| Also Known As: Hocak Wazijaci,Winnebago,Hochank,Hocank,Hochunk,Hocák
Description:
The Winnebago language is the language of 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.
There is a notable sound law in Winnebago called Dorsey's Law 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..... full article at Wikipedia |
