Wic

Description: Wichita is a moribund Caddoan language spoken in Oklahoma by the Wichita tribe. Only one fluent speaker remains, Doris McLemore, although nine other people are believed to speak it to some extent. It is almost certain that Wichita will soon become extinct. Wichita has been claimed to be unusually asymmetrical at a phonemic level, though this is less apparent at a phonetic level. Wichita has 10 consonants. In the Americanist orthography generally used when describing Wichita, [ts] is spelled , and [j] . Wichita has 4 clusters of vowel-quality allophones: These are transcribed as i, e, a, o. Word-final vowels are devoiced. Rood argues that [o] is not phonemic, as it is often equivalent to any vowel + /w/ + any vowel. For example, [awa] is frequently contracted to [óː] (the high tone is an effect of the elided consonant). There are relatively few cases where speakers will not accept a substitution of vowel + /w/ + vowel for [o]; one of them is [kóːs] 'eagle'. Rood also proposes that, with three vowels that are arguably high, mid, and low, the front-back distinction is not phonemic, and that one may therefore speak of a 'vertical' vowel inventory (see below). This also has been..... full article at Wikipedia Location of Wichita Language Speakers http://llmap.org/languages/wic/static_map.png?width=400&height=300&kilroywashere=.png Rosetta Document Collection Detailed Description: 1 (download) (browse)

Overview Main Country: United States Spoken In: Regions: Americas ISO 639-3 Code: wic Classification Taxonomy All Languages   Caddoan Group     Northern Caddoan Group       Wichita Group         Wichita Language