Wintu language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wintu is an endangered Wintuan language spoken by the Wintu peoples of Northern California.

Contents 1 Sounds 1.1 Consonants 1.2 Vowels 2 Syllable & phonotactics 3 Grammar 4 See also 5 Bibliography

[edit] Sounds

[edit] Consonants

Wintu has 28 (to 30) consonants:

		Labial	Apical		Post- alveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
			central	lateral
Stop	voiced	b	d
	unaspirated	p	t			k	q	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ
	ejective	p’	t’			k’	q’
Affricate	unaspirated			tɬ	ʧ   (ʤ)
	ejective			tɬ’	ʧ’
Fricative		(f)	(θ)		ʃ	x	χ	h
Nasal		m	n
Trill					ṛ
Approximant		w		l	j

• /f, ʤ/ are nonnative phonemes borrowed from English.
• /θ/ is a rare phoneme that occurred in only one of Pitkin's informants (his main consultant). In other speakers, it has merged with /ɬ/.
• Dental stops are denti-alveolar: [d̪, t̪, t̪ʰ, t̪’]. Younger speakers, however, have (apico-)alveolar articulations.
• The lateral /tɬ/ is usually a fricative [ɬ] but occasionally an affricate among McCloud speakers while Trinity speakers have only the affricate. It is interdental after non-low front vowels /i, e/, post-dental after low /a/, and retroflex after non-low back /u, o/.
• Postalveolar /ʃ/ is retroflex [ʂ] adjacent to back vowels /u, o, a/.
• Velars /k, k’, x/ are advanced before non-low front vowels /i, e/ and retracted before non-low back vowels /u, o/. Younger speakers, however, do not have this retroflex variant.
• Uvular /q’/ is pronounced with frication: [q’ᵡ].
• The trill /ṛ/ is apico-postalveolar retroflex. It is occurs as a flap [ɽ] between vowels.

[edit] Vowels

Wintu has 10 (or 11) vowels:

	Front	Back
High	i / iː	u / uː
Mid	e / eː	o / oː
Low	(æ)   a / aː

• Wintu has short and long vowels.
• /æ/ is a phoneme that only occurs in borrowed English words.
• All vowels are slightly nasalized before the glottal stop /ʔ/.

[edit] Syllable & phonotactics

Generic syllable:

CV(ː)(C)

Consonant clusters result only as from conjoined closed syllables: CV(ː)C.CV(ː)C. Vowels may be long, but sequences of vowels do not occur.

[edit] Grammar

[edit] See also

• Wintuan languages
• Wintu

[edit] Bibliography

• Pitkin, Harvey. (1984). Wintu grammar. University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 94). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-09612-6.
• Pitkin, Harvey. (1985). Wintu dictionary. University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 95). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-09613-4.
• Shepherd, Alice. (1989). Wintu texts. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-09748-3.