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51-512: The Uto-Aztecan language family is one of the largest linguistic families in the Americas in terms of number of speakers, number of languages, and geographic extension. The northernmost Uto-Aztecan language is Shoshoni , which is spoken as far north as Salmon, Idaho , while the southernmost is the Nawat language of El Salvador and Nicaragua . Ethnologue gives the total number of languages in

102-570: A distinct linguistic variety, there are no unique linguistic changes that mark Mono as a distinct linguistic variety. The sound system of Numic is set forth in the following tables. Proto-Numic had an inventory of five vowels. Proto-Numic had the following consonant inventory: In addition to the above simple consonants, Proto-Numic also had nasal-stop/affricate clusters and all consonants except *s , *h , *j , and *w could be geminated. Between vowels short consonants were lenited. The major difference between Proto-Central Numic and Proto-Numic

153-447: A genetic relation between Corachol and Nahuan (e.g. Merrill (2013) ). Kaufman recognizes similarities between Corachol and Aztecan, but explains them by diffusion instead of genetic evolution. Most scholars view the breakup of Proto-Uto-Aztecan as a case of the gradual disintegration of a dialect continuum. Below is a representation of the internal classification of the language family based on Shaul (2014) . The classification reflects

204-571: A geographical one. Below this level of classification the main branches are well accepted: Numic (including languages such as Comanche and Shoshoni ) and the Californian languages (formerly known as the Takic group, including Cahuilla and Luiseño ) account for most of the Northern languages. Hopi and Tübatulabal are languages outside those groups. The Southern languages are divided into

255-504: A selected bibliography of grammars, dictionaries on many of the individual languages.( = extinct ) In addition to the above languages for which linguistic evidence exists, it is suspected that among dozens of now extinct, undocumented or poorly known languages of northern Mexico, many were Uto-Aztecan. A large number of languages known only from brief mentions are thought to have been Uto-Aztecan languages that became extinct before being documented. An "Aztec–Tanoan" macrofamily that unites

306-408: A typical Numic vowel inventory of five vowels. In addition, there is the common diphthong /ai/ , which functions as a simple vowel and varies rather freely with [e] ; however, certain morphemes always contain [ai] and others always contain [e] . All vowels occur as short or long, but [aiː] / [eː] is rare. Shoshoni has a typical Numic consonant inventory. Shoshoni syllables are of

357-591: A wave of migration from Mexico, and formerly had many speakers there. Now it has gone extinct in Guatemala , Honduras , and Nicaragua , and it is nearly extinct in western El Salvador , all areas dominated by use of Spanish. Uto-Aztecan has been accepted by linguists as a language family since the early 1900s, and six subgroups are generally accepted as valid: Numic , Takic , Pimic, Taracahitic , Corachol , and Aztecan . That leaves two ungrouped languages: Tübatulabal and Hopi (sometimes termed " isolates within

408-483: A word; however, primary stress tends to fall on the second syllable if that syllable is long. For instance, natsattamahkantɨn [ˈnazattamaxandɨ] "tied up" bears primary stress on the first syllable; however, kottoohkwa [kotˈtoːxˌwa] "made a fire" bears primary stress on the second syllable, with long vowel [oː] , instead of the first syllable with short vowel [o] . As in other Numic languages, stress in Shoshoni

459-675: Is a Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family, spoken in the Western United States by the Shoshone people. Shoshoni is primarily spoken in the Great Basin , in areas of Wyoming , Utah , Nevada , and Idaho . The consonant inventory of Shoshoni is rather small, but a much wider range of surface forms of these phonemes appear in the spoken language. The language has six vowels, distinguished by length. Shoshoni

510-406: Is a primarily suffixing language. Many nouns in Shoshoni have an absolutive suffix (unrelated to the absolutive case ). The absolutive suffix is normally dropped when the noun is the first element in a compound, when the noun is followed by a suffix or postposition, or when the noun is incorporated into a verb. For instance, the independent noun sɨhɨpin "willow" has the absolutive suffix -pin ;

561-431: Is a strongly suffixing language, and it inflects for nominal number and case and for verbal aspect and tense using suffixes. Word order is relatively free but shows a preference toward SOV order. The endonyms newe ta̲i̲kwappe and Sosoni' ta̲i̲kwappe mean "the people's language" and "the Shoshoni language," respectively. Shoshoni is classified as threatened, although attempts at revitalization are underway. Shoshoni

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612-438: Is commonly marked through reduplication of the first syllable of the verb stem, so that singular kimma "come" becomes kikimma in the dual (and remains kima in the plural). A suppletive form is often used for the dual or plural forms of the verb; for instance, singular yaa "carry" becomes hima in both the dual and plural. Suppletion and reduplication frequently work in tandem to express number: singular nukki "run" becomes

663-423: Is distributed based on mora-counting. Short Shoshoni vowels have one mora, while long vowels and vowel clusters ending in [a] have two morae. Following the primary stress, every other mora receives secondary stress. If stress falls on the second mora in a long vowel, the stress is transferred to the first mora in the long vowel and mora counting continues from there. For example, natsattamahkantɨn "tied up" bears

714-420: Is marked by suffixes on all human nouns and optionally on other animate nouns. The regular suffixes for number are listed in the table below. The Shoshoni singular is unmarked. Case is also marked by suffixes, which vary depending on the noun. Subjective case is unmarked. Many nouns also have a zero objective case marker; other possible objective markers are -tta , -a , and -i . These suffixes correspond with

765-585: Is still debate about whether to accept the proposed basic split between "Northern Uto-Aztecan" and "Southern Uto-Aztecan" languages. Northern Uto-Aztecan corresponds to Powell's "Shoshonean", and the latter is all the rest: Powell's "Sonoran" plus Aztecan. Northern Uto-Aztecan was proposed as a genetic grouping by Jeffrey Heath in Heath (1978) based on morphological evidence, and Alexis Manaster Ramer in Manaster Ramer (1992) adduced phonological evidence in

816-429: Is the northernmost branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native American peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin , Colorado River basin, Snake River basin, and southern Great Plains . The word Numic comes from the cognate word in all Numic languages for “person”, which reconstructs to Proto-Numic as /*nɨmɨ/ . For example, in the three Central Numic languages and

867-535: Is the northernmost member of the large Uto-Aztecan language family, which includes nearly sixty living languages, spoken in the Western United States down through Mexico and into El Salvador . Shoshoni belongs to the Numic subbranch of Uto-Aztecan. The word Numic comes from the cognate word in all Numic languages for "person". For example, in Shoshoni the word is neme [nɨw̃ɨ] or, depending on

918-412: Is the typical word order for Shoshoni. nɨ I hunanna badger puinnu see nɨ hunanna puinnu I badger see "I saw a badger" nɨwɨ person sakkuhtɨn there paittsɨkkinna was hollering nɨwɨ sakkuhtɨn paittsɨkkinna person there {was hollering} "the person was making a fuss there" In ditransitive sentences, the direct and indirect object are marked with

969-523: Is used with verb stems to form nouns used for the purpose of the verb: katɨnnompɨh "chair" is derived from katɨ "sit"; puinompɨh "binoculars" is derived from pui "see". The characterization suffix -kantɨn be used with a root noun to derive a noun characterized by the root: hupiakantɨn "singer" is derived from hupia "song"; puhakantɨn "shaman" is derived from puha "power", as one characterized by power. Shoshoni verbs may mark for number, mainly through reduplication or suppletion . The dual

1020-545: The Bible were translated in 1986. As of 2012, Idaho State University offers elementary, intermediate, and conversational Shoshoni language classes, in a 20-year project to preserve the language. Open-source Shosoni audio is available online to complement classroom instruction, as part of the university's long-standing Shoshoni Language Project. The Shoshone-Bannock Tribe teaches Shoshoni to its children and adults as part of its Language and Culture Preservation Program. On

1071-874: The Tepiman languages (including O'odham and Tepehuán ), the Tarahumaran languages (including Raramuri and Guarijio ), the Cahitan languages (including Yaqui and Mayo ), the Coracholan languages (including Cora and Huichol ), and the Nahuan languages . The homeland of the Uto-Aztecan languages is generally considered to have been in the Southwestern United States or possibly Northwestern Mexico. An alternative theory has proposed

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1122-853: The Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, elders have been active in digital language archiving. Shoshoni is taught using Dr. Steven Greymorning's Accelerated Second Language Acquisition techniques. A summer program known as the Shoshone/Goshute Youth Language Apprenticeship Program (SYLAP), held at the University of Utah 's Center for American Indian Languages since 2009, has been featured on NPR 's Weekend Edition . Shoshoni youth serve as interns, assisting with digitization of Shoshoni language recordings and documentation from

1173-807: The Great Basin. Bands of eastern Shoshoni split off from the main Shoshoni body in the very late 17th or very early 18th century and moved southeastward onto the Great Plains. Changes in their Shoshoni dialect eventually produced Comanche. The Comanche language and the Shoshoni language are quite similar although certain low-level consonant changes in Comanche have inhibited mutual intelligibility. Recent lexical and grammatical diffusion studies in Western Numic have shown that while there are clear linguistic changes that separate Northern Paiute as

1224-714: The Uto-Aztecan languages were noted as early as 1859 by J. C. E. Buschmann , but he failed to recognize the genetic affiliation between the Aztecan branch and the rest. He ascribed the similarities between the two groups to diffusion. Daniel Garrison Brinton added the Aztecan languages to the family in 1891 and coined the term Uto-Aztecan. John Wesley Powell , however, rejected the claim in his own classification of North American indigenous languages (also published in 1891). Powell recognized two language families: "Shoshonean" (encompassing Takic, Numic, Hopi, and Tübatulabal) and "Sonoran" (encompassing Pimic, Taracahitan, and Corachol). In

1275-666: The Uto-Aztecan languages with the Tanoan languages of the southwestern United States was first proposed by Edward Sapir in the early 20th century, and later supported with potential lexical evidence by other scholars. This proposal has received much criticism about the validity of the proposed cognate sets and has been largely abandoned since the end of the last century as unproven. Shoshoni language Shoshoni , also written as Shoshoni-Gosiute and Shoshone ( / ʃ oʊ ˈ ʃ oʊ n i / shoh- SHOH -nee ; Shoshoni: soni ' ta̲i̲kwappe , newe ta̲i̲kwappe or neme ta̲i̲kwappeh ),

1326-608: The Wick R. Miller collection, in order to make the materials available for tribal members. The program released the first Shoshone language video game in August 2013. In July 2012, Blackfoot High School in Southeastern Idaho announced it would offer Shoshoni language classes. The Chief Tahgee Elementary Academy, a Shoshone-Bannock charter school teaching English and Shoshoni, opened at Fort Hall in 2013. Shoshoni has

1377-654: The clusters. Geminated stops and affricates are voiceless and non-geminated stops and affricates are voiced fricatives. The velar nasals have fallen together with the alveolar nasals. The dialects of Colorado River east of Chemehuevi have lost *h . The dialects east of Kaibab have collapsed the nasal-stop clusters with the geminated stops and affricate. Proto-Western Numic changed the nasal-stop clusters of Proto-Numic into voiced geminate stops. In Mono and all dialects of Northern Paiute except Southern Nevada, these voiced geminate stops have become voiceless. The following table shows some sample Numic cognate sets that illustrate

1428-415: The decision to split up the previous Taracahitic and Takic groups, that are no longer considered to be valid genetic units. Whether the division between Northern and Southern languages is best understood as geographical or phylogenetic is under discussion. The table contains demographic information about number of speakers and their locations based on data from The Ethnologue . The table also contains links to

1479-757: The dialect, newe [nɨwɨ] , in Timbisha it is nümü [nɨwɨ] , and in Southern Paiute, nuwuvi [nuwuβi] . Shoshoni's closest relatives are the Central Numic languages Timbisha and Comanche . Timbisha, or Panamint, is spoken in southeastern California by members of the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe , but it is considered a distinct language from Shoshoni. The Comanche split from the Shoshone around 1700, and consonant changes over

1530-465: The earliest record of Comanche from 1786, but precedes the 20th century. Geminated stops in Comanche have also become phonetically preaspirated. Proto-Southern Numic preserved the Proto-Numic consonant system fairly intact, but the individual languages have undergone several changes. Modern Kawaiisu has reanalyzed the nasal-stop clusters as voiced stops, although older recordings preserve some of

1581-494: The early 1900s Alfred L. Kroeber filled in the picture of the Shoshonean group, while Edward Sapir proved the unity among Aztecan, "Sonoran", and "Shoshonean". Sapir's applications of the comparative method to unwritten Native American languages are regarded as groundbreaking. Voegelin, Voegelin & Hale (1962) argued for a three-way division of Shoshonean, Sonoran and Aztecan, following Powell. As of about 2011, there

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1632-475: The family as 61, and the total number of speakers as 1,900,412. Speakers of Nahuatl languages account for over 85% of these. The internal classification of the family often divides it into two branches: a northern branch including all the languages of the US and a southern branch including all the languages of Mexico, although it is still being discussed whether this is best understood as a genetic classification or as

1683-418: The family"). Some recent studies have begun to question the unity of Taracahitic and Takic and computer-assisted statistical studies have begun to question some of the long-held assumptions and consensuses. As to higher-level groupings, disagreement has persisted since the 19th century. Presently scholars also disagree as to where to draw language boundaries within the dialect continua . The similarities among

1734-413: The form (C)V(V)(C). For instance: nɨkka "dance" (CVC CV), ɨkkoi "sleep" (VC CVV), and paa "water" (CVV). Shoshoni does not allow onset clusters. Typical Shoshoni roots are of the form CV(V)CV(V). Examples include kasa "wing" and papi "older brother." Stress in Shoshoni is regular but not distinctive. Primary stress usually falls on the first syllable (more specifically, the first mora ) of

1785-461: The form of a sound law. Terrence Kaufman in Kaufman (1981) accepted the basic division into Northern and Southern branches as valid. Other scholars have rejected the genealogical unity of either both nodes or the Northern node alone. Wick R. Miller 's argument was statistical, arguing that Northern Uto-Aztecan languages displayed too few cognates to be considered a unit. On the other hands he found

1836-612: The homeland of Proto-Numic approximately two millennia ago. A mitochondrial DNA study from 2001 supports this linguistic hypothesis. The anthropologist Peter N. Jones thinks this evidence to be of a circumstantial nature, but this is a distinctly minority opinion among specialists in Numic. David Shaul has proposed that the Southern Numic languages spread eastward long before the Central and Western Numic languages expanded into

1887-399: The late 20th century. In the early 21st century, fluent speakers number only several hundred to a few thousand people, while an additional population of about 1,000 know the language to some degree but are not fluent. The Duck Valley and Gosiute communities have established programs to teach the language to their children. Ethnologue lists Shoshoni as "threatened" as it notes that many of

1938-483: The north and east (Northern Paiute, Shoshoni, and Colorado River). Some linguists have taken this pattern as an indication that Numic speaking peoples expanded quite recently from a small core, perhaps near the Owens Valley , into their current range. This view is supported by lexicostatistical studies. Fowler's reconstruction of Proto-Numic ethnobiology also points to the region of the southern Sierra Nevada as

1989-424: The number of cognates among Southern Uto-Aztecan languages to suggest a genetic relation. This position was supported by subsequent lexicostatistic analyses by Cortina-Borja & Valiñas-Coalla (1989) and Cortina-Borja, Stuart-Smith & Valiñas-Coalla (2002) . Reviewing the debate, Haugen (2008) considers the evidence in favor of the genetic unity of Northern Uto-Aztecan to be convincing, but remains agnostic on

2040-473: The objective case. The indirect object can occur before the direct object, or vice versa. For example, in nɨ tsuhnippɨha satiia uttuhkwa "I gave the bone to the dog", tsuhnippɨh "bone" and satii "dog" take the objective case suffix -a . The subject is not a mandatory component of a grammatical Shoshoni sentence. Therefore, impersonal sentences without subjects are allowed; those sentences have an object-verb word order. ɨtɨinna Numic Numic

2091-457: The past few centuries have limited mutual intelligibility of Comanche and Shoshoni. Principal dialects of Shoshoni are Western Shoshoni in Nevada, Gosiute in western Utah, Northern Shoshoni in southern Idaho and northern Utah, and Eastern Shoshoni in Wyoming. The main differences between these dialects are phonological. The number of people who speak Shoshoni has been steadily dwindling since

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2142-593: The possessive case markers -n , -ttan or -n , -an , or -n (in Western Shoshoni; this last suffix also appears as -an in Gosiute and is replaced by -in in Northern Shoshoni). These case markers can be predicted only to a degree based on phonology of the noun stem. Nominal derivational morphology is also often achieved through suffixing. For instance, the instrumental suffix -(n)nompɨh

2193-541: The possibility that the language family originated in southern Mexico, within the Mesoamerican language area , but this has not been generally considered convincing. Uto-Aztecan languages are spoken in the North American mountain ranges and adjacent lowlands of the western United States in the states of Oregon , Idaho , Montana , Utah , California , Nevada , and Arizona . In Mexico , they are spoken in

2244-534: The reduplicated nunukki in the dual and the suppleted nutaa in the plural; singular yɨtsɨ "fly" is reduplicated, suppleted dual yoyoti and suppleted plural yoti . Shoshoni uses prefixes to add a specific instrumental element to a verb. For instance, the instrumental prefix to"- "with the hand or fist" can be used with the verb tsima "scrape" to yield tottsima "wipe," as in pɨn puihkatti tottsimma yakaitɨn "he wiped at his eyes, crying". Common instrumental prefixes include: Subject-object-verb (SOV)

2295-443: The root loses this suffix in the form sɨhɨykwi "to gather willows". The correlation between any particular noun stem and which of the seven absolutive suffixes it has is irregular and unpredictable. The absolutive suffixes are as follows: Shoshoni is a nominative-accusative language. Shoshoni nouns inflect for three cases ( subjective , objective , and possessive ) and for three numbers (singular, dual, and plural). Number

2346-515: The speakers are 50 and older. UNESCO has classified the Shoshoni language as "severely endangered" in Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. The language is still being taught to children in a small number of isolated locations. The tribes have a strong interest in language revitalization, but efforts to preserve the language are scattered, with little coordination. However, literacy in Shoshoni is increasing. Shoshoni dictionaries have been published and portions of

2397-528: The states of Sonora , Sinaloa , Chihuahua , Nayarit , Durango , Zacatecas , Jalisco , Michoacán , Guerrero , San Luis Potosí , Hidalgo , Puebla , Veracruz , Morelos , Estado de México , and in Mexico City . Classical Nahuatl , the language of the Aztecs , and its modern relatives are part of the Uto-Aztecan family. The Pipil language , an offshoot of Nahuatl , spread to Central America by

2448-594: The stress pattern [ˈnazatˌtamaˌxandɨ] , with stress falling on every other mora. With some dialectical variation, mora counting resets at the border between stems in compound words. Final syllables need not be stressed and may undergo optional final vowel devoicing. Given here are a few examples of regular, well-documented phonological rules in Shoshoni: Shoshoni is a synthetic , agglutinative language, in which words, especially verbs, tend to be complex with several morphemes strung together. Shoshoni

2499-485: The two Western Numic languages it is /nɨmɨ/ . In Kawaiisu it is /nɨwɨ/ and in Colorado River /nɨwɨ/ , /nɨŋwɨ/ and /nuu/ . These languages are classified in three groups: Apart from Comanche , each of these groups contains one language spoken in a small area in the southern Sierra Nevada and valleys to the east (Mono, Timbisha, and Kawaiisu), and one language spoken in a much larger area extending to

2550-572: The validity of Southern Uto-Aztecan as a genetic grouping. Hill (2011) also considered the North/South split to be valid based on phonological evidence, confirming both groupings. Merrill (2013) adduced further evidence for the unity of Southern Uto-Aztecan as a valid grouping. Hill (2011) also rejected the validity of the Takic grouping decomposing it into a Californian areal grouping together with Tubatulabal. Some classifications have posited

2601-555: Was the phonemic split of Proto-Numic geminate consonants into geminate consonants and preaspirated consonants. The conditioning factors involve stress shifts and are complex. The preaspirated consonants surfaced as voiceless fricatives, often preceded by a voiceless vowel. Shoshoni and Comanche have both lost the velar nasals, merging them with *n or turning them into velar nasal-stop clusters. In Comanche, nasal-stop clusters have become simple stops, but p and t from these clusters do not lenite intervocalically. This change postdates

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