The Ho-Chunk language (), also known as Winnebago, is the language of the Ho-Chunk people of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. The language is part of the Siouan language family and is closely related to other Chiwere Siouan dialects, including those of the Iowa, Missouria, and Otoe.
"Winnebago", a name now used for the Ho-Chunk who were forcibly removed to Nebraska, is an exonym, an Anglicization of the Sauk and Fox word Oinepegi. The anglicized form of the endonym is "Ho-Chunk".
Language revitalization Although the language is highly endangered, there are currently vigorous efforts underway to keep it alive in Ho-Chunk communities. In Wisconsin, the Hocąk Waziija Haci Language Division runs several language classes, an immersion daycare, and a language apprentice program. Some schools teach the language, or have elements of the language in cultural education. In Nebraska, the Ho-Chunk Renaissance program teaches the language in local and reservation schools. Both tribal governments recognize the importance of technology in language learning, and are active in Facebook and YouTube to reach the younger generation of learners. A "Ho-Chunk (Hoocąk) Native American Language app" is available for iPhone, iPad, and other iOS devices. Language is a crucial aspect of Ho-Chunk culture:
"Within a lot of Native American cultures, language and culture go together," Lewis St. Cyr, language program director for the Ho-Chunk, said. "You can't have culture without language and you can't have language without culture. The importance of it is of who we are."
Phonology Phonemic inventory
Vowels Ho-Chunk's vowel sounds 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 compared to , and compared to . All of Ho-Chunk's vowels show a length distinction, but only have nasal counterparts.
Front Central Back oral nasal oral nasal oral nasal High Mid Low
Consonants Ho-Chunk's consonants are listed in the following table:
Labial Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar Glottal Nasal Plosive/Affricate Fricative Trill Approximant ()
Typical of Mississippi Valley Siouan languages, Ho-Chunk has aspirated and phonemes but no aspirated .
Nasalization patterns In Ho-Chunk, vowels always occur as nasalized when they follow nasal consonants . Nasality spreads to an adjacent vowel if that vowel is nasalizable as well. Nasality spreads across syllable or word boundaries and can move across consonants and , but is blocked by all other consonants. Examples include and :
Another frequently occurring nasalization pattern is /r/ to [n] alternation: /r/ is pronounced as [n] when it immediately follows a nasal vowel. That is shown in the definite marker /ra/ on the verb 'have' -nį-, which occurs as [nã] in the sentence 'My knife is dull' below:
Dorsey's law There is a notable sound law in Ho-Chunk called Dorsey's law which dictates the following: /ORS/ → [OSRS] 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: pVnV pVrV kVnV kVrV kVwV sVnV sVrV sVwV šVnV šVrV šVwV cVwV xVnV xVrV xVwV
Multiple sources advocate that Dorsey's law is a synchronic process in the language because of the way that other processes like stress assignment and the morphological process of reduplication are affected by it.
Dorsey's law can apply within a single morpheme, as in /pra/ becoming [para] in the word paras '(be) wide, flat', or across morpheme boundaries, as in /šra/ becoming [šara] in the word šaraše 'you go there', where š is the second person pronominal prefixing to the verb rahe 'to be going there'.
Metrical structure Ho-Chunk is a mora counting, but syllable accenting language. The stress placement of words spoken in isolation is extremely regular. Single-syllable words always have a long vowel (two moras), and stress falls on the first mora (e.g. áa 'arm'). Two-syllable words have two moras, and primary stress falls on the second mora (e.g. wajé 'dress'). In words longer than two syllables, primary stress most often falls on the third syllable, with secondary stress on each even numbered vowel after the point of primary stress (e.g. waǧįǧį́ 'ball', or hocįcį́k 'boy'). A few rare examples of words with primary stress not on the third syllable include booráxux 'you break something into pieces' and gikąnąhé 'to invite somebody'. These and other exceptions are a result of syllable weight affecting stress location. As seen in booráxux 'you break something into pieces', when one of the first two syllables of a multiple-syllable word is a heavy syllable, then the main stress falls on the second syllable
Generally when words are spoken in sequence to form sentences, each retains its own stress domain. However, when two or more words are compounded, they are treated as a single word and form a new single stress domain in which the aforementioned patterns apply. Examples include hąąbókahi 'every day' (a compound consisting of hąąp 'day' and hokahí 'every') and wąągwácek 'young man' (wąąk 'man' and wacék 'young').
Ho-Chunk's stress system is substantially different from that of other Siouan languages, which have main stress on the second syllable or second mora. It is theorized that Ho-Chunk underwent a stress shift one mora to the right at some point in its history.
Orthography The official Ho-Chunk orthography derives from an Americanist version of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). As such, its graphemes broadly resemble those of IPA, and there is a close one-to-one correspondence between graphemes and phonemes. The orthography differs from IPA in that the nasal vowels are indicated using an ogonek. Thus, /ĩ/, /ũ/, and /ã/ are written as į, ų, and ą, respectively. In addition, the postalveolar and palatal consonants are written as c, j, š, ž, and y (in IPA: /tʃ/, /dʒ/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/ and /j/), the velar fricative /ɣ/ is written as ǧ, and the glottal stop is written as ʼ .
The diacritic marks can be referred to in Ho-Chunk with the following terms: 'tail' for the ogonek, 'hat' for the haček, and 'sudden start/stop' for the glottal stop.
For a short period of time in the mid to late 1800s, Ho-Chunk was written with an adaptation of the "Ba-Be-Bi-Bo" syllabics system. As of 1994, however, the official alphabet of the Ho-Chunk Nation is an adaptation of the Latin script. The Ho-Chunk Nations of Wisconsin and Nebraska represent some sounds differently in the alphabets that they use, as the Wisconsin tribe write a double vowel to mark longer length, and the Nebraska tribe uses a macron over the vowel (compare oo with ō for IPA /o:/). These differences, shown with example words, are demonstrated in the chart below. In total, the Ho-Chunk writing system consists of 26 consonant and 16 vowel graphs/digraphs.
Orthography comparison
Source:
Ho-Chunk Nation of WisconsinHo-Chunk Nation of NebraskaIPAExample wordaa, ʌcaš ′tapping sound′aaāaːcaa / cā ′deer′ąã, ʌ̃nįįpąną ′soup′ąąą̄ã:pąą / pą̄ ′bag′bbboojaš / bōjaš ′marbles′ctʃcaa / cā ′deer′ee, ɛserec ′(be) long′eeēeː, ɛːseep / sēp ′(be) black′gggaaga / gāga ′grandma′ǧɣǧaak / ǧāk ′(to) cry′hhHoocąk / Hōcąk ′Ho-Chunk′iikirikiriš ′(be) striped′iiīiːciinąk / cīnąk ′village, town′įĩhocįcį ′boy′įįį̄ĩ:pįį / pį̄ ′(be) good′jdʒjaasge / jāsge ′how′kkkeecąk / '''k'ēcąk ′turtle′kʼkʼkʼee / kʼē ′(to) dig′mmmįįnąk / mį̄nąk ′(to) sit′nnnįį / nį̄' ′water′ooxoro ′(to) snore′ooōo:coo / cō ′(be) blue, green′pppąą / pą̄ ′bag′pʼpʼpʼoopʼoš / pʼōpʼoš ′(be) fluffy′rrroohą / rōhą ′a lot′sssii / sī ′foot′sʼsʼrusʼįsʼį ′(to) shiver, shake′šʃšuuc / šūc ′(be) red′šʼʃʼrušʼašʼa ′(to) tickle′tttaanį / tānį ′three′tʼtʼtʼąą / tʼą̄' ′(to) fly′uuwaruc ′(to) eat, food′uuūu:huu / hū ′leg′ųũgigųs ′(to) teach′ųųų̄ũ:hųųc / hų̄c ′bear′wwwaa / wā ′snow′xxxee / xē ′(to) bury, hill′xʼxʼxʼooke / xʼōke ′parents′yjiiyaara / īyāra ′(to) yawn′zzzii / zī ′(be) yellow, brown′žʒžuura / žūra ′money, dollar′ ʼ ʔwaʼų ′(to) be, do′
Morphology
Verb structure Ho-Chunk is an agglutinating and somewhat fusional language. Verbs contain several affixes to indicate things like person, number, tense, and mood.
Prefix field Ho-Chunk uses prefixes on a verb stem to mark person, locative case, instrumental case, benefactive case, reflexivity (including possessive reflexivity), and reciprocality.
Person prefixes Ho-Chunk verbs are inflected with eight pronominal categories marked for person and clusivity. Ho-Chunk is a pro-drop language; pronouns are used very infrequently, and information on grammatical person is found on the verb in the form of one or more prefixes. First person singular (abbreviated 1SG) Second person singular (abbreviated 2SG) Third person singular (abbreviated 3SG) First person dual inclusive (abbreviated 1IN.DU) First person inclusive plural (abbreviated 1IN.PL) First person exclusive plural (abbreviated 1EX.PL) Second person plural (abbreviated 2PL) Third person plural (abbreviated 3PL)
Person marking in transitive verbs Ho-Chunk's transitive verbs are inflected with agent (actor) and patient (undergoer) pronominals. The generic paradigm of the pronominal prefixes in transitive verbs is outlined below. The letter V stands in the place of the verb stem.:
Patient 1st person 2nd person 3rd person rowspan="8" 1st person nįį-V nįį-V-wi ∅-ha-V wa-ha-V hį-∅-V hį-wa-V hį-∅-V-wi hį-wa-V-wi nįį-V-wi nįį-V-wi ∅-ha-V-wi wa-ha-V-wi 2nd person hį-ra-V hį-ra-V-wi ∅-ra-V wa-ra-V hį-ra-V-wi hį-ra-V-wi ∅-ra-V-wi wa-ra-V-wi 3rd person hį-∅-V wąąga-∅-V wąąga-∅-V-wi hį-∅-V-wi nį-∅-V nį-∅-V-wi ∅-∅-V wa-∅-V hį-V-ire wąąga-V-ire wąąga-V-ire-wi hį-V-ire-wi nį-V-ire nį-V-ire-wi ∅-V-ire wa-V-ire
In this table, the null symbol (∅) is used to represent all third person singular actor and patient pronominals. It indicates that there is no overt prefix for those pronominals (in other words, that they are null morphemes). Some cells are left blank because there are no pronominal affixes associated with that particular person/number combination. In cases like these, the action is reflexive (i.e. I do something to myself, or you (plural) do something to yourselves). Reflexivity in Ho-Chunk is indicated with another prefix, kii-.
The sounds in the prefixes run together in casual speech, often leading to the deletion of the /h/ consonant and thus a long vowel or diphthong. This is evident in the example waakere 'I put them (standing)', in which the third person plural patient prefix wa- merges with the first person actor prefix ha-, producing waa-.
Person marking in intransitive verbs Ho-Chunk's intransitive verbs fall into three main types: intransitive active verbs, intransitive stative verbs, and intransitive 'third person-only' verbs.
Intransitive active verbs are those which involve only human or animate agent(s). An example is šgaac 'play', which is inflected for person and number as follows: +Person and number marking paradigm for intransitive action verb šgaacHo-Chunk verbTranslationAgent1SGhašgac (ha-šgac)'I play'2SGrašgac (ra-šgac)'you play'3SGšgaac (∅-šgac)'he or she plays'1IN.DUhįšgac (hį-šgac)'you and I play'1IN.PLhįšgacwi (hį-šgac-wi)'we (inclusive) play'1EX.PLhašgacwi (ha-šgac-wi)'we (exclusive) play'2PLrašgacwi (ra-šgac-wi)'you (plural) play'3PLšgaacire (šgaac-ire)'they play' Intransitive stative verbs involve an action affecting a patient. This is characteristic of the verb š'aak 'to be old': +Person and number marking paradigm