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56-791: The name Hokan is loosely based on the word for "two" in the various Hokan languages: *xwak in Proto-Yuman, c-oocj (pronounced [koːkx] ) in Seri , ha'k in Achumawi , etc. The "Hokan hypothesis" was first proposed in 1913 by Roland B. Dixon and Alfred L. Kroeber , and further elaborated by Edward Sapir . Initial follow-up research found little additional evidence that that these language families were related to each other. But since about 1950, increased efforts to document Hokan languages and to establish sound correspondences in proposed lexical resemblance sets have added weight to

112-518: A place a in {if there is} If there is a boojum tree in a place... Comcaac Seris pac SIL International SIL Global (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics International ) is an evangelical Christian nonprofit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages , especially those that are lesser-known, in order to expand linguistic knowledge, promote literacy , translate

168-407: A morphological operation, and causative verbs may be formed morphologically. The postpositions of Seri inflect for the person of their complement: hiti 'on me', miti 'on you', iti 'on her/him/it'. Most of the words that have been called postpositions at one time (and some of which still are, in limited situations) are actually relational preverbs; they must occur in a position immediately before

224-399: A new Language and Culture Documentation Services Unit that aims to preserve and revitalize languages threatened by extinction. The creation of this department reflects a growing interest in documenting endangered languages and incorporates a multidisciplinary approach of anthropology and linguistics. SIL has Consultative Status with UNESCO as an NGO, and has Special Consultative Status with

280-584: A number of international settings. In 1973, SIL was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding. This foundation honors outstanding individuals and organizations working in Asia who manifest greatness of spirit in service to the peoples of Asia. UNESCO Literacy Prizes have been awarded to SIL's work in a number of countries: Australia (1969), Cameroon (1986), Papua New Guinea (1979), Philippines (1991). In 1979, SIL's agreement

336-402: A preceding stressed vowel by a single consonant are also lengthened so that cootaj /ˈkoːtɑx/ ("ant") is pronounced [ˈkoːtːɑːx] . Such allophonically lengthened vowels may be longer than the phonemically long vowels found in stressed syllables. The lengthening does not occur if the following consonant or vowel is part of a suffix ( coo-taj , the plural of coo (" shovelnose guitarfish "),

392-467: A result of phonological fusion with the root). This rule is also sensitive to syllable weight. A heavy final syllable in the root attracts stress. A heavy syllable is one that has a long vowel or vowel cluster or a final consonant cluster. (A single consonant in the syllable coda is typically counted as extrametrical in Seri.) Consonants following a stressed syllable are lengthened, and vowels separated from

448-657: A separate word except in third person), compare me hyacóhot 'I showed it to you (sg. or pl.)', cohyacóhot 'I showed it to him/her/them'. The verb "tenses" divide between medial forms and final forms, irrealis and realis: popánzx (irrealis, medial, third person) '(if) it/she/he runs', tpanzx (realis, medial, third person) '(as) it/she/he ran', yopánzx (distal realis, final, third person) 'it/she/he ran', impánzx (proximal realis, final, third person) 'it/she/he ran', spánxz aha (irrealis, final, third person) 'it/she/he will run'. A verb may also be negative and/or passive. A transitive verb may be detransitivized through

504-421: A special prefix appears when no possessor is specified, and kinship terms sometimes have additional material at the end as well. Compare ha-sáac-at 'one's son', and ha-lít 'one's head'. Some nouns have an additional plural form to distinguish between singular and plural possessors: itoj 'his/her eye', itoj 'his/her eyes', itolcoj 'their eyes'. Finite verbs obligatorily inflect for number of

560-774: A working relationship with the Mexican Secretariat of Public Education under the government of President Lázaro Cárdenas (in office 1934–1940) and founded SIL to educate linguist- missionaries to work in Mexico. Because the Mexican government did not allow missionary work through its educational system, Townsend founded Wycliffe Bible Translators in 1942 as a separate organization from SIL. Wycliffe Bible Translators focused on Bible translation and missionary activities, whereas SIL focused on linguistic documentation and literacy education. Having initiated collaboration with

616-489: Is [ˈkoːtɑx] , without lengthening) if the stressed syllable consists of a long vowel and a short vowel ( caaijoj , a kind of manta ray , is [ˈkɑːixox] , without lengthening), or if the stressed vowel is lengthened to indicate intensity. It also does not affect most loanwords. Verbs, nouns, and postpositions are inflected word categories in Seri. Nouns inflect for plurality through suffixation. Compare noosi 'mourning dove' and noosi-lc 'mourning doves'. Pluralization

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672-443: Is contrastive in Seri. Although it usually falls on the first syllable of a root, there are many words where it does not, mostly nouns, as well as a small class of common verbs whose stress may fall on a prefix rather than on the root. An alternative analysis, recently proposed and with fewer exceptions, assigns stress to the penultimate syllable of the root of a word (since suffixes are never stressed and prefixes receive stress only as

728-488: Is listed as a vulnerable language by UNESCO . The Serian family is a language family , with Seri as its only living member; related languages have disappeared in the last few centuries. Attempts have been made to link it to the Yuman family , to the now-extinct Salinan language of California, and to the much larger hypothetical Hokan family. These hypotheses came out of a period when attempts were being made to group all of

784-474: Is the nominalizer; the prefix for third person possessor elides before the y . The word quih is a singular article (which combines with the plural noun to refer to the Seri community). The language was erroneously referred to as Kunkaak as early as the beginning of the 20th century (as in Hernández 1904), and this mistake has been repeated up to now by people who confuse the name of an ethnic group with

840-582: Is very complicated; for this reason, each noun is listed in the dictionary with its plural form. Some nouns ostensibly use an infix to indicate plural: caatc 'grasshopper', caatjc 'grasshoppers'. A few nouns have completely suppletive plural forms: cmiique 'Seri person', comcáac 'Seri people', ziix 'thing', xiica 'things'. Kinship terms and body part nouns inflect for possessors through prefixes (with slightly different prefix sets). Compare ma-sáac 'your son' (of man) and mi-lít 'your head'. As they are obligatorily possessed nouns,

896-642: The Linguistic Society of America passed a resolution that the work of SIL "should be strongly commended by our Society and welcomed as one of the most promising developments in applied linguistics in this country." SIL holds formal consultative status with UNESCO and the United Nations , and has been publicly recognized by UNESCO for their work in many parts of Asia. SIL also holds non-governmental organization status in many countries. SIL's work has received appreciation and recognition in

952-767: The Pomo on the California coast, and the Yuman peoples along the lower Colorado River . Some linguists also include Chumash , between San Luis Obispo and Los Angeles, and other families, but the evidence is insubstantial, and most now restrict Hokan to some or all of the languages listed below. The Hokan languages retained by Kaufman (1988) due to regular sound correspondences and common core vocabulary are as follows. (The data on which these conclusions were drawn have not been published or evaluated by anyone else.) Apart from Shasta–Palaihnihan and Yuman, all branches are single languages or shallow families. Marlett (2008) reevaluated

1008-655: The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) as an advocate for ethnolinguistic communities. The organization is a member of the Forum of Bible Agencies International and Micah Network , and is a founding member of Maaya, the World Network for Linguistic Diversity. Ethnologue: A Guide to the World's Languages has been published by SIL since 1951. From the 13th edition (1997) onwards,

1064-560: The labialized consonants /kʷ, xʷ, χʷ/ , but this small phonetic detail is not written in the community-based writing system. Other consonants may occur in recent loans, such as [ ɡ ] in hamiigo ("friend" from Spanish amigo ), and [ β ] in hoova ("grape" from Spanish uva ). The labial fricative /ɸ/ may be labiodental [ f ] for some speakers, and the postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ may be retroflex [ ʂ ] . /t/ and /n/ are prototypically dental. In unstressed syllables, /m/ assimilates to

1120-421: The place of articulation of the following consonant. This assimilation may take place over word boundaries in connected speech. When /m/ is preceded by /k/ or /kʷ/ , it becomes a nasalized approximant [ w̃ ] and the following vowel becomes nasalized, e.g. cmiique /kmiːkɛ/ "person; Seri" is pronounced [ˈkw̃ĩːkːɛ] or [ˈkw̃ĩːkːi] . For some speakers, word-final /m/ may become [ ŋ ] at

1176-704: The 16th edition (2009), Ethnologue uses the ISO 639-3 standard, which assigns 3-letter codes to languages; these were derived in part from the 3-letter codes that were used in the Ethnologue 's 15th edition. SIL is the registration authority for the ISO 639-3 standard. With the publication of the 17th edition (2016), Ethnologue launched a subscription service, but claiming that the paywall would only affect 5% of users. Users who contribute over 100 accepted changes are rewarded with lifetime free access. A comprehensive review of

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1232-529: The 16th, 17th and 18th editions acknowledged that "[Ethnologue] is at present still better than any other nonderivative work of the same scope" except that "[it] fails to disclose the sources for the information presented. SIL has developed widely used software for linguistic research. SIL has developed several widely used font sets that it makes available as free software under the SIL Open Font License (OFL). The names of SIL fonts reflect

1288-642: The Biblical mission of the organization " charis " (Greek for "grace"), " doulos " (Greek for "servant") and " gentium " (Latin for "of the nations"). These fonts have become standard resources for linguists working on the documentation of the world's languages. Most of them are designed only for specific writing systems, such as Ethiopic , Devanagari , New Tai Lue , Hebrew , Arabic , Khmer , Yi , Myanmar , Coptic , and Tai Viet , or some more technical notation, such as cipher musical notation or IPA . Fonts that support Latin include: The 1947 Summer Meeting of

1344-533: The Christian Bible into local languages, and aid minority language development. Based on its language documentation work, SIL publishes a database, Ethnologue , of its research into the world's languages, and develops and publishes software programs for language documentation, such as FieldWorks Language Explorer (FLEx) and Lexique Pro. Its main offices in the United States are located at

1400-690: The Hokan hypothesis, leading to its acceptance by many specialists in the languages of California, Oregon, and Mesoamerica . However, some skepticism remains among scholars. Linguist Paul Rivet claimed the Yurumanguí language of Colombia was part of the Hokan family. This claim has not been accepted by historical linguists. Terrence Kaufman wondered if Hokan might be related to Oto-Mangean of Central America. An automated computational analysis ( ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013) found lexical similarities among Seri , Yuman and Tequistlatecan . However, since

1456-808: The International Linguistics Center in Dallas, Texas . William Cameron Townsend , a Presbyterian minister, founded the organization in 1934, after undertaking a Christian mission with the Disciples of Christ among the Kaqchikel Maya people in Guatemala in the early 1930s. In 1933, he turned to Mexico with the purpose of translating the Bible into indigenous languages there, as he had done for Kaqchikel. Townsend established

1512-638: The Mexican education authorities, Townsend started the institute as a small summer training-session in Sulphur Springs, Arkansas , in 1934 to train missionaries in basic linguistic , anthropological , and translation principles. Through the following decades the SIL linguists worked at providing literacy education to indigenous people of Mexico, while simultaneously working with the Wycliffe Bible Translators on Bible translation. One of

1568-643: The SIL Bibliography. Most of these are a reflection of linguistic fieldwork. SIL's focus has not been on the development of new linguistic theories, but tagmemics , though no longer promoted by SIL, was developed by Kenneth Pike , who also coined the words emic and etic , more widely used today in anthropology. Another focus of SIL is literacy work, particularly in indigenous languages. SIL assists local, regional, and national agencies that are developing formal and informal education in vernacular languages. These cooperative efforts enable new advances in

1624-430: The SIL view, ethnocide is not a valid concept and it would lead to pessimism to characterize culture change resulting from the inevitable progress of civilization as ethnocide. SIL considers itself as actively protecting endangered languages by promoting them within the speech community and providing mother-tongue literacy training. Additionally, their expanded interest in preserving threatened languages has resulted in

1680-400: The Seri community itself, for the language, is Cmiique iitom , which contrasts with Cocsar iitom (" Spanish language ") and Maricaana iitom (" English language "). The expression is a noun phrase that is literally "(that) with which a Seri person speaks". The word Cmiique (phonetically [ˈkw̃ĩːkːɛ] ) is the singular noun for "Seri person". The word iitom is the oblique nominalization of

1736-561: The Seri community. Most members of the community, including youth, are fluent in their language, but the population of speakers is small and cultural knowledge has been dwindling since the traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle was essentially replaced in the 1930s by fixed settlements. Furthermore, many children are no longer becoming fluent in the language, for a variety of reasons (schools, internet, or non-Seri friends); some children are completely monolingual in Spanish. For these reasons, Seri

Hokan languages - Misplaced Pages Continue

1792-640: The analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing or genetic inheritance. The geographic distribution of the Hokan languages suggests that they became separated around the Central Valley of California by the influx of later-arriving Penutian and other peoples; archaeological evidence for this is summarized in Chase-Dunn & Mann (1998). These languages are spoken by Native American communities around and east of Mount Shasta , others near Lake Tahoe ,

1848-530: The beginning of a syllable, although consonants cannot be long word initially (i.e. /tːi/ or /pː/). Specific combinations that may occur are much less restricted than English, for instance. Seri three-consonant onsets such as /ptk/ do occur, as in ptc amn (Cortez spiny lobster , Panulirus inflatus ). Simple codas occur, although complex ones are more common. Word-medial codas contain a single consonant, whereas word-final codas may include up to three. Clusters of four consonants also occur, but they are more rare in

1904-892: The complex field of educational development in multilingual and multicultural societies. SIL provides instructors and instructional materials for linguistics programs at several major institutions of higher learning around the world. In the United States , these include Dallas International University , Biola University , Moody Bible Institute , and Dallas Theological Seminary . Other universities with SIL programs include Trinity Western University in Canada , Charles Darwin University in Australia , and Universidad Ricardo Palma in Lima, Peru. The organization has recently established

1960-523: The data that have been gathered and analyzed from over 1,000 minority and endangered languages, many of which had not been previously studied academically. SIL endeavors to share both the data and the results of analysis in order to contribute to the overall knowledge of language. This has resulted in publications on languages such as Hixkaryana and Pirahã , which have challenged the universality of some linguistic theories. SIL's work has resulted in over 20,000 technical publications, all of which are listed in

2016-459: The end of a phrase or sentence, or when said in isolation. It can be documented, by careful examination of word lists collected in the nineteenth century, that some of these phonetic rules have arisen fairly recently. Syllable structure in Seri is fairly complex. Simple syllable onsets are most common, however, syllables without onsets can occur at the beginning of a word. The language generally allows up to three consonants to occur together at

2072-501: The entire contents of the published book were also shared online. From the 17th edition onwards (2013) the publication shifted to a web-centric paradigm, meaning that the website is now the primary means by which the database is accessed. Among other advantages, this greatly facilitates user contributions. A new edition is now published every February. The 27th edition was released in February 2024 and lists 7,164 languages. Starting with

2128-709: The evidence and concluded that the evidence for Seri and Salinan has not been systematically or convincingly presented. The inclusion of the Tequistlatecan languages has also not received much support. The Chumash languages were once included, but that position has been almost universally abandoned. A lexicostatistical classification of the Hokan languages by Zhivlov (2013) is roughly presented as follows. Zhivlov (2013) does not consider Jicaquean (Tol) and Washo to be Hokan languages. Some Hokan lexical correspondences from Mary R. Haas (1963) are provided below. Similar forms for 'tongue' include: Shaul (2019) notes

2184-471: The following similarities between Proto-Hokan (based on Kaufman 2015) and Proto-Uto-Aztecan . Seri language Seri (Seri: cmiique iitom ) is an indigenous language spoken by between 716 and 900 Seri people in Punta Chueca and El Desemboque , two villages on the coast of Sonora , Mexico . The language is generally considered an isolate , but attempts have been made to include it in

2240-400: The intransitive verb caaitom ("talk"), with the prefix i- (third person possessor), and the null prefix for the nominalizer with this class of root. Another similar expression that one hears occasionally for the language is Cmiique iimx , which is a similar construction based on the transitive verb quimx ("tell") (root = amx ). The name chosen by the Seri committee for the name of

2296-420: The language used in the title of the recent dictionary was Comcaac quih Yaza , the plural version of Cmiique iitom . It was appropriate for a project of that type, although it is not a commonly used term. Comcaac (phonetically [koŋˈkɑːk] ) is the plural form of Cmiique and yaza is the plural nominalized form corresponding to iitom . ( ooza is the plural root, y- (with an accompanying vowel ablaut)

Hokan languages - Misplaced Pages Continue

2352-526: The languages of the Americas into families. In the case of Seri, however, very little evidence has ever been produced. Until such evidence is presented and evaluated, the language is most appropriately considered an isolate. The name "Seri" is an exonym for this people that has been used since the first contacts with the Spaniards (sometimes written differently, as "Ceres"). Gilg reported in 1692 that it

2408-466: The lexicon: /kʷsχt/ in cösxt amt, ... , "there were many, ..."; /mxkχ/ in ipoo mjc x , ... "if s/he brings it, ...", (with enclitic x ). The nuclei of Seri syllables can include one, two, or three vowels . Long vowels are indicated in writing by doubling (i.e. ⟨aa⟩ or ⟨ii⟩ for /aː/ or /iː/). Vowel clusters may include 3 separate elements, as in the one syllable word kaoi (NOM-D-delouse). Syllables with complex nuclei are stressed; otherwise,

2464-424: The missionary focus of SIL makes relations with academic linguists and their reliance on SIL software and knowledge infrastructure problematic in that respective goals, while often overlapping, also sometimes diverge considerably. SIL does not consider efforts to change cultural patterns a form of culture destruction and points out that all their work is based on the voluntary participation of indigenous peoples. In

2520-445: The name of its language (which are often the same in Spanish and English). The lexeme Comcaac is used in the Seri language only to refer to the people. Vowel length is contrastive only in stressed syllables. The low front vowels /ɛ, ɛː/ are phonetically between open-mid and near-open and have also been transcribed as /æ, æː/ . The nonrounded vowels /i, ɛ, ɑ/ may be realized as diphthongs [iu̯, ɛo̯, ɑo̯] when followed by

2576-422: The noun. The singular indefinite article ( a , an ) is zo before consonants, and z before vowels (it presumably is historically related to the word for "one", which is tazo ). The plural indefinite article (roughly equivalent to some ) is pac . Cótotaj boojum tree zo a hant place z a iti in poop... if there is Cótotaj zo hant z iti poop... boojum tree

2632-420: The possessum. The language does not have many true adjectives; adjective-like verbs follow the head noun in the same kind of construction and with the same kind of morphology as verbs in the language. The words that correspond to prepositions in languages like English are usually constrained to appear before the verb; in noun phrases they appear following their complement. Seri has several articles , which follow

2688-452: The stress generally occurs on the first syllable of a words root. Vowel clusters often occur in the initial syllable of a root . Affixes , which may consist of one or more consonants with no vowels, can be added before or after existing consonant clusters, thereby complicating pronunciation and syllabification. When necessary, empty vowel positions are inserted and often filled with a syllabic nasal or an "i" to aid in pronunciation. Stress

2744-562: The students at the first summer institute in its second year, 1935, Kenneth Lee Pike (1912–2000), would become the foremost figure in the history of SIL. He served as SIL's president from 1942 to 1979, then as president emeritus until his death in 2000. The Mexican branch, Instituto Lingüístico de Verano , was established in 1948. In 2016, Michel Kenmogne from Cameroon became president. In 2023 SIL said it had 1,350 language projects in 98 countries and 4,200 staff from 84 countries. SIL's principal contribution to linguistics has been

2800-564: The subject, person of the subject, direct object and indirect object and tense/mood. For subject person and number, compare ihpyopánzx 'I ran', inyopánzx 'you (sg.) ran', yopanzx 'it ran, she ran, he ran', hayopáncojc 'we ran', mayopáncojc 'you (pl.) ran', yopáncojc 'they ran'. For object person (which is written as a separate word in the orthography although it is really just a prefix), compare ma hyooho 'I saw you (sg.)', mazi hyooho 'I saw you (pl.)', and ihyóoho 'I saw him/her/it/them'. For indirect object (also written as

2856-552: The theoretical Hokan language family. No concrete evidence has been found for connections to other languages. The earliest records of the Seri language are from 1692, but the population has remained fairly isolated. Extensive work on Seri began in 1951 by Edward and Mary Beck Moser with the Summer Institute of Linguistics . The language is viable within its community and is used freely in daily life. Exceptions include primary and secondary school, some parts of local church services, and communications with Spanish speakers outside of

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2912-446: The verbal complex and are commonly not adjacent to their semantic complements. Some of these have suppletive stems to indicate a plural complement; compare miihax 'with you (sg.)' and miicot 'with you (pl.)'. The Seri language is a head-final language. The verb typically occurs at the end of a clause (after the subject and direct object, in that order), and main clauses typically follow dependent clauses. The possessor precedes

2968-465: Was a Spanish name, but surely it was the name used by another group of the area to refer to the Seris. Nevertheless, modern claims that it is a Yaqui term that means something like "people of the sand" or an Opata term that means "people who run fast" are lacking in factual basis; no evidence has been presented for the former and no credible evidence has been presented for the latter. The name used within

3024-547: Was also expelled from Brazil , Mexico , and Panama , and restricted in Colombia and Peru . The organization's focus on language description, language development and Bible translation, and the missionary activities carried out by many of its field workers have been criticized by linguists and anthropologists who argue that SIL aims to change indigenous cultures, which exacerbates the problems that cause language endangerment and language death . Linguists have argued that

3080-664: Was officially terminated by the Mexican government after critiques from anthropologists regarding the combination of education and missionary activities in indigenous communities, though SIL continued to be active in that country. At a conference of the Inter-American Indian Institute in Mérida, Yucatán , in November 1980, delegates denounced the Summer Institute of Linguistics, charging that it

3136-518: Was using a scientific name to conceal its Protestant agenda and an alleged capitalist view that was alien to indigenous traditions. This led to the agreement with the Ecuadoran government being terminated in 1980, although a token presence remained. In the early 1990s, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) demanded the expulsion of SIL from the country. SIL

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