The Rų́ʔeta:re language is currently spoken in the Fort Berthold in North Dakota – a territory shared with the Hidatsa and Arikara people.

The writing system presented here is that which is used in Mauricio Mixco’s handbook, Mandan. It is similar to Robert Hollow’s analysis of the language, except that Mixco differentiates short from long vowels phonemically, comparing ‘oxa’ – ‘wound’ with ‘o:xa’ – ‘red fox’. A further difference is that Mixco uses the ligature /æ/ to represent an underlying vowel, while Hollow uses /E/. This vowel does not have a pronunciation, as it does not appear in the spoken language, instead, it is either [a] or [e] depending on the grammatical environment.

Note:  There are several Roman Orthography conventions on this site that may require further explanation.  On the charts below, there is lots of phonetic terminology that may not be familiar to everyone.

This page uses no characters outside the Unicode standard.

Notes

• The consonant /č/ only occurs in one suffix: -č, ‘intentive’.
• The underlying vowel /æ(:)/~/E(:)/ appears as either [a(:)] or [e(:)], usually [e].
• I am assuming the sound /a/ is central, although it could also be back.

Last Update: February 23, 2008