Atsugewi language

Atsugewi
Atsugewi
Native to	California
Ethnicity	Atsugewi people
Extinct	1988, with the death of Medie Webster
Language family	Hokan? Shasta–Palaihnihan Palaihnihan Atsugewi; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	atw
Glottolog	atsu1245
ELP	Atsugewi
	Atsugewi is classified as Extinct by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Atsugewiis a recently extinctPalaihnihanlanguage of northeasternCaliforniaspoken by theAtsugewipeople ofHat CreekandDixie Valley.In 1962, there were four fluent speakers out of an ethnic group of 200, all elderly; the last of them died in 1988. The last fluent native speaker was Medie Webster; as of 1988, other tribal members knew some expressions in the language.^[2]For a summary of the documentation of Atsugewi see Golla (2011: 98–99).

Atsugewi is related toAchumawi.They have long been considered as part of the hypotheticalHokanstock, and it has been supposed that within that stock they comprise the Palaihnihan family.

The name properly is Atsugé, to which the -wi of the Achumawi or Pit River language was erroneously suffixed.

History[edit]

Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially.Alfred L. Kroeberestimated the combined 1770 population of theAchumawiand Atsugewi as 3,000.^[3]A more detailed analysis by Fred B. Kniffen arrived at the same figure.^[4]T. R. Garth (1978:237) estimated the Atsugewi population at a maximum of 850.^[5]

Kroeber estimated the combined population of the Achumawi and Atsugewi in 1910 as 1,100. The population was given as about 500 in 1936.^[3]

Sounds[edit]

Consonants[edit]

Atsugewi has 32 consonants. Most of these form pairs of plain andglottalized.Plosives and affricates also have a third,aspiratedmember of the series (except for the singleglottal stop).

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	plain	m	n
Nasal	glott.	mˀ	nˀ
Stop	plain	p	t	tʃ	k	q	ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	tʃʼ	kʼ	qʼ
	aspir.	pʰ	tʰ	tʃʰ	kʰ	qʰ
Fricative	plain		s				ʜ h^[6]
Fricative	ejective		sʼ
Rhotic	plain		r
Rhotic	glott.		rˀ
Approximant	plain		l	j	w
Approximant	glott.		lˀ	jˀ	wˀ

Vowels[edit]

Atsugewi language has basically only three vowels: /a/, /u/, and /i/; [e] is theallophoneof /i/ while [o] is the allophone of /u/. However, it has been supported byLeonard Talmy(1972) that there are instances such as the wordce"the eye(s)" whereecan be analyzed as a properphoneme.

References[edit]

^Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger(Report) (3rd ed.). UNESCO. 2010. p. 11.
^Hillinger, Charles (1988-08-23)."Indian Woman Is Last Word on Language of the Atsugewi".Los Angeles Times.Retrieved2012-10-28.
^^a ^bKroeber, Alfred L(1925).Handbook of the Indians of California.Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin. Vol. 78. Washington, D.C. p. 883.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Kniffen (1928)
^Garth, T. R. Atsugewi. InHandbook of North American Indians,William C. Sturtevant, general editor, vol. 8, California, edited by Robert F. Heizer, pp. 236–243. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1978. p. 237
^/ʜ/lowers high vowels, while/h/does not. Based on Achumawi, the former is assumed to be epiglottal.

Bibliography[edit]

Bright, William.(1965). [Review ofA history of Palaihnihan phonologyby D. L. Olmsted].Language,41(1), 175–178.
Golla, Victor.California Indian Languages.Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.ISBN 978-0-520-26667-4.
Good, Jeff. (2004).A sketch of Atsugewi phonology.Boston, MA. (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, January 8–11).
Good, Jeff; McFarland, Teresa; & Paster, Mary. (2003). Reconstructing Achumawi and Atsugewi: Proto-Palaihnihan revisited. Atlanta, GA. (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, January 2–5).
Mithun, Marianne.(1999).The languages of Native North America.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN 0-521-23228-7(hbk);ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
Olmsted, David L. (1954). Achumawi-Atsugewi non-reciprocal intelligibility.International Journal of American Linguistics,20,181–184.
Olmsted, David L. (1956). Palaihnihan and Shasta I: Labial stops.Language,32(1), 73–77.
Olmsted, David L. (1957). Palaihnihan and Shasta II: Apical stops.Language,33(2), 136–138.
Olmsted, David L. (1958).International Journal of American Linguistics,24,215–220.
Olmsted, David L. (1959). Palaihnihan and Shasta III: Dorsal stops.Language,35(4), 637–644.
Olmsted, David L. (1961). Atsugewi morphology I: Verb Inflection.International Journal of American Linguistics,27,91–113.
Olmsted, David L. (1964).A history of Palaihnihan phonology.University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 35). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Olmsted, David L. (1984).A Lexicon of Atsugewi(Survey of California and Other Indian Languages, 5).
Talmy, Leonard.(n.d.). Midway phonological analysis of Atsugewi. (Unpublished notes).
Talmy, Leonard. (1972).Semantic structures in English and Atsugewi.(Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley).

External links[edit]

[1] Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger(Report) (3rd ed.). UNESCO. 2010. p. 11.

[2] Hillinger, Charles (1988-08-23)."Indian Woman Is Last Word on Language of the Atsugewi".Los Angeles Times.Retrieved2012-10-28.

[kroeber-3] Kroeber, Alfred L(1925).Handbook of the Indians of California.Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin. Vol. 78. Washington, D.C. p. 883.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

[4] Kniffen (1928)

[5] Garth, T. R. Atsugewi. InHandbook of North American Indians,William C. Sturtevant, general editor, vol. 8, California, edited by Robert F. Heizer, pp. 236–243. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1978. p. 237

[6] /ʜ/lowers high vowels, while/h/does not. Based on Achumawi, the former is assumed to be epiglottal.

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