Kitanemuk language

Last updated
Kitanemuk
Native to United States
RegionSouthern California
Ethnicity Kitanemuk
Extinct Last spoken in the 1940s by Marcelino Rivera, Isabella Gonzales, and Refugia Duran
Language codes
ISO 639-3 None (mis)
Glottolog kita1252
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.

Kitanemuk was a Northern Uto-Aztecan language of the Serran branch. It was very closely related to Serrano, and may have been a dialect. It was spoken in the San Gabriel Mountains and foothill environs of Southern California. The last speakers lived some time in the 1940s, though the last fieldwork was carried out in 1937. J. P. Harrington took copious notes in 1916 and 1917, however, which has allowed for a fairly detailed knowledge of the language.

Contents

Morphology

Kitanemuk is an agglutinative language, where words use suffix complexes for a variety of purposes with several morphemes strung together.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant phonemes of Kitanemuk, as reconstructed by Anderton (1988) based on Harrington's field notes, were (with some standard Americanist phonetic notation in angle brackets:

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
plain labio.
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive p t k ʔ
Affricate ts c č
Fricative v s ʃ š h
Rhotic r
Approximant l j y w

Word-finally, h becomes [ r ], and all voiced consonants become voiceless before other voiceless consonants or word-finally.

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i ɨ u
Mid e o
Open a

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allophone</span> Phone used to pronounce a single phoneme

In phonology, an allophone is a set of multiple possible spoken sounds – or phones – or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, and the aspirated form are allophones for the phoneme, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in some languages such as Thai. On the other hand, in Spanish, and are allophones for the phoneme, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in English.

Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no turbulence. This class is composed of sounds like and semivowels like and, as well as lateral approximants like.

In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. In English, aspirated consonants are allophones in complementary distribution with their unaspirated counterparts, but in some other languages, notably most South Asian languages and East Asian languages, the difference is contrastive.

A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English L, as in Larry. Lateral consonants contrast with central consonants, in which the airstream flows through the center of the mouth.

In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies voicing and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation.

Consonant mutation is change in a consonant in a word according to its morphological or syntactic environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Choctaw language</span> Muskogean language spoken in US

The Choctaw language, spoken by the Choctaw, an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, is part of the Muskogean language family. Chickasaw is separate but closely related language to Choctaw.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zuni language</span> Language isolate of New Mexico, United States

Zuni is a language of the Zuni people, indigenous to western New Mexico and eastern Arizona in the United States. It is spoken by around 9,500 people, especially in the vicinity of Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico, and much smaller numbers in parts of Arizona.

The Achumawi language is the indigenous language spoken by the Pit River people in the northeast corner of present-day California. The term Achumawi is an anglicization of the name of the Fall River band, ajúmmááwí, from ajúmmá "river". nine bands, with dialect differences primarily between upriver and downriver, demarcated by the Big Valley mountains east of the Fall River valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kiowa language</span> North American aboriginal language

Kiowa or Cáuijògà/Cáuijò:gyà is a Tanoan language spoken by the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma in primarily Caddo, Kiowa, and Comanche counties. The Kiowa tribal center is located in Carnegie. Like most North American indigenous languages, Kiowa is an endangered language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cayuga language</span> Northern Iroquoian language of North America

Cayuga is a Northern Iroquoian language of the Iroquois Proper subfamily, and is spoken on Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, Ontario, by around 240 Cayuga people, and on the Cattaraugus Reservation, New York, by fewer than 10.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comanche language</span> Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Comanche people in the United States

Comanche is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Comanche people, who split from the Shoshone people soon after the Comanche had acquired horses around 1705. The Comanche language and the Shoshoni language are therefore quite similar, but certain consonant changes in Comanche have inhibited mutual intelligibility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tongva language</span> Extinct Uto-Aztecan language formerly spoken in California, US

The Tongva language is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language formerly spoken by the Tongva, a Native American people who live in and around Los Angeles, California. It has not been a language of everyday conversation since the 1940s. The Gabrielino people now speak English but a few are attempting to revive their language by using it in everyday conversation and ceremonial contexts. Presently, Gabrielino is also being used in language revitalization classes and in some public discussion regarding religious and environmental issues. Tongva is closely related to Serrano.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastern Pomo language</span> Pomoan language

Eastern Pomo, also known as Clear Lake Pomo, is a nearly extinct Pomoan language spoken around Clear Lake in Lake County, California by one of the Pomo peoples.

The Kitanemuk are an indigenous people of California. They traditionally lived in the Tehachapi Mountains and the Antelope Valley area of the western Mojave Desert of southern California, United States. Today some Kitanemuk people are enrolled in the federally recognized Tejon Indian Tribe of California.

The Tataviam language was spoken by the Tataviam people of the upper Santa Clara River basin, Santa Susana Mountains, and Sierra Pelona Mountains in southern California. It had become extinct by 1916 and is known only from a few early records, notably a few words recorded by Alfred L. Kroeber and John P. Harrington in the early decades of the 20th century. These word lists were not from native speakers, but from the children of the last speakers who remembered a few words and phrases.

The Tataviam are a Native American group in Southern California. Their tribal government is based in San Fernando, California, and includes the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, the Tribal Senate, and the Council of Elders. The current Tribal President of the Tatavian people is Rudy Ortega Jr.

Klamath, also Klamath–Modoc and historically Lutuamian, is a Native American language spoken around Klamath Lake in what is now southern Oregon and northern California. It is the traditional language of the Klamath and Modoc peoples, each of whom spoke a dialect of the language. By 1998, only one native speaker remained, and by 2003, this last fluent Klamath speaker who was living in Chiloquin, Oregon, was 92 years old. As of 2006 there were no fluent native speakers of either the Klamath or Modoc dialects; however, as of 2019, revitalization efforts are underway with the goal of creating new speakers.

Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat. Much of its phonology is derived from Sanskrit.

Taos is a Tanoan language spoken by several hundred people in New Mexico, in the United States. The main description of its phonology was contributed by George L. Trager in a (pre-generative) structuralist framework. Earlier considerations of the phonetics-phonology were by John P. Harrington and Jaime de Angulo. Trager's first account was in Trager (1946) based on fieldwork 1935-1937, which was then substantially revised in Trager (1948). The description below takes Trager (1946) as the main point of departure and notes where this differs from the analysis of Trager (1948). Harrington's description is more similar to Trager (1946). Certain comments from a generative perspective are noted in a comparative work Hale (1967).

References