Utian languages

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pre-contact distribution of Utian languages

Utian (also Miwok-Costanoan, Mutsun) is a family of indigenous languages spoken in the central and north portion of California, United States. The Miwok and Ohlone peoples both spoke a language in the Utian linguistic group:

All Utian languages are severely endangered.

1 Family Division
2 See also
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Family Division

The Utian family consists of 15 languages with two major branches, Miwokan and Costanoan. The classification below is based on Callaghan (2001). Other classifications list Northern Costanoan, Southern Costanoan, and Karkin as single languages, with the following subgroups of each considered as dialects:

I. Miwokan (a.k.a. Miwok, Miwuk, Moquelumnan) -

A. Eastern Miwok

1. Plains Miwok

2. Bay Miwok (a.k.a. Saclan) (†) - Bay Miwok is now extinct.

i. Sierra Miwok

3. Northern Sierra Miwok

4. Central Sierra Miwok

5. Southern Sierra Miwok.

B. Western Miwok

6. Coast Miwok (†) - Coast Miwok is now extinct, was probably a single language with two variant dialects.

a. Bodega Miwok

b. Marin Miwok

7. Lake Miwok

II. Ohlone (a.k.a. Costanoan) (†) - The entire Ohlone (Costanoan) family is now extinct. Soledad may be a transitional language between Northern and Southern Costanoan. East Bay, Santa Clara, and Ramaytush were quite similar and were probably a single language with several dialects. All the documented speakers of Santa Cruz spoke dialects were quite different, and so it may not have actually been a single language.

A. Northern Coastanoan (†)

8. Soledad (a.k.a. Chalon, Cholon) (†) (?)

9. Santa Cruz (a.k.a. Awaswas) (†)

10. Santa Clara (a.k.a. Tamyen, Tamien) (†)

11. East Bay (a.k.a. Chocheño, Chochenyo)

12. San Francisco (a.k.a. Ramaytush)

B. Southern Costanoan (†)

13. Mutsun (a.k.a. San Juan Bautista) (†)

14. Rumsen (a.k.a. Rumsien) (†)

C. Karkin

15. Karkin (a.k.a. Carquin) (†)

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

1. Broadbent, Sylvia. (1964). The Southern Sierra Miwok Language. University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 38). Berkeley: University of California Press.
2. Origin of the word Yosemite (and linked references)
3. Callaghan, Catherine. (2001). More evidence for Yok-Utian: A reanalysis of the Dixon and Kroeber sets International Journal of American Linguistics, 67 (3), 313-346.
4. Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.