | tʼ | tsʼ | tɬʼ | tʃʼ | kʼ | ʔ | |||
| Nasal | simple | m | n | ||||||
| post-stopped | (mᵇ) | nᵈ | |||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | ɬ | ʃ | x | h | |||
| voiced | z | ɮ | ʒ | ʝ | ɣ | ||||
Vowels
Chiricahua has 16 vowels:
| Front | Central | Back | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | ||
| High | oral | i | iː | ||||
| nasal | ĩ | ĩː | |||||
| Mid | oral | ɛ | ɛː | o | oː | ||
| nasal | ɛ̃ | ɛ̃ː | õ | õː | |||
| Low | oral | a | aː | ||||
| nasal | ã | ãː | |||||
Chiricahua has phonemic oral, nasal, short, and long vowels.
See also
In Spanish: Idioma mescalero-chiricahua para niños
