Mescalero-Chiricahua language

Chiricahua
Ndee bizaa
Native toMexico and USA
RegionSonora, Chihuahua, Oklahoma, New Mexico
EthnicityChiricahua, Mescalero
Native speakers
1,500 (2007)
Dené–Yeniseian?
Official status
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated byInstituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas
Language codes
ISO 639-3apm
Glottologmesc1238
ELPMescalero-Chiricahua
Mescalero-Chiricahua is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Chiricahua (also known as Chiricahua Apache) is a Southern Athabaskan language spoken by the Chiricahua people in Chihuahua and Sonora, México and in Oklahoma and New Mexico. It is related to Navajo and Western Apache and has been described in great detail by the anthropological linguist Harry Hoijer (1904–1976), especially in Hoijer & Opler (1938) and Hoijer (1946). Hoijer & Opler's Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache Texts, including a grammatical sketch and traditional religious and secular stories, has been converted into an online "book" available from the University of Virginia.

Virginia Klinekole, the first female president of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, was known for her efforts to preserve the language.

There is at least one language-immersion school for children in Mescalero.

Phonology

Consonants

Chiricahua has 31 consonants:

Bilabial Alveolar Post-
alveolar
Palatal Velar Glottal
plain sibilant lateral
Nasal simple m n
post-stopped (mᵇ) nᵈ
Plosive plain p t ts ~ k ʔ
aspirated tsʰ tɬʰ tʃʰ
ejective tsʼ tɬʼ tʃʼ
Fricative voiceless s ɬ ʃ x h
voiced z ɮ ʒ ʝ ɣ

Vowels

Chiricahua has 16 vowels:

Front Central Back
short long short long short long
High oral i
nasal ĩ ĩː
Mid oral ɛ ɛː o
nasal ɛ̃ ɛ̃ː õ õː
Low oral a
nasal ã ãː

Chiricahua has phonemic oral, nasal, short, and long vowels.


This page was last updated at 2024-02-21 14:19 UTC. Update now. View original page.

All our content comes from Wikipedia and under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.


Top

If mathematical, chemical, physical and other formulas are not displayed correctly on this page, please useFirefox or Safari