Shasta language

Last updated
Shasta
Native to United States
Regionprimarily northern California
Ethnicity Shasta people
Extinct 1978, with the death of Clara Wicks[ contradictory ]
Hokan  ?
  • Shasta–Palaihnihan
Language codes
ISO 639-3 sht
Glottolog shas1239
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.

The Shasta language is an extinct Shastan language formerly spoken from northern California into southwestern Oregon. It was spoken in a number of dialects, possibly including Okwanuchu. By 1980, only two first language speakers, both elderly, were alive. Today, all ethnic Shasta people speak English as their first language. According to Golla, there were four distinct dialects of Shasta: [1]

Contents

Phonology

Consonants

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
plain affricated
Stop ejective   pʼː   tʼː tsʼ   t͡sː t͡ʃʼ   t͡ʃː   kʼː
unaspirated p    t    ts   t͡sː t͡ʃ   t͡ʃː k    ʔ   ʔː
Fricative s    x    h   
Nasal m    n   
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 /r j w/ only occur as short consonants. [2] Minimal pairs and near minimal pairs are shown below:

Vowels

Shasta has four vowels, /i e a u/, with contrastive length, and two tones: high and low.

Front Central Back
shortlongshortlongshortlong
Close i u
Mid e
Open a

Orthography

Silver (1966) devised a system to write words 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.

A aAˑ aˑC cCˑ cˑC̓ c̓C̓ˑ c̓ˑČ čČˑ čˑČ̓ č̓Č̓ˑ č̓ˑE eEˑ eˑH hHˑ hˑI iIˑ iˑK kKˑ kˑK̓ k̓K̓ˑ k̓ˑM mMˑ mˑ
N nNˑ nˑP pPˑ pˑP̓ p̓P̓ˑ p̓ˑR rS sSˑ sˑT tTˑ tˑT̓ t̓T̓ˑ t̓ˑU uUˑ uˑW wX xXˑ xˑY yˀˀˑ

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/

Related Research Articles

In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate that two phones are two separate phonemes in the language.

In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.

Rotokas is a North Bougainville language spoken by about 4,320 people on the island of Bougainville, an island located to the east of New Guinea which is part of Papua New Guinea. According to Allen and Hurd (1963), there are three identified dialects: Central Rotokas, Aita Rotokas, and Pipipaia; with a further dialect spoken in Atsilima (Atsinima) village with an unclear status. Central Rotokas is most notable for its extremely small phonemic inventory and for having perhaps the smallest modern alphabet.

Ga language Kwa language spoken in Ghana

Ga is a Kwa language spoken in Ghana, in and around the capital Accra. It has a phonemic distinction between three vowel lengths.

In phonetics, palatalization or palatization is a way of pronouncing a consonant in which part of the tongue is moved close to the hard palate. Consonants pronounced this way are said to be palatalized and are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by affixing the letter ⟨ʲ⟩ to the base consonant. Palatalization cannot minimally distinguish words in most dialects of English, but it may do so in languages such as Russian, Mandarin, and Irish.

Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds. Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless or voiced.

A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel /ɑ̃/  or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced without nasalization. In the stricter, nasal vowels are not to be confused with nasalised vowels.

Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar phonological system. Among other things, most dialects have vowel reduction in unstressed syllables and a complex set of phonological features that distinguish fortis and lenis consonants.

Keres language Language isolate of New Mexico, United States

Keresan, also Keres, is a Native American language, spoken by the Keres Pueblo people in New Mexico. Depending on the analysis, Keresan is considered a small language family or a language isolate with several dialects. The varieties of each of the seven Keres pueblos are mutually intelligible with its closest neighbors. There are significant differences between the Western and Eastern groups, which are sometimes counted as separate languages.

Swedish has a large vowel inventory, with nine vowels distinguished in quality and to some degree quantity, making 17 vowel phonemes in most dialects. Swedish pronunciation of most consonants is similar to that of other Germanic languages. Another notable feature is the pitch accent, which is unusual for European languages.

In linguistics, a chroneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant. The noun chroneme is derived from Greek χρόνος, and the suffixed -eme, which is analogous to the -eme in phoneme or morpheme. However, the term does not have wide currency and may be unknown even to phonologists who work on languages claimed to have chronemes.

Takelma language Extinct Native American language formerly spoken in Oregon

Takelma was the language spoken by the Latgawa and Takelma people and Cow Creek band of Upper Umpqua. It was first extensively described by Edward Sapir in his graduate thesis, The Takelma Language of Southwestern Oregon. The last fluent speaker of Takelma, with whom Sapir worked while writing about the language, was Frances Johnson (Gwísgwashãn). A dictionary from English to Takelma is currently being created in the hopes it can be revived.

The phonology of Bengali, like that of its neighbouring Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, is characterised by a wide variety of diphthongs and inherent back vowels.

Ocaina language

Ocaina is an indigenous American language spoken in western South America.

This article summarizes the phonology of Standard Chinese.

This article covers the phonology of modern Colognian as spoken in the city of Cologne. Varieties spoken outside of Cologne are only briefly covered where appropriate. Historic precedent versions are not considered.

Patwin (Patween) is a critically endangered Wintuan language of Northern California. As of 2003, there was "at least one first language speaker of Patwin." As of 2010, Patwin language classes were taught at the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation tribal school.

Stieng is the language of the Stieng people of southern Vietnam and adjacent areas of Cambodia, and possibly Laos. Along with Chrau and Mnong, Stieng is classified as a language of the South Bahnaric grouping of the Mon–Khmer languages within the Austroasiatic language family. In the Austroasiatic scheme, the Bahnaric languages are often cited as being most closely related to the Khmer language.

Mixtepec Mixtec is a Mixtec language that is spoken in the lower Mixteca region. Mixtec language is largely spoken in the area of San Juan Mixtepec, district of Juxtlahuaca, state of Oaxaca. However, the language is also spoken in other areas including Tlaxiaco, San Quintín Baja California, Santa María California, and Oregon. In 2004, it was reported that approximately 12,000 people spoke the Mixtepec Mixtec language. While most speakers of the language refer to it as 'sa'an ntavi' meaning 'language of the poor' or 'poor people's language,' others refer to it as 'sa'an save' which means 'rain language.' It is not closely related to other varieties of Mixtec.

Yawelmani Yokuts

Yawelmani Yokuts is an endangered dialect of Southern Valley Yokuts historically spoken by the Yokuts living along the Kern River north of Kern Lake in the Central Valley of California. Today, most Yawelmani speakers live on or near the Tule River Reservation.

References

  1. Golla, Victor (2011). California Indian languages. University of California Press. pp. 90–91. ISBN   9780520266674. OCLC   767533019.
  2. Silver, Shirley (1966). The Shasta Language (Ph.D. thesis). University of California. pp. 37–38.

Bibliography