The Tongva language (also known as Gabrielino, Gabrieleño, or Kizh) is an extinct and revitalizing Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the

Tongva The Tongva ( ) are an Indigenous peoples of California, Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Channel Islands of California, Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately . In the precolonial era, the peop ...

, a Native American people who have lived in and around modern-day

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

for centuries. It has not been a language of everyday conversation since the 1940s. The Gabrielino people now speak English but a few are attempting to revive their language by using it in everyday conversation and ceremonial contexts. Presently, Gabrielino is also being used in language revitalization classes and in some public discussion regarding religious and environmental issues. Tongva is closely related to Serrano. The names of several cities and neighborhoods in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

are of Tongva origin, and include Pacoima, Tujunga, Topanga, Azusa, ''Cahuenga'' in Cahuenga Pass and ''Cucamonga'' in Rancho Cucamonga. The last fluent native speakers of Tongva lived in the early 20th century. The language is primarily documented in the unpublished field notes of John Peabody Harrington made during that time. The "J.P. Harrington Project", developed by The Smithsonian through

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

, approximately 6,000 pages of his notes on the Tongva language, were coded for documentation by a Tongva member, who took three years to accomplish the task. Alleged native speakers of Tongva who have died as late as the 1970s have not been verified as having been fluent speakers. The

dwarf planet A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be hydrostatic equilibrium, gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve clearing the neighbourhood, orbital dominance like the ...

50000 Quaoar was named after the Tongva creator god, also called Chinigchinix.

Language revitalization

The Gabrielino language is a subgroup of

Takic The Takic languages are a putative group of Uto-Aztecan languages historically spoken by a number of Indigenous peoples of California, Indigenous peoples of Southern California. Takic is grouped with the Tübatulabal language, Tubatulabal, Hopi la ...

, a subfamily of Uto-Aztecan, which is usually divided into three subgoups: Serrano-Kitanemuk, Gabrielino (including the Fernandeño dialect) and Cupan. As of 2012, members of the contemporary Tongva (Gabrieleño) tribal council are attempting to revive the language, by making use of written vocabularies, by comparison to better attested members of the

group to which Tongva belonged, and by offering classes. In 2004, Pamela Munro, now UCLA emeritus professor of linguistics, was asked to serve as a linguistic mentor to Tongva people who wanted to learn about their language at the Breath of Life Workshop, a biennial event in Berkeley staged by the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival. Since then, she has taught monthly Tongva language classes in which adults and children practice pronunciation, master the use of

grammatical particle In grammar, the term ''particle'' ( abbreviated ) has a traditional meaning, as a part of speech that cannot be inflected, and a modern meaning, as a function word (functor) associated with another word or phrase in order to impart meaning. Alth ...

s, sing songs and play word games. She calls her work "a reclamation effort" for the language. Munro has compiled a Tongva dictionary of over 1,000 words, and also maintains a Tongva language Facebook page to which she posts Tongva words, phrases and songs. According to Munro, there are no audio recordings of people speaking the Tongva language, but that there are a few scratched wax cylinder recordings of Tongva songs.

Phonology

Consonants

The following is a list of the consonants and vowels of the Tongva language as used by the Tongva Language Committee, based on linguist Pamela Munro's interpretation of the fieldnotes of J. P. Harrington. In parentheses is the spelling of the specific sound. There are multiple orthographies for the Tongva language. Consonants are used in loanwords.

Vowels

Morphology

Tongva is an

agglutinative In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes (word parts), each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglu ...

language, where words use suffixes and multiple morphemes for a variety of purposes.

Vocabulary

Collected by C. Hart Merriam (1903)

Source:McCawley, William. ''The First Angelinos: The Gabrielino Indians of Los Angeles''. Malki Museum Press, 1996 (Merriam refers to them as the Tongvā) ;Numbers # Po-koo # Wěh-hā # Pah-hā # Wah-chah # Mah-har # Pah-vah-hā # Wah-chah-kav-e-ah # Wa-ha's-wah-chah # Mah-ha'hr-kav-e-ah # Wa-hās-mah-hah'r # Wa-hā's-mah-hah'r-koi-po-koo # Wa-hā's-mah-hah'r-koi-wěh-hā ;

grizzly bear The grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos horribilis''), also known as the North American brown bear or simply grizzly, is a population or subspecies of the brown bear inhabiting North America. In addition to the mainland grizzly (''Ursus arctos horr ...

:hoó-nahr :hoon-nah (subject) :hoon-rah (object) ; black bear :pí-yah-hó-naht

Collected by Dr. Oscar Loew (1875)

Source: ;Numbers # pu-guʼ # ve-heʼ # paʼ-hi # va-tchaʼ # mahaʼr # pa-vaʼhe # vatchaʼ-kabyaʼ # vehesh-vatchaʼ # mahar-kabyaʼ # vehes-mahar # puku-hurura # vehe-hurura ;bear :unar

Collected by Alexander Taylor (1860)

Source: ;Numbers # po-koo # wa-hay # pa-hey # wat-sa # mahar # pawahe # wat-sa-kabiya # wa-hish-watchsa # mahar-cabearka # wa-hish-mar Taylor claims "they do not count farther than ten"

Collected by Charles Wilkes, USN (1838–1842)

Source: ;Numbers # pukū # wehē # pāhe # watsā ;bear :hundr

Other sources

*desert fox: ''erow''Native Languages of the Americas *Pacoima = from the root word ''Pako'' enter, meaning the entrance *Tujunga = from the root word old woman ''tux'uu'' Tujunga means Mountains of Health according to long-time residents. *Azusa = from the word -''shuuk 'Ashuuksanga'' = his grandmother

The Lord's Prayer

Source: The Lord's Prayer is called ''ʼEyoonak'' in Tongva. The following text was derived from old Mission records.

Toponymy

The table below gives the names of various missions in the Tongva language. Munro, Pamela, et al. ''Yaara' Shiraaw'ax 'Eyooshiraaw'a. Now You're Speaking Our Language: Gabrielino/Tongva/Fernandeño''. Lulu.com: 2008.

References

External links

Native-languages.org: Gabrieliño (Tongva) Language

Gabrielino language
— overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages.
The Limu Project
— active in Native California languages revitalization.
2002 Tongva speech
spoken at Cal Poly Pomona during the opening of a Tongva ethnobotanic garden; speech begins at 35:10.
Keepers of Indigenous Ways: Tongva Language History & classes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tongva, Language *Language Indigenous languages of California

Takic languages History of Los Angeles County, California History of Orange County, California History of San Bernardino County, California History of the San Fernando Valley Native American language revitalization