Chumashan languages
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Chumashan is a family of languages that were spoken on the southern California coast (from San Luis Obispo to Malibu), in neighboring inland regions (San Joaquin Valley), and on three nearby islands (San Miguel, Santa Rosa, and Santa Cruz).
The entire Chumashan family is now extinct. The last speaker of a Chumashan language was Mary Yee who died in 1965 and spoke Barbareño.
Family division
Chumashan consists of 6 languages.
I. Northern Chumash
- 1. Obispeño (also known as Northern Chumash) (†)
- a. Island Chumash
- : 2. Island Chumash (also known as Ysleño, Isleño) (†)
- b. Central Chumash
- : 3. Purisimeño (†)
- : 4. Ineseño (also known as Inezeño) (†)
- : 5. Barbareño (†)
- : 6. Ventureño (†)
Obispeño, Purisimeño, Ineseño, Barbareño, and Ventureño are named after the Franciscan missions where they were moved to.
Genetic relations
Roland Dixon and Alfred L. Kroeber suggested that the Chumashan languages might be related to the neighboring Salinan in a Iskoman grouping. Edward Sapir accepted this speculation and included Iskoman in his classfication of Hokan. Afterwards, Kathryn Klar (1977) found that Salinan and Chumashan shared only one word, which the Chumashan languages probably borrowed from Salinan (the word meant 'white clam shell' and was used as currency). As a result, the inclusion of Chumashan into Hokan is now disfavored by most specialists, and the consensus is that Chumashan has no linguistic relatives.
Characteristics
The Chumashan languages are well-known for their consonant harmony (regressive sibilant harmony).
See also
- Chumash.''
Bibliography
- Applegate, Richard. (1972) Ineseño Chumash Grammar. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley).
- Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
- Goddard, Ives (Ed.). (1996). Languages. Handbook of North American Indians (W. C. Sturtevant, General Ed.) (Vol. 17). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-1604-8774-9.
- Klar, Kathryn. (1977). Topics in historical Chumash grammar. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley).
- Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
- Sturtevant, William C. (Ed.). (1978-present). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 1-20). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. (Vols. 1-3, 16, 18-20 not yet published).
- Wash, Suzanne. (1995). Productive Reduplication in Barbareño Chumash. (Master's thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara; 210 + x pp.)
- Wash, Suzanne. (2001). Adverbial Clauses in Barbareño Chumash Narrative Discourse. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara; 569 + xxii pp.)
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