Shoshoni language

Shoshoni
Sosoni' da̲i̲gwape
Spoken in United States
Region Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Idaho
Native speakers 2900[1]  (2000)
Language family
Uto-Aztecan
Language codes
ISO 639-3 shh
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Shoshoni or Shoshone ( /ʃoʊˈʃoʊniː/; Sosoni' da̲i̲gwape or newe da̲i̲gwape) is a Native American language spoken by the Shoshone people. Principal dialects of Shoshoni include Western Shoshoni in Nevada, Gosiute in western Utah, Northern Shoshoni in southern Idaho and northern Utah, and Eastern Shoshoni in Wyoming.

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

Shoshoni is the 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 El Salvador. Shoshoni 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 Shoshoni the word is neme, in Timbisha it is nümü, and in Southern Paiute the word is nuwuvi.

Contents

Morphology

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

Sounds

Vowels

Shoshoni 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

Consonants

Shoshoni 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

Phonology

Shoshoni 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 word-finally and in unstressed syllables preceding /h/.

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][3][4][5] The other system is the Idaho State University system and is used in Gould & Loether (2002).[6] 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.

See also

References

  1. ^ Data Center States Results
  2. ^ Miller, Wick R. (1972). Newe Natekwinappeh: Shoshoni Stories and Dictionary. University of Utah Anthropological Papers 94. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. 
  3. ^ Crum, Beverly; Dayley, Jon P. (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. ISBN 9780963974907. 
  4. ^ Crum, Beverly; Dayley, Jon P. (1997). Shoshoni Texts. Occasional Papers and Monographs in Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics Volume No. 2. Boise, Idaho: Department of Anthropology, Boise State University. 
  5. ^ Crum, Beverly; Crum, Earl; Dayley, Jon P. (2001). Newe Hupia: Shoshoni Poetry Songs. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press. 
  6. ^ Drusilla Gould & Christopher Loether. 2002. An Introduction to the Shoshoni Language: Dammen Daigwape. Salt Lake City, Utah: The University of Utah Press.

External links