Shoshone language

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Shoshone
Spoken in: United States 
Region: Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Idaho
Total speakers: USA: 2905 (2000)[1]
Language family: Uto-Aztecan
 Northern
  Numic
   Central
    Shoshone
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: nai
ISO 639-3: shh 
Shoshone language spread in the United States.
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Shoshone is a Native American language spoken by the Shoshone people.

Shoshone speaking Native Americans occupy areas of Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Montana. The number of people who speak Shoshone has been steadily dwindling over the last few decades, so there are only a few hundred people who speak the language fluently today, although a few thousand know it to one degree or another.[citation needed]

Shoshone is northernmost member of the large Uto-Aztecan language family, which includes over thirty languages whose speakers originally inhabited a vast territory stretching from the Salmon River in central Idaho down into northern and central Mexico. Shoshone 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 Shoshone the word is "neme", in Timbisha it is "nümü", and in Southern Paiute the word is "nuwuvi". Shoshone is most closely related to Timbisha and Comanche Comanche

Contents

[edit] Sounds

[edit] Vowels

Shoshone has a typical Numic vowel inventory of five vowels. In addition, there is the common diphthong ai, which varies rather freely with e, although certain morphemes always contain ai and others always contain e.

front back
unrounded		 back
rounded
High i ɨ u
Non-High a o
Diphthong ai

[edit] Consonants

Shoshone has a typical Numic consonant inventory:

Bilabial Coronal Palatal Velar Labialized
velar		 Glottal
Stop p t k kʷ ʔ
Affricate ts
Fricative s h
Nasal m n
Semivowel j w

[edit] Phonology

Shoshone stops (including the affricate) and nasals are voiced and lenited between vowels, are voiced in nasal-stop clusters, and are lenited (but not voiced) following h.

Short vowels are commonly devoiced in unstressed syllables preceding /h/ and word-finally.

[edit] Writing System

There are two main spelling systems in use. The older system is the Crum-Miller system used in Miller 1972; and Crum & Dayley 1993 and 1997, and Crum, Crum, & Dayley 2001.[2] The other system is the Idaho State University system and is used in Gould & Loether (2002).[3] The Idaho State system is more phonetically based while the Crum-Miller is more phonemically based. Both systems use "e" to represent the vowel ɨ.

[edit] Grammar

Shoshone is an agglutinative language, in which words, especially verbs, tend to be quite complex with several morphemes strung together.

Shoshone speaking tribes consist of a loose affiliation of clans and groups. Each tribe occupies a specific area of land.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Data Center States Results
  2. ^ Wick R. Miller. 1972. Newe Natekwinappeh: Shoshoni Stories and Dictionary. University of Utah Anthropological Papers 94. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
    Beverly Crum & Jon Dayley. 1993. Western Shoshoni Grammar. Boise State University Occasional Papers and Monographs in Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics Volume No. 1. Boise, Idaho: Department of Anthropology, Boise State University.
    Beverly Crum & Jon Dayley. 1997. Shoshoni Texts. Occasional Papers and Monographs in Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics Volume No. 2. Boise, Idaho: Department of Anthropology, Boise State University.
    Beverly Crum, Earl Crum, & Jon Dayley. 2001. Newe Hupia: Shoshoni Poetry Songs. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press.
  3. ^ Drusilla Gould & Christopher Loether. 2002. An Introduction to the Shoshoni Language: Dammen Daigwape. Salt Lake City, Utah: The University of Utah Press.

[edit] External links