Wintuan languages
Encyclopedia
Wintuan is a family
of languages spoken in the Sacramento Valley
of central Northern California
.
All Wintuan languages are severely endangered
.
I. Northern Wintuan
II. Southern Wintuan
Wintu may only have 2 speakers left. Nomlaki has few to none speakers. One speaker of Patwin (Hill Patwin dialect) remained in 1997. Southern Patwin, once spoken by the Suisun local tribe just northeast of San Francisco Bay, became extinct
fairly soon after contact with whites and is thus poorly known (Mithun 1999). Gordon (2005) reports 5-6 speakers total for all Wintuan languages. Wintu proper is the best documented of the four Wintuan languages.
Pitkin (1984) considers the Wintuan languages as close to each other as the Romance languages
. They may have diverged from a common tongue only 2,000 years ago.
The Wintuan family is a sometime member of the hypothetical Penutian language phylum or stock. It was one of five member families of the original California kernel of Penutian, proposed by Roland B. Dixon and Alfred L. Kroeber
(1913a, 1913b). However, it is now established that Wintuan is a relatively recent arrival to California—with northern and southern Wintuan perhaps arriving separately, and that traditional California Penutian (in any case a historical artifact of when the languages were studies) cannot be valid. Wintuan languages share vocabulary with Klamath and Alsea which appear to be loans (Delancey and Golla 1997; Liedtke 2007; Golla 2007:75-78).
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
of languages spoken in the Sacramento Valley
Sacramento Valley
The Sacramento Valley is the portion of the California Central Valley that lies to the north of the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta in the U.S. state of California. It encompasses all or parts of ten counties.-Geography:...
of central Northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
.
All Wintuan languages are severely endangered
Endangered language
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....
.
Family division
Shipley (1978:89) listed three Wintuan languages in his encyclopedic overview of California Indian languages. More recently Mithun (1999) split Southern Wintuan into a Patwin language and a Southern Patwin language, resulting in the following classification.I. Northern Wintuan
- 1. WintuWintu languageWintu is an endangered Wintuan language spoken by the Wintu people of Northern California.Wintu is the northernmost member of the Wintun family of languages....
( Wintu proper) - 2. NomlakiNomlaki languageNomlaki , or Wintun, is a moribund Wintuan language language of Northern California. There is one speaker left per Gola .-External links:* at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages...
( Noamlakee, Central Wintu)
II. Southern Wintuan
- 3. PatwinPatwin languagePatwin is a moribund or extinct Wintuan language language of Northern California. There was one speaker left ca. 1997.Southern Patwin went extinct shortly after contact. It is very poorly attested, and may be a separate Southern Wintuan language .- References :*Mithun, Marianne, ed. The Languages...
( Patween) - 4. Southern Patwin (†)
Wintu may only have 2 speakers left. Nomlaki has few to none speakers. One speaker of Patwin (Hill Patwin dialect) remained in 1997. Southern Patwin, once spoken by the Suisun local tribe just northeast of San Francisco Bay, became extinct
Extinct language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...
fairly soon after contact with whites and is thus poorly known (Mithun 1999). Gordon (2005) reports 5-6 speakers total for all Wintuan languages. Wintu proper is the best documented of the four Wintuan languages.
Pitkin (1984) considers the Wintuan languages as close to each other as the Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
. They may have diverged from a common tongue only 2,000 years ago.
The Wintuan family is a sometime member of the hypothetical Penutian language phylum or stock. It was one of five member families of the original California kernel of Penutian, proposed by Roland B. Dixon and Alfred L. Kroeber
Alfred L. Kroeber
Alfred Louis Kroeber was an American anthropologist. He was the first professor appointed to the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and played an integral role in the early days of its Museum of Anthropology, where he served as director from 1909 through...
(1913a, 1913b). However, it is now established that Wintuan is a relatively recent arrival to California—with northern and southern Wintuan perhaps arriving separately, and that traditional California Penutian (in any case a historical artifact of when the languages were studies) cannot be valid. Wintuan languages share vocabulary with Klamath and Alsea which appear to be loans (Delancey and Golla 1997; Liedtke 2007; Golla 2007:75-78).