Maidu language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Northeastern Maidu
Spoken in:	United States
Region:	California
Total speakers:	1 or 2
Language family:	Maiduan Northeastern Maidu
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`–`
ISO 639-3:	`nmu`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Maidu (also Northeastern Maidu, Mountain Maidu) is a severely endangered Maiduan language spoken by Maidu peoples traditionally in the mountains east and south of Lassen Peak in the American River and Feather River river drainages.

Currently only one or two native speakers remain alive. (Gordon 2005)

1 Phonology
2 See also
3 External links
4 Bibliography

[edit] Phonology

Maidu has eighteen consonantal phonemes.

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Voiceless plosive	p	t	tʃ	k
Ejective plosive	p’	t’	tʃ’	k’	ʔ
Voiced implosive	ɓ	ɗ
Fricative		s			h
Nasal	m	n
Sonorant	w	l	j

In the 1950s and 1960s, older speakers retained palatal stops (plain and ejective) where younger speakers used an innovative palatal affricate, perhaps borrowed from English. (Shipley 1964)

There are six phonemic vowels in Maidu.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Mid	e		o
Low		a

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Ethnologue: Maidu, Northeast

[edit] Bibliography

Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (Ed.). (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (15th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-159-X. (Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com).
Heizer, Robert F. (1966). Languages, territories, and names of California Indian tribes.
Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
Shipley, William F. (1964). Maidu Grammar. Berkeley: University of California Press.