Fox language

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Fox Meshkwahkihaki
Spoken in:	United States, Mexico
Region:	Central Oklahoma, Northeastern Kansas, Iowa, and Coahuila, Mexico
Total speakers:	200-1000
Language family:	Algic Algonquian Fox
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`alg`
ISO 639-3:	either: `sac` — Fox and Sauk `kic` — Kickapoo
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Fox (known by a variety of different names, including Mesquakie, Meskwaki, Mesquakie-Sauk, Mesquakie-Sauk-Kickapoo, Sac and Fox, and others) is an Algonquian Indian language, spoken by around 1000 Fox, Sauk, and Kickapoo in various locations in the Midwestern United States. There are three distinct dialects: Fox (also called Mesquakie, Meskwaki, and Meshkwahkihaki), Sauk (also called Sac, and Sac and Fox), and Kickapoo (also called Kikapú; considered by some to be a separate but closely-related language). 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.

Most speakers are elderly or middle-aged, and there are no children learning the language, making it highly endangered. Prominent scholars doing research on the language include Ives Goddard of the Smithsonian Institution and Amy Dahlstrom of the University of Chicago.

1 Phonology
2 See also
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Phonology

The consonant phonemes of Fox are given in the table below. There are eight vowel phonemes: short /a, e, i, o/ and long /aː, eː, iː, oː/.

	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar or palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops and affricate	p	t	ʧ	k
Fricatives		s	ʃ		h
Nasals	m	n
Semivowels	w		j

There are also preaspirated stops and affricate: /ʰp ʰt ʰʧ ʰk/. The only cluster is apparently ʃk, or any consonant or cluster followed by a semivowel.