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Shawnee language
 
 
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The Shawnee language is a Central Algonquian language
Algonquian languages

The Algonquian languages are a subfamily of Native American languages that includes most of the languages in the Algic languages language family ....
 spoken in parts of central and northeastern Oklahoma
Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a U.S. state and a sovereignty located in the South Central United States and Southern United States of the United States of America ....
 by only around 200 Shawnee
Shawnee

The Shawnee, Shaawanwaki, Shaawanooki and Shaawanowi lenaweeki, are a people native to North America. They originally inhabited the areas of Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Western Maryland, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania....
, making it very endangered. It was originally spoken in Ohio
Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern United States U.S. state of the United States. As part of the Great Lakes region , Ohio has long been a cultural and geographical crossroads in North America....
, West Virginia, Kentucky
Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a U.S. state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is normally included in the group of Southern United States , but it is uncommonly included, geographically and culturally, in the Midwestern United States....
, and Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , often colloquially referred to as PA by natives and Northeasterners, is a U.S. state located in the Northeastern United States and Mid-Atlantic States regions of the United States....
. It is closely related to the other Algonquian languages Mesquakie-Sauk
Fox language

Fox is an Algonquian languages Indigenous languages of the Americas language, spoken by around 1000 Fox , Sauk, and Kickapoo in various locations in the Midwest and in northern Mexico....
 (Sac and Fox
Sac and Fox Nation

The Sac and Fox Nation is the modern political entity encompassing the historical Sac and Fox nations of Native Americans in the United States....
) and Kickapoo
Kickapoo

The Kickapoos are one of the Algonquian peoples speaking Native Americans in the United States tribes. According to the Anishinaabeg, the name "Kickapoo" means "Stands Here and there" and refers to the tribes migratory patterns....
.

Vowels
Shawnee has four short vowels, (where and are phonetically and ) and four long vowels, .

Consonants


Some speakers of Shawnee pronounce /?/ more like an alveolar /s/.






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Encyclopedia


The Shawnee language is a Central Algonquian language
Algonquian languages

The Algonquian languages are a subfamily of Native American languages that includes most of the languages in the Algic languages language family ....
 spoken in parts of central and northeastern Oklahoma
Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a U.S. state and a sovereignty located in the South Central United States and Southern United States of the United States of America ....
 by only around 200 Shawnee
Shawnee

The Shawnee, Shaawanwaki, Shaawanooki and Shaawanowi lenaweeki, are a people native to North America. They originally inhabited the areas of Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Western Maryland, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania....
, making it very endangered. It was originally spoken in Ohio
Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern United States U.S. state of the United States. As part of the Great Lakes region , Ohio has long been a cultural and geographical crossroads in North America....
, West Virginia, Kentucky
Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a U.S. state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is normally included in the group of Southern United States , but it is uncommonly included, geographically and culturally, in the Midwestern United States....
, and Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , often colloquially referred to as PA by natives and Northeasterners, is a U.S. state located in the Northeastern United States and Mid-Atlantic States regions of the United States....
. It is closely related to the other Algonquian languages Mesquakie-Sauk
Fox language

Fox is an Algonquian languages Indigenous languages of the Americas language, spoken by around 1000 Fox , Sauk, and Kickapoo in various locations in the Midwest and in northern Mexico....
 (Sac and Fox
Sac and Fox Nation

The Sac and Fox Nation is the modern political entity encompassing the historical Sac and Fox nations of Native Americans in the United States....
) and Kickapoo
Kickapoo

The Kickapoos are one of the Algonquian peoples speaking Native Americans in the United States tribes. According to the Anishinaabeg, the name "Kickapoo" means "Stands Here and there" and refers to the tribes migratory patterns....
.

Sounds


Stress in Shawnee falls on the final syllable of a word.

Vowels


Shawnee has four short vowels, (where and are phonetically and ) and four long vowels, .

Consonants


Labial
Labial consonant

Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips or with the lower lip and the upper teeth . English is a bilabial nasal consonant sonorant, and are bilabial stop consonant , and are labiodental fricative consonant....
Alveolar
Alveolar consonant

Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the Dental alveolus of the superior teeth....
PalatalVelar
Velar consonant

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the Soft palate)....
Glottal
Glottal consonant

Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider them to be consonants at all....
Plosive
Fricative  
Lateral
Lateral consonant

Laterals are "L"-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue....
    
Nasal
Nasal consonant

A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered soft palate in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the tongue....
   
Semivowel
Semivowel

Semivowels, also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels, are vowels that form diphthongs with full syllable vowels. That is, they are vowel-like sounds that do not form the syllable nucleus of a syllable or mora ; they are not the most prominence part of the syllable....
   


Some speakers of Shawnee pronounce /?/ more like an alveolar /s/. This pronunciation is especially common among Loyal Band Shawnee speakers near Vinita
Vinita

Vinita is the name of several places in the United States:*Vinita Township, Kansas in Kansas*Vinita, Oklahoma in Oklahoma*Vinita Park, Missouri in Missouri...
, Oklahoma.

Grammar


Shawnee shares many grammatical features with other Algonquian languages. There are two third persons, proximate
Proximate

Proximates are used in the analysis of biological materials as a decomposition of a human-consumable good into its major constituents.What people consider proximates may vary, but usually includes:...
 and obviative, and two noun classes (or genders), animate
Animacy

Animacy is a grammatical category and/or semantic category of nouns based on how sentient or life the referent of the noun is. Animacy can have various effects on the grammar of a language, such as word order, grammatical case endings, or the form a verb takes when it is associated with that noun....
 and inanimate
Animacy

Animacy is a grammatical category and/or semantic category of nouns based on how sentient or life the referent of the noun is. Animacy can have various effects on the grammar of a language, such as word order, grammatical case endings, or the form a verb takes when it is associated with that noun....
. It is primarily agglutinating
Agglutination

In linguistics, agglutination is the morphology process ofadding affixes to the root word of a word. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative languages....
 typologically
Linguistic typology

Linguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity of the world's languages....
, and is polysynthetic, resulting in a great deal of information being encoded on the verb. The most common word order is Verb-Subject.

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