Shasta language

Last updated
Shasta
Native to United States
Regionprimarily northern California
Ethnicity Shasta people
Extinct 1978, with the death of Clara Wicks [1]
Hokan  ?
  • Shasta–Palaihnihan
Dialects
  • Ikirakácˑu (Oregon Shasta)
  • Iruhikwáˑcˑu (Klamath River Shasta)
  • Uwáˑtuhúcˑu (Scott Valley Shasta)
  • Ahútˑireˀeˑcˑu (Shasta Valley Shasta)
Language codes
ISO 639-3 sht
Glottolog shas1239
Shastan languages-01.svg
  Shasta
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Shasta is an extinct Shastan language formerly spoken from northern California into southwestern Oregon. It was spoken in a number of dialects, possibly including Okwanuchu. The last fluent speaker, Clara Wicks, died in 1978, [2] and by 1980, only two first language speakers, both elderly, were alive. Today, all ethnic Shasta people speak English as their first language.

Contents

Dialects

According to Golla, there were four distinct dialects of Shasta: [2]

Phonology

Consonants

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
plain affricated
Stop ejective pʼ    pʼː tʼ    tʼː tsʼ    t͡sʼː t͡ʃʼ    t͡ʃʼː kʼ    kʼː
unaspirated p    pː t    tː ts    t͡sː t͡ʃ    t͡ʃː k    kː ʔ    ʔː
Fricative s    sː x    xː h    hː
Nasal m    mː n    nː
Approximant r j w

The length of a consonant distinguishes meaning in Shasta words. All stops, fricatives and nasals can occur as long or short in Shasta, but approximants /rjw/ only occur as short consonants. [3] Minimal pairs and near minimal pairs are shown below:

Vowels

Shasta has four vowels, /ieau/, with contrastive length, and two tones: high and low.

Front Central Back
shortlongshortlongshortlong
Close i iː u uː
Mid e eː
Open a aː

Tones

Shasta vowels can have low or high tones. High tones are marked by an acute accent ⟨′⟩ in the orthography devised by Silver (1966), whereas low tones are left unmarked. Examples for the vowel /u/ are given below:

IPAOrthography
/ú/ú
/úː/úˑ
/ù/u
/ùː/uˑ

Orthography

Silver (1966) devised a spelling system for distinguishing consonants and vowels in Shasta. Long phonemes are represented with the symbol ⟨ˑ⟩ following the character (e.g. ⟨cˑ⟩ and ⟨eˑ⟩ for /t͡sː/ and /eː/, respectively); ejectives are indicated by an apostrophe written over the character (e.g. ⟨p̓⟩ for /pʼ/). The phoneme /j/ is represented by ⟨y⟩, and the glottal stop /ʔ/ is represented by the superscript IPA symbol ⟨ˀ⟩. The letters ⟨b d f g j l q v z⟩ are not used to represent Shasta sounds.

Shasta alphabet
A aAˑ aˑC cCˑ cˑC̓ c̓C̓ˑ c̓ˑČ čČˑ čˑČ̓ č̓Č̓ˑ č̓ˑ
E eEˑ eˑH hHˑ hˑI iIˑ iˑK kKˑ kˑK̓ k̓K̓ˑ k̓ˑ
M mMˑ mˑN nNˑ nˑP pPˑ pˑP̓ p̓P̓ˑ p̓ˑR rS s
Sˑ sˑT tTˑ tˑT̓ t̓T̓ˑ t̓ˑU uUˑ uˑW wX xXˑ xˑ
Y yˀˀˑ

References

  1. ↑ "I need Your Money...!" (PDF). terralingua.org.
  2. 1 2 Golla, Victor (2011). California Indian languages. University of California Press. pp. 90–91. ISBN   9780520266674. OCLC   767533019.
  3. ↑ Silver, Shirley (1966). The Shasta Language (Ph.D. thesis). University of California. pp. 37–38.

Bibliography

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