Fox language


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

There are three distinct dialects:
If Kickapoo is counted as a separate language rather than a dialect of Fox, then there are only between 200 and 300 speakers of Fox. 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. There are eight vowel phonemes: short and long.
Other than those involving a consonant plus or, the only possible consonant cluster is.
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:
nekotione
nîshwitwo
nethwithree
nyêwifour
nyânanwifive
nekotwâshikasix
nôhikaseven
neshwâshikaeight
shâkanine
metâthwiten

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. 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.
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. Vowels are written as cross-hatched tally marks, approximately × /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/.
Consonants are + /t/, C /s/, Q /š/, ı /č/, ñ /v/, ═ /y/, ƧƧ /w/, 田 /m/, # /n/, C′ /k/, ƧC /kw/.