Molala (Molele, Molalla) is the extinct and poorly attested
Plateau Penutian
Plateau Penutian (also Shahapwailutan, Lepitan) is a family of languages spoken in northern California, reaching through central-western Oregon to northern Washington and central-northern Idaho.
Family division
Plateau Penutian consists of four ...
language of the
Molala people of
Oregon
Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...
and
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
. It is first attested along the
Deschutes River, and later moved to the
Molalla and
Santiam rivers, and to the headwaters of the
Umpqua and
Rogue rivers. It was once thought to be close to
Cayuse.
Dialects
There were three known dialects:
*Northern Molala, spoken in southern Oregon in the Cascade Range
*Upper Santiam Molala, spoken along the upper
Santiam River
The Santiam River is a tributary of the Willamette River, about long, in western Oregon in the United States. Through its two principal tributaries, the North Santiam and the South Santiam rivers, it drains a large area of the Cascade Range a ...
in the Cascades in central Oregon.
*Southern Molala, spoken in southern Oregon in the Cascade Range
Phonology
The phonology of the Molala language:
Consonants
Vowels
/i/ and /a/ can also shift to /ə/.
Grammar
Molala is a verb-heavy
polysynthetic language
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able ...
.
Case
Molala nouns have seven cases:
nominative,
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
,
genitive,
instrumental
An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to inst ...
,
locative,
allative
In grammar, the allative case (; abbreviated ; from Latin ''allāt-'', ''afferre'' "to bring to") is a type of locative grammatical case. The term allative is generally used for the lative case in the majority of languages that do not make finer ...
, and
ablative
In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; sometimes abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages; it is sometimes used to express motion away from something, among other uses. ...
.
References
External links
Molale (Molalla)OLAC resources in and about the Molale language
{{North American languages
Indigenous languages of Oregon
Extinct languages of North America
Indigenous languages of the North American Plateau
Plateau Penutian languages
Languages extinct in the 1950s
1958 disestablishments in the United States
Language isolates of North America