Shasta language

Shasta
Spoken in United States
Region primarily northern California
Ethnicity Shasta people
Extinct by end of 20th century
Language family
Shastan
  • Shasta
Language codes
ISO 639-3 sht
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The Shasta language is an extinct Shastan language formerly spoken from northern California into southwestern Oregon. It was spoken in a number of dialects, possibly including Okwanuchu. By 1980, only two fluent speakers, both elderly, were alive. Today, all surviving Shasta people speak English.

Contents

Sounds

Consonants

Bilabial Dental Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n
Stop plain p t k ʔ
ejective pʼ tʼ kʼ
Affricate plain ts tʃ
ejective tsʼ tʃʼ
Fricative s x h
Rhotic r
Approximant j w

Length is distinctive for consonants in Shasta. The affricates are generally written <c> and <č>, and the ejectives indicated by an apostrophe written over the character. The phoneme /j/ is represented by <y>.

Vowels

Shasta has four vowels, /i e a u/, with contrastive length, and two tones: high tone, marked with an acute accent, and low tone, which is unmarked.

References

External links