Washo language

The Washo language (Washo: wá:šiw ʔítlu)^[3] (also Washoe) is an endangered Native American language isolate spoken by the Washo on the California–Nevada border in the drainages of the Truckee and Carson Rivers, especially around Lake Tahoe. While there are very few speakers of Washo today (only 10 according to some; 252 according to the 2000 US Census^[1]), there are Washo-language programs aimed at increasing the number of proficient speakers. The speakers of Washo at the end of the twentieth century included 64 individuals between the ages of 5 and 17, 4 of whom have limited English proficiency.^[1]

Ethnographic Washo speakers belonged to the Great Basin culture area and they were the only non-Numic group of that area.^[4] The language has borrowed from the neighboring Uto-Aztecan, Maiduan and Miwokan languages and is connected to both the Great Basin and California sprachbunds.

Regional variation

Washo shows very little geographic variation. Jacobsen (1986:108) wrote, "When there are two variants of a feature, generally one is found in a more northerly area and the other in a more southerly one, but the lines separating the two areas for the different features do not always coincide."

Genetic relations

Washo was originally believed to be a language isolate. That is, it shared no link and is was not related to any other language. Some Washo still believe their language is a language isolate due to their belief that they were the first to inhabit the area. This would make them and their language older than that of the neighboring tribes, who according to the Washo, moved in around them from elsewhere, thus making their languages related in no way. Though Washo is indeed not in the same language family as any of its three direct neighboring languages, Northern Paiute is a Numic language (Uto-Aztecan), Maidu is Maiduan, and Miwok is Utian, it is now classified as a distinct branch of the Hokan language group.^[5]

The primary grammar used to describe the Washo language is A Grammar of the Washo Language as written by William Horton Jacobsen, Jr. for dissertation purposes at the University of California, Berkeley. The dissertation was written in 1964 and covers the entire language of Washo, as there are no known dialects.

Sounds

Vowels

There are six vowels in Wašiw plus two vowels created by the blending of a vowel and y.

Vowels marked with the acute accent ( ´ ) are pronounced with stress, such as in the Washiw ćigábut (summer.)

Some words may include a colon ( : ) after a vowel. This indicates that the vowel is drawn out, being said for a slightly longer length of time than normal, such in the above example míši milí:giyi. However, vowels pronounced this way may not always be followed by a colon.

Consonants

Wašiw consonants are, for the most part, the same as in English. However, English blends, such as ng, and digraphs, such as sh, are represented by a single letter. Blends not represented by a single letter in Wašiw almost always tend to occur in borrowed English words, such as the nd in ḱindí (candy).

Morphology and Syntax

Washo has a complex tense system.

Washo uses partial or total reduplication of verbs or nouns to indicate repetitive aspect or plural number. Washo uses both prefixation and suffixation on nouns and verbs.

Verbs

Verbal inflection is rich with a large number of tenses. Tense is usually carried by a suffix that attaches to the verb. The tense suffix may signal recent past, intermediate past, the long-ago-but-remembered past, the distant past, the intermediate future, or the distant future. For example, the suffix -leg indicates that the verb describes an event that took place in the recent past, usually earlier the previous day as seen in the Washo sentence, "dabóʔo lew búʔlegi” (the white man fed us’’).

Nouns

Possession in Washo is shown by prefixes added to the object. There are two sets of prefixes added; the first set being used if the object begins with a vowel and the second set being used if the object begins with a consonant.

See also

• Washoe tribe
• Native American languages

Notes

Bibliography

• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
• d'Azevedo, Warren L. (1986). "Washoe" in Great Basin, Warren L. d'Azevedo, ed. pp. 466–498. Volume 11 in Handbook of North American Indians, William C. Sturtevant, general editor. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-004578-9/0160045754.
• Goddard, Ives (Ed.). (1996). Languages. Handbook of North American Indians (W. C. Sturtevant, General Ed.) (Vol. 17). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-048774-9.
• 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).
• Jacobsen, William H. (1986). "Washoe Language" in Great Basin, Warren L. d'Azevedo, ed. pp. 107–112. Volume 11 in Handbook of North American Indians, William C. Sturtevant, general editor. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-004578-9/0160045754.
• Jacobsen, William H. 1996. Beginning Washo. Occasional Papers 5: Nevada State Museum.
• *Kaufman, Terrence. 1988. "A Research Program for Reconstructing Proto-Hokan: First Gropings." In Scott DeLancey, ed. Papers from the 1988 Hokan–Penutian Languages Workshop, pp. 50–168. Eugene, Oregon: Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon. (University of Oregon Papers in Linguistics. Publications of the Center for Amerindian Linguistics and Ethnography 1.)
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.

External links

• University of Chicago Washo Revitalization Project
• The Rosetta Project
• Speaking the Language of the Land
• Reno Linguist Foremost Expert on Washoe Language
• Ethnologue: Washo
• Washo language overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages