| Tongva | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spoken in | USA | |||
| Region | Southern California | |||
| Extinct | 1970s? | |||
| Language family |
Uto-Aztecan
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | xgf | |||
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The Tongva language (also known as Gabrielino or Gabrieleño) is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Tongva, a Native American people who live in and around Los Angeles, California. Tongva is closely related to several other Takic languages, including Cahuilla and Serrano.
The last fluent native speakers of Tongva lived in the early 20th century. The language is primarily documented in the unpublished field notes of John Peabody Harrington made during that time. There are claims of native speakers of Tongva who have died as late as in the 1970s, but there is no independent verification of these individuals having been fluent speakers.
Evidence of the language also survices in modern toponymy of Southern California, including Pacoima, Tujunga, Topanga, Azusa, Cahuenga in Cahuenga Pass, and Cucamonga in Rancho Cucamonga.
Members of the contemporary Tongva (Gabrieleño) tribal council are attempting to revive the language, by making use of written vocabularies and comparison to better attested members of the Takic group to which Tongva belonged.
Contents |
The following is a list of the consonants of the Tongva language. In parenthesis is the spelling of the specific sound. Note that there are multiple orthographies for the Tongva language and certain letters represent more than one sound therefore certain sounds may have multiple ways to be spelled.
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m (m) | ɱ (m) | n (n) | ŋ (ng~n) | |||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p (p) | t (t) | k (k~c~qu) | (ʔ) | ||||
| voiced | b (b) | d (d) | ɡ (g~gu) | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | ɸ (p) | f (p~v~f) | s (s) | ʃ (sh~ch) | ç (h~r) | x ~ χ (h~g) | ||
| voiced | β (b) | v (v~w) | z (z) | ʒ (x~sh~ch) | ʝ (y~x~j) | ɣ (x~h) | ʁ (r) | ɦ (h) | |
| Trill | r (r) | ||||||||
| Approximant | ʋ-ʍ (w) | l (l) | j (y~j) | ||||||
Tongva is an agglutinative language, where words use suffixes and multiple morphemes for a variety of purposes.
The Lord's Prayer is called 'Eyoonak in Tongva. The following text was derived from old Mission records.
'Eyoonak 'Eyoonak, 'eyooken tokuupanga'e xaa;
hoyuuykoy motwaanyan;
moxariin mokiimen tokuupra;
maay mo'wiishme meyii 'ooxor 'eyaa tokuupar. Hamaare, 'eyoone' maxaare' 'wee taamet,
koy 'oovonre' 'eyoomamaayntar momoohaysh, miyii 'eyaare
'oovonax 'eyoohiino 'eyooyha';
koy xaare' maayn 'iitam momoohaysh,
koy xaa mohuu'esh.
'Wee menee' xaa'e.
(Merriam refers to them as the Tongvā)
Taylor claims "they do not count farther than ten"
The table below gives various place names in the Tongva language, and in Spanish.[1]
| English | Tongva | IPA |
|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles | Yaa | /jɒː/ |
| San Bernardino | Wa'aach | /ʋaj'ɒʃ/ |
| San Gabriel | Shevaa | /sʃe'vɒː/ |
| San Pedro | Chaaw | /ʃɒːʋ/ |
| Santa Ana | Hotuuk | /χo'tʰykʰ/ |
| Santa Monica | Kecheek | /kʰɛʃeɪkʰ/ |
| Santa Catalina | Pemu | /bʰɛmɯ/ |