Shasta language

Shasta
Shasta
Native to	United States
Region	primarily northern California
Ethnicity	Shasta people
Extinct	1990
Language family	Hokan ? Shasta–Palaihnihan Shastan Shasta; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sht
Glottolog	shas1239
	Shasta
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Last updated March 04, 2025

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:^[2]

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Glottal
		Bilabial	plain	affricated	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	ejective	pʼ pʼː	tʼ tʼː	tsʼ t͡sʼː	t͡ʃʼ t͡ʃʼː	kʼ kʼː
Stop	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 /r j w/ only occur as short consonants.^[3] Minimal pairs and near minimal pairs are shown below:

/t͡ʃákàráx/ a gnat vs. /t͡sàkːírʔ/ a board
/ʔátʼùʔ/ nothing vs. /ʔátʼːùʔ/ wild sunflower
/ʔìsíkʼːàʔ/ a person vs. /ʔìsːíkʼ/ cold

Vowels

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

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

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 a	Aˑ aˑ	C c	Cˑ cˑ	C̓ c̓	C̓ˑ c̓ˑ	Č č	Čˑ čˑ	Č̓ č̓	Č̓ˑ č̓ˑ
E e	Eˑ eˑ	H h	Hˑ hˑ	I i	Iˑ iˑ	K k	Kˑ kˑ	K̓ k̓	K̓ˑ k̓ˑ
M m	Mˑ mˑ	N n	Nˑ nˑ	P p	Pˑ pˑ	P̓ p̓	P̓ˑ p̓ˑ	R r	S s
Sˑ sˑ	T t	Tˑ tˑ	T̓ t̓	T̓ˑ t̓ˑ	U u	Uˑ uˑ	W w	X x	Xˑ xˑ
Y y	ˀ	ˀˑ

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:

IPA	Orthography
/ú/	ú
/úː/	úˑ
/ù/	u
/ùː/	uˑ

References

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

Bibliography

Golla, Victor (2011), California Indian languages, Berkeley: University of California Press
Mithun, Marianne (1999), The Languages of Native North America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

External links

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[1] "I need Your Money...!" (PDF). terralingua.org.

[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.

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