Mescalero-Chiricahua (also known as Chiricahua Apache) is a

Southern Athabaskan Southern Athabaskan (also Apachean) is a subfamily of Athabaskan languages spoken primarily in the Southwestern United States (including Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah) with two outliers in Oklahoma and Texas. The languages are spoken in ...

language spoken by the

Chiricahua Chiricahua ( ) is a band of Apache Native Americans. Based in the Southern Plains and Southwestern United States, the Chiricahua historically shared a common area, language, customs, and intertwined family relations with their fellow Apaches. ...

and

Mescalero Mescalero or Mescalero Apache () is an Apache tribe of Southern Athabaskan–speaking Native Americans. The tribe is federally recognized as the Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Apache Reservation, located in south-central New Mexico. In ...

people in Chihuahua and

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

México Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

and in

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

and

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. It is related to

Navajo The Navajo or Diné are an Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language. The states with the largest Diné populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (1 ...

and Western Apache and has been described in great detail by the anthropological linguist

Harry Hoijer Harry Hoijer (September 6, 1904 – March 11, 1976) was a linguist and anthropologist who worked on primarily Athabaskan languages and culture. He additionally documented the Tonkawa language, which is now extinct language, extinct. Hoijer's few w ...

(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 In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

Vowels

Chiricahua has 16

vowels A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

: Chiricahua has

phonemic A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...

oral,

nasal Nasal is an adjective referring to the nose, part of human or animal anatomy. It may also be shorthand for the following uses in combination: * With reference to the human nose: ** Nasal administration, a method of pharmaceutical drug delivery * ...

, short, and

long Long may refer to: Measurement * Long, characteristic of something of great duration * Long, characteristic of something of great length * Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate * Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...

vowels.

References

Sources

* Hoijer, Harry. (n.d.). Chiricahua Apache stems. (Unpublished manuscript). * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache Texts

OLAC resources in and about the Mescalero-Chiricahua Apache language
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chiricahua Language Southern Athabaskan languages Chiricahua Indigenous languages of Oklahoma Indigenous languages of Mexico Indigenous languages of New Mexico Native American language revitalization Endangered Athabaskan languages Mescalero Apache Languages of Mexico