| Winnebago | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hocąk | ||||
| Spoken in | United States | |||
| Region | Wisconsin | |||
| Native speakers | 230 (date missing) | |||
| Language family |
Siouan
|
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | win | |||
|
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The Winnebago language is the language of the Ho-Chunk (or Winnebago) tribe of Native Americans in the United States. The language is part of the Siouan language family, and is closely related to the languages of the Iowa, Missouri, and Oto. The language can be written using the "Pa-Pe-Pi-Po" syllabics, although as of 1994 the official orthography of the Ho-Chunk Nation is an adaptation of the Roman alphabet. Although the language is highly endangered, there are currently vigorous efforts underway to keep it alive, primarily through the Hocąk Wazija Haci Language Division.
Contents |
| Oral vowels | Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a | ||
| Nasal vowels | Front | Central | Back |
| Close | ĩ | ũ | |
| Open | ã | ||
| Consonants | Bilabial | Labiovelar | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | p b | d | k ɡ | ʔ | |||
| Affricate | tʃ dʒ | ||||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Fricative | s z | ʃ ʒ | x ɣ | h | |||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Approximant | w | j |
There is a notable sound law in Winnebago called Dorsey's Law[1] which dictates the following:
where O is a voiceless obstruent, R is a non-syllabic sonorant, and S a syllabic sound.
The current official orthography derives from an Americanist version of the International Phonetic Alphabet. As such its graphemes broadly resemble those of IPA, and there is a close one-to-one correspondence between graphemes and phonemes.
Winnebago orthography differs from IPA in that the nasal vowels are indicated using an ogonek, thus į, ų, ą (respectively /ĩ/, /ũ/, /ã/). Furthermore, the postalveolar and palatal consonants are written as c, j, š, ž, and y (respectively IPA /tʃ/, /dʒ/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/ and /j/) – the last three being the norm in Americanist phonetic notation. More unusually, t represents /d/, while ǧ represents IPA /ɣ/. Finally, the glottal stop is represented by ʼ (known in Winnebago as hiyuša jikere).