Language
Sauk (or Sac) is a part of the Algonquian language family. It is very closely related to the varieties spoken by the Fox and the Kickapoo tribes, so the three are often described by linguists as dialects of the same language. Each of the dialects contains archaisms and innovations that distinguish them from each other, and Sauk and Fox appear to be the most closely related of the three (Goddard 1978). Sauk is also considered to be mutually intelligible, to a point, with Fox. In their own language, the Sauk at one time referred to themselves as asakiwaki, “people of the outlet. (Bonvillain 1995)”
The Sauk people have a syllabic orthography for their language and there exists a Primer Book which was printed in 1977 (based on a “traditional” syllabary which existed in 1906), so that the modern-day Sauk people may learn to write as well as speak their ancestral tongue. A newer orthography was proposed around 1994 to better aid in language revival, since the former syllabary was targeted towards the few remaining native speakers of Sauk; the more recent orthography was presented with native English speakers in mind (Müller 1994).
Sauk has so few speakers that it is considered one of the many endangered languages native to North America.
In 2012, Shawnee High School in Shawnee, Oklahoma began to offer a Sauk language course.
Read more about this topic: Sauk People
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive ... and impoverished.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
“The “sayings” of a community, its proverbs, are its characteristic comment upon life; they imply its history, suggest its attitude toward the world and its way of accepting life. Such an idiom makes the finest language any writer can have; and he can never get it with a notebook. He himself must be able to think and feel in that speech—it is a gift from heart to heart.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“Play for young children is not recreation activity,... It is not leisure-time activity nor escape activity.... Play is thinking time for young children. It is language time. Problem-solving time. It is memory time, planning time, investigating time. It is organization-of-ideas time, when the young child uses his mind and body and his social skills and all his powers in response to the stimuli he has met.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)