Nisenan (language)

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Nisenan

Spoken in

USA ( California )
speaker 0 (not a native speaker; extinct)
Linguistic
classification

Maiduan (Pujunan)

  • Southern Maidu
Language codes
ISO 639 -1

-

ISO 639 -2

-

ISO 639-3

nsz

Nisenan (or also Southern Maidu , Neeshenam , Nishinam , Pujuni or Wapumni ) is an almost extinct language of the Maiduan languages within the Penuti languages . It is or was spoken by the people of the Nisenan (or southern Maidu etc. see above) in central California in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and in the catchment areas of the American, Bear and Yuba River.

Ethnologists estimate that there is only one remaining speaker. However, it is believed that there are a few more, although the exact number is unknown. Most speakers also use one or more of the different dialects.

There has been a weak effort recently and a rebirth of the language. Most notable is a dictionary Nisenan published by Alan Wallace (three volumes so far), which is available at the California State Indian Museum in Sacramento and at the Maidu Interpretetive Center in Roseville.

Because the Nisenan (like many indigenous people of Central California) were not a single large tribe, but rather a collection of independent smaller clans (like the indigenous peoples of the eastern United States) grouped based on linguistic similarities, there were many dialects in different Expressions. This has led to some inconsistency in the available linguistic data, primarily with regard to phonemes.

Phonology

The phonology of the Nisenan is similar to that of the Konkow and Maidu . Taking into account the various dialects, there are a number of allophones across these dialects.

Consonants

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
nasal m n
Plosive unvoiced p t k ʔ
Ejective pʼ tʼ k '
Implosive ɓ ɗ
Affricates ts ~ tʃ
Fricative s ~ ʃ H
Approximant l j w

The single affricate consonant has mostly been described as an alveolar [ ts ], although some sources also describe it as a postalveolar [ tʃ ]. According to Alan Wallace's Nisenan workbook, [ tʃ ] and [ ts ] occur in a complementary manner . For example, the word for "ten" in the workbook # 1 is as maacam (/ c / as [ tʃ spoken]) and in the workbook # 2 as maatsam . A similar allophony exists between [ s ] and [ ʃ ].

/ pʼtʼkʼ / are listed as ejectives (after theCentral Hill Nisenan Texts with Grammatical Sketchby Andrew Eatough as Lenis), while other sources describe them simply as stressed, not specified further than how they face simple plosives. The Nisenan workbooks take this into account when transcribing, although phonologists still distinguish between these and the simple plosives.

One source cites an audible crackle in / b / and / d / in some older speakers of at least one dialect of one of the Maiduan sprays. However, the phonetic guides of the Nisenan workbooks refer to / b / and / d / as voiced plosives as in English.

Some words have a double consonant (e.g. wyttee [one], dappe [coyote], konna [girl]), but it could not be made clear whether this was due to a gemination like the double consonants in Japanese, or whether it was simply the same consonant occurs at the end of a syllable and at the beginning of the next.

Vowels

All vowels are available as long and short forms.

Front tongue vowel Central vowel Back vowel
closed i ɨ u
medium e ə O
open a

Long vowels are indicated by a doubling.

/ e / becomes a little deeper, on the same level as / ə /, roughly between the cardinal [ e ] and [ ɛ ]

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

/ u / and / o / are transcribed a little deeper and more centralized than the cardinal forms.

numbers

Note: Due to the variations in the dialects of the clans, some sources use 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 (literally 10 and 1 or 10 + 1; 'na' = + / and)
12 = maacam na peen (etc. for 13 and more upwards)

20 = peenmaacam (literally 2 10 or 2 × 10)
30 = sap'yjmaacam (etc. for 40 and more upwards)

100 = maawykhaapa

See also

literature

  • Lyle Campbell : American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America . Oxford University Press, New York 1997, ISBN 0-19-509427-1 .
  • Andrew Eatough: Central Hill Nisenan Texts with Grammatical Sketch . UC Publications in Linguistics, Berkeley 1999, p. 132.
  • Raymond G. Gordon, Jr. (Ed.): Ethnologue: Languages ​​of the world . 16th ed., SIL International, Dallas TX 2009, ISBN 978-1-55671-216-6 .
  • Robert F. Heizer: Languages, territories, and names of California Indian tribes . 1966.
  • Marianne Mithun: The languages ​​of Native North America . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999, ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hardcover), ISBN 0-521-29875-X .
  • Alan Wallace: Nisenan Workbook # 1 & # 2 . 2008.

Web links

Individual evidence