Nisenan language

Nisenan
Southern Maidu
Native to	United States
Region	California: Central California, scattered, foothills of the Sierras.
Ethnicity	Nisenan
Native speakers	(1-5 cited 1994) [1]
Language family	Penutian? Maiduan Nisenan
Dialects	Valley Nisenan Northern Hill Nisenan Central Hill Nisenan Southern Hill Nisenan 9 other dialects [2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nsz
Glottolog	nise1244
ELP	Nisenan
Distribution of Nisenan among the languages of California
Nisenan is classified as Extinct by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger . [3]
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.

Nisenan (or alternatively, Neeshenam, Nishinam, Pujuni, or Wapumni) is a nearly^{[ citation needed ]} extinct Maiduan language spoken by the Nisenan people of central California in the foothills of the Sierras, in the whole of the American, Bear and Yuba river drainages.

Ethnologue states that there is only one speaker left.^{[ citation needed ]} However, it is believed that there are a few other speakers left, although the number is not known. Most speakers also speak one or more of the four different dialects.

There has recently been a small effort at language revival. Most notably the release of the "Nisenan Workbook" (three volumes so far) put out by Alan Wallace, which can be found at the California State Indian Museum in Sacramento and the Maidu Interpretive Center in Roseville.^{[ citation needed ]}

As the Nisenan (like many of the Natives of central California) were not a unified nation but a collection of independent tribes which are grouped together primarily on linguistic similarity, there were many dialects to varying degrees of variation. This has led to some degree of inconsistency in the available linguistic data, primarily in regard to the phonemes.

Phonology

The phonology of Nisenan is similar to both Konkow and Maidu. Taking into account the various dialects, there appears to be a fair amount of allophones across the dialects.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ		kʼ
	implosive	ɓ ⟨b⟩	ɗ ⟨d⟩
Affricate			ts ~ tʃ ⟨c⟩
Fricative			s ~ ʃ			h
Approximant			l	j	w

The single affricate consonant has been most commonly described as alveolar [ts], though some sources describe it as postalveolar [tʃ]. According to the Nisenan Workbook by Alan Wallace, [tʃ] and [ts] appear in complementary distribution. For example, the word for 'ten' is transcribed as 'maacam' (⟨c⟩ being realized as [tʃ]) in Workbook #1 and 'maatsam' in Workbook #2. Similar allophony occurs between [s] and [ʃ].

/pʼtʼkʼ/ have been listed as ejectives (lenis ejectives according to "Central Hill Nisenan Texts with Grammatical Sketch" by Andrew Eatough) while other sources have labeled them simply as emphatic not specifying further as to how they contrast with the plain plosives. The Nisenan Workbooks depict these in transcription, though the sound guides have yet to distinguish them from the plain plosives.

One source noted an audible click with /b/ and /d/ among some older speakers of at least one dialect of one of the Maiduan languages. The sound guides in the Nisenan Workbooks hold /b/ and /d/ as voiced plosives as in English.

Some words have a double consonant (i.e. wyttee [one], dappe [coyote], konna [girl]) but it has not been made clear as to whether this is due to gemination as the double consonants in Japanese, or just simply the same consonant being on the end of one syllable and the start of the next.

Vowels

All vowels come in long/short pairs.

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

Long vowels are indicated by a doubling of the vowel.

/e/ is a bit lower, level with /ə/, somewhere between cardinal [e] and [ɛ].

/ɨ/ is sometimes further back, closer to cardinal [ɯ].

/u/ and /o/ are a bit lower and more centralized than the cardinal forms transcribed.

Grammar

Nouns

In common with other Maiduan languages, Nisenan has an extensive case system. There are eight inflected cases, all of which are suffixed to the head of the noun phrase. Nouns are divided into two classes, human and non-human; human nouns can be inflected for number and lack locative, allative, and instrumental case forms, while non-human nouns cannot be inflected for number and lack comitative case forms. The limited evidence of Nisenan means that not all case forms are attested.

Nisenan noun cases

	Suffix	tynys- "old woman"	mom- "water"	pitcaak'a- "lizard"
Nominative	-im	tynysim	momim	pitcaak'am
Accusative	-i	tynysi	momi	pitcaak'a
Genitive	-ik	tynysik		pitcaak'ak
Ablative	-naan	tynysnaan	momnaan
Locative	-di		momdi
Allative	-na		momna
Comitative	-k'an	tynysk'an
Instrumental	-ni		momim

Number marking for human nouns is optional. The dual suffix is -wysa and the plural is -wyse. Both are placed between the noun root and the case suffix, e.g. tynys-wysa-im [tɨnɨswɨsam] "two old women".

All adjectives and determiners in the noun phrase take the nominative case, while possessors take the genitive:

Noun phrases

	Modifier	Head
Adjective	ne-im	tuke-i
	big-NOM	hole-ACC
	"[into] a big hole"
Possessor	nisenaan-ik	jyypybyj-na
	Nisenan-GEN	maiden.dance-ALL
	"to the maidens' dance of the Nisenan"

Pronouns

Personal, demonstrative, and interrogative / indefinite pronouns are all attested. They are inflected with some irregularities in the nominative, accusative, and genitive cases. In particular, the first and second person pronouns lack the characteristic -im nominative suffix. Ablative and comitative forms are regularly derived from the same suffixes as full nouns.

The first person dual alternates between naas and nisaam, which may denote inclusive and exclusive respectively ("you and me" vs. "me and someone else"). The non-singular second person forms are not attested in the genitive, but may be reconstructed on the basis of their first and third person counterparts.

Personal pronouns

	First			Second			Third
	Singular "me"	Dual "us two"	Plural "us all"	Singular "you"	Dual "you two"	Plural "you all"	Singular "him, her"	Dual "those two"	Plural "them all"
Nominative	ni	naas / nisaam	nees	mi	maam	meem	myym	mysaam	myseem
Accusative	nik	nisak'a	nisee	min	mimak'a	mimee	myhe	mysaa	mysee
Genitive	nik'i	nisak'ak	niseek	mink'i	*mimak'ak	*mimeek	myk'i	mysaak	myseek

In addition, there is a third-person non-human pronoun myj, which inflects regularly in the oblique cases. As in many other languages, this third-person pronoun is similar to the demonstrative "that" (my-).

Pronouns of location include the emphatic demonstrative myjdyk "right there" and hededyk "right here", as well as hodo "that, there" and hede "this, here".

Interrogative and indefinite pronouns are also attested, albeit in only a few case-forms. Human and non-human indefinite pronouns each have two sets; the distinction between them is unclear.

Indefinite pronouns

	Human		Non-human		Determiner	Locative
	"who, someone"		"what, something"	"something"	"which one, one" (of a group)	"where, somewhere"
Nominative	menem		homaam	hiiwim
Accusative	mene	homoky	homaa	hiiwi	homope	homo
Genitive	menek'a			hiiwnaan
Ablative						homonaan
Locative						homodi
Allative						homona

Possession

In general, possession is marked by placing the possessor (noun or pronoun) in the genitive case before the possessed: mysaak hadyky "their things". However, a few kinship terms instead take a possessive prefix: nik-ne "my mother", min-ne "your mother", my-ne "his, her, their mother".

Verbs

Verbs in Nisenan are inflected for tense, mood, aspect, person, and number. However, the verbal paradigm is remarkably defective. The full slate of pronominal inflection is used only in the optative mood and with auxiliary verbs; realis predicates rely on auxiliaries, explicit subjects, or context.

Infinitives

The unmarked infinitive (complement to an auxiliary verb) is -i: ydawi 'to come'. It is replaced by the negative suffix -men, e.g. ydawmen 'to not come', or any tense/aspect suffix, for which see below.

Tense and aspect

Several tense/aspect suffixes are demonstrated in Eatough (1999). The most common of these in narrative texts is -mukum, a simple past: e-mukum 'saw'. An alternative past tense, perhaps with an inchoative sense and generally co-occurring with an auxiliary, is -haa: pooloj-haa mi "you got sick". Also attested are the perfective -ii, -ji (todaw-ii ni 'I have brought it'), a progressive -im (tuj-im ni 'I am sleeping'), a future tense -wis, and a stative -u.

Auxiliary verbs

There are two interrogative auxiliary verbs, be 'be' and ka 'do'. Their meanings do not align very closely with these English translations; be appears to be used more in questions relating to the present and ka in those relating to the past.

be

	First	Second	Third
Singular	bes	bemi	be
Dual	behaas	bemaam
Plural	behees	bemeem

ka

	First	Second	Third
Singular	kas	kani	ka
Dual	kahaas	kaam
Plural	kahees	keem, kemeem

Examples of the interrogative pronouns are mink'i be 'is it yours?' and menem ka bonda 'who fell down?'.

The affirmative auxiliary da, also glossed as 'do', is used to make positive assertions: myji dani aanik'i "I want it". It has a similar pattern of inflection except for the aberrant first-person singular dani. Its stative counterpart is my, glossed as 'be': nik'i syym my wennem syym 'my dog is a good dog'.

In addition to these, there is a root ha-, glossed as 'do' but not listed among the auxiliary verbs. This root is used extensively in narrative texts. Unlike the auxiliaries above, it does not entail explicit person marking but is rather marked for same / different subject: ha-n 'do (same subject)', ha-ce 'do (different subject)'.

Optative

The optative mood indicates that the verb's result is desired by the speaker, e.g. homaa pa-is [homaː pas] "I want to eat something", huujo-p e-men-bo [huːjop emenbo] "hide it so he doesn't see". The optative agreement suffixes are as follows. Second-person optatives can mark the absence or presence of a speaker for the assumed result, where an additional suffix -ka implies the speaker will be absent (e.g. myjaatibeneka "you should go do that"), while a distinct form -benes implies the speaker will be present.

Optative

	First	Second		Third
		Speaker absent	Speaker present
Singular	-is	-bene(ka)	-benes	-bo
Dual	-py	-baam(ka)
Plural	-pe	-beem(ka)

Cautionary

The cautionary mood is the opposite of the optative, indicating that something might go wrong as a result of the verb: bonobys "I might get lost". The cautionary suffixes are as follows.

Cautionary

	Person
First	-bys
Second	-no
Third	-by

Numbers

Note: Due to dialectal variation from tribe to tribe, some sources may have different words. These are taken from the Nisenan Workbooks.

1 = wyttee

2 = peen

3 = sap'yj

4 = cyyj

5 = maawyk

6 = tymbo

7 = top'yj

8 = peencyyj

9 = peli'o

10 = maacam

11 = maacam na wyttee (lit. 10 and 1 or 10+1; 'na' = +/and)

12 = maacam na peen (etc. for 13 and up)

20 = peenmaacam (lit. 2 10 or 2x10)

30 = sap'yjmaacam (etc. for 40 and up)

100 = maawykhaapa

See also

• Nisenan
• Maidu
• Maiduan languages

References

1. Hinton, Leanne (1996). Flutes of fire: essays on California Indian languages (2nd print., rev ed.). Berkeley, Calif: Heyday Books. ISBN   978-0-930588-62-5.
2. "Nisenan". California Language Archive. Retrieved 2024-09-28.
3. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Report) (3rd ed.). UNESCO. 2010. p. 11.

Bibliography

• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   0-19-509427-1.
• Eatough, Andrew. (1999). Central Hill Nisenan Texts with Grammatical Sketch. Berkeley: UC Publications in Linguistics, 132.
• Heizer, Robert F. (1966). Languages, territories, and names of California Indian tribes.
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   0-521-23228-7 (nsz); ISBN   0-521-29875-X.
• Wallace, Alan. (2008). Nisenan Workbook #1 & #2.

External links

• Maidu Museum & Historic Center
• Nisenan language overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
• OLAC resources in and about the Nisenan language