Sources
Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a site - Become an editor
Wikipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Are you an expert in this subject? Join the discussion and share your knowledge at Wikipedia.org.
Chiwere language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Chiwere Baxoje-Jiwere-Nyut?aji |
||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | United States | |
| Region: | Oklahoma and Kansas | |
| Total speakers: | Less than 12 | |
| Language family: | Siouan-Catawban Siouan Mississippi Valley Chiwere-Winnebago Chiwere |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | — | |
| ISO 639-3: | — | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Chiwere (also called Iowa-Otoe-Missouria) is a Siouan language originally spoken by the Missouria, Otoe, and Ioway peoples in Northeast Kansas and parts of Missouri and Nebraska. The language is closely related to Ho Chunk (Winnebago). Today, Chiwere is only spoken by a very few elder people within the tribal communities of the Otoe-Ioway in Oklahoma. The only dialect spoken today is the Ioway dialect. The last fluent speaker of the Otoe-Missouria variety was Truman Washington Dailey (Eagle clan name: Mashi Manyi, man name: Sunge Hka) who died in 1996.
Christian missionaries first documented Chiwere in the 1830s, though since then there has been virtually nothing published about the language. Chiwere suffered a steady decline after European colonization in the 1850s, and by 1940 the language had almost totally ceased to be spoken.
Currently, Chiwere is highly endangered. With the last two fluent speakers dying in the Winter of 1996, only a handful of semi-fluent speakers remain, all of whom are elderly. Although the Otoe-Ioway people themselves have no Chiwere learning programs, a few external sources are working to preserve the language into the next decade. In spite of these efforts, it is likely that Chiwere will become extinct in the very near future.
- Ioway-Otoe-Missouria Language Website
- A paper on the disappearance of Chiwere
- A brief grammar
- The Lord's Prayer in Chiwere.
- Otoe-Missouria Hymns translated from English by Earl Plumley.