The Serrano language is a language in the Takic branch of the Uto-Aztecan family spoken by the Serrano

Serrano (people)

The Serrano are a Native American tribe of present day California, United States. They use the autonyms of Taaqtam, meaning "people"; Maarenga'yam, "people from Morongo"; and Yuhaviatam, "people of the pines." The Serrano historically populated the San Bernardino Mountains and extended east into...

people of Southern California

Southern California

Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

. The language is closely related to Tongva

Tongva language

-Collected by C. Hart Merriam :Numbers# Po-koo /bo'kʰøː/# Wěh-hā /ʋɛj'χɒː/# Pah-hā /pa'χɒː/# Wah-chah /ʋa'ʃɒχ/# Mah-har /ma'χɒʁ/# Pah-vah-hā /pa'va'χɒː/# Wah-chah-kav-e-ah /ʋa'ʃa'kʰav̥eʲa/...

 and Kitanemuk

Kitanemuk language

Kitanemuk was a Northern Uto-Aztecan language of the Takic branch. It was very closely related to Serrano, and may have been a dialect of Serrano people, in the San Gabriel Mountains and foothill environs of Southern California. The last speakers lived some time in the 1940s, though the last...

.

It is nearly extinct, but there are attempts at reviving it; both at the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, and Morongo Band of Mission Indians reservations

Indian reservation

An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...

. According to some accounts there was 1 speaker in 1994, however this point may be disputed.

Morphology

Serrano is an agglutinative language, where words use suffix complexes for a variety of purposes with several morpheme

Morpheme

In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...

s strung together.

External links

• Ethnologue report
• The Limu Project active language revitalization
• Dorothy Ramón Learning Center, Banning, California
• San Manuel Band of Mission Indians
• Morongo Band of Mission Indians
• Serrano language overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
  Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
  The Survey of California and Other Indian Languages at the University of California at Berkeley documents, catalogs, and archives the indigenous languages of the Americas...