Winnebago language
| Winnebago | |
|---|---|
| Ho-Chunk | |
| Hoocąk | |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Wisconsin Nebraska Iowa South Dakota Illinois and Minnesota |
| Ethnicity | 1,650 Ho-Chunk (2000 census) |
|
Native speakers
|
100 (date missing) Mainly older adults (no date) |
|
Siouan
|
|
|
Latin (Ho-Chunk alphabet), Great Lakes Algonquian syllabics |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | hoch1243 |
| Linguasphere | 64-AAC-d |
The Ho-Chunk language (Hoocąk, Hocąk), also known as Winnebago, is the traditional language of the Ho-Chunk (or Winnebago) nation 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.
"Winnebago" is an exonym, an Anglicization of the Sauk and Fox word Oinepegi. The anglicized form of the endonym is "Ho-Chunk".
Ho-Chunk's vowels are distinguished by nasality and length. That is to say, the use of a nasal vowel or a long vowel affects a word's meaning. This is evident in examples such as pąą ’bag’ compared to paa ’nose,’ and waruc 'to eat' compared to waaruc 'table.' All of Ho-Chunk's vowels show a short/long distinction, but only /i/ /a/ and /u/ have nasal counterparts.
Ho-Chunk's consonants are listed in the following table:
Typical of Mississippi Valley Siouan languages, Ho-Chunk has aspirated /p/ and /k/ phonemes but no aspirated /t/. [8]
In Ho-Chunk, nasalizable vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/ are always nasalized when they occur after nasal consonants /m/ and /n/. The nasality spreads to an adjacent vowel if that vowel is nasalizable as well. The spread operates across syllable or word boundaries and can move across consonants /h/ and /w/, but is blocked by all other consonants. Examples include nąįžą ’a tree’ and ha’ųwį ’we (exclusive) do’:
Another frequently occurring nasalization rule is /r/ to [n] alternation: the /r/ consonant is pronounced as [n] when it immediately follows a nasal vowel. That is shown in the sentence Mąąhį haanįną juujuxšąną ’My knife is dull’:
There is a notable sound law in Ho-Chunk called Dorsey's Law[9] which dictates the following:
where O is a voiceless obstruent, R is a resonant, and S a syllabic sound. In other words, if there is an underlying voiceless obstruent (in Ho-Chunk, /p/, /c/, /k/, /s/, /š/, and /x/) followed by resonant (/r/, /n/, or /w/), the vowel following the resonant is copied into the proceeding consonant cluster. All Dorsey's Law sequences attested in the language are listed below, with V representing the copied vowel:
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