Mescalero-Chiricahua language

Mescalero-Chiricahua (also known as Chiricahua Apache) is a Southern Athabaskan language spoken by the Chiricahua and Mescalero people in Chihuahua and Sonora, México and in Oklahoma and New Mexico.^[2] It is related to Navajo and Western Apache and has been described in great detail by the anthropological linguist Harry Hoijer (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.

Chiricahua
Ndee bizaa
Native to	Mexico and USA
Region	Sonora, Chihuahua, Oklahoma, New Mexico
Ethnicity	Chiricahua, Mescalero
Native speakers	1,500 (2007)[1]
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian? Na-Dene Athabaskan Southern Athabaskan Southwestern Apache Western Chiricahua
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Mexico
Regulated by	Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas
Language codes
ISO 639-3	apm
Glottolog	mesc1238
ELP	Mescalero-Chiricahua
Mescalero-Chiricahua is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger[failed verification]
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Virginia Klinekole, the first female president of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, was known for her efforts to preserve the language.^[3]

There is at least one language-immersion school for children in Mescalero.^[4]

Phonology

Consonants

Chiricahua has 31 consonants:

		Bilabial	Alveolar			Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
			plain	sibilant	lateral
Nasal	simple	m	n
	post-stopped	(mᵇ)	nᵈ
Plosive	plain	p	t	ts	tˡ~tɬ	tʃ		k	ʔ
	aspirated		tʰ	tsʰ	tɬʰ	tʃʰ		kʰ
	ejective		tʼ	tsʼ	tɬʼ	tʃʼ		kʼ
Fricative	voiceless			s	ɬ	ʃ		x	h
	voiced			z	ɮ	ʒ	ʝ	ɣ

Vowels

Chiricahua has 16 vowels:

		Front		Central		Back
		short	long	short	long	short	long
High	oral	i	iː
	nasal	ĩ	ĩː
Mid	oral	ɛ	ɛː			o	oː
	nasal	ɛ̃	ɛ̃ː			õ	õː
Low	oral			a	aː
	nasal			ã	ãː

Chiricahua has phonemic oral, nasal, short, and long vowels.