Cahto (also spelled Kato) is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

Athabaskan Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific ...

language that was formerly spoken by the

Kato people The Cahto (also spelled Kato, especially in anthropological and linguistic contexts) are an indigenous Californian group of Native Americans. Today most descendants are enrolled as the federally recognized tribe, the Cahto Indian Tribe of the L ...

of the Laytonville and Branscomb area at the head of the South Fork of the Eel River. It is one of the four languages belonging to the ''California Athabaskan'' cluster of the

Pacific Coast Athabaskan languages Pacific Coast Athabaskan is a geographical and possibly genealogical grouping of the Athabaskan language family. California Athabaskan : 1. Hupa (dining'-xine:wh, a.k.a. Hoopa-Chilula) :: dialects: ::* Hupa ::* Tsnungwe ::: - tse:ning-xwe ::: - ...

. Most Kato speakers were bilingual in

Northern Pomo Northern Pomo is a critically endangered Pomoan language, spoken by the indigenous Pomo people in what is now called California. The speakers of Northern Pomo were traditionally those who lived in the northern and largest area of the Pomoan terr ...

and some also spoke Yuki.

Phonology

Consonants

Cahto has 26 consonant phonemes and 30 phones.

Vowels

Cahto has 9 vowel phonemes (including the diphthong) and 12 phones.

References

* University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnography 5(3):65-238. * Goddard, Pliny Earle (1912). ''Elements of the Kato Language.'' University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnography 11(1):1-176. * * Golla, Victor (2011). ''California Indian Languages.'' Berkeley: University of California Press. .

External links

Kato language
overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
Kato Language (Cahto)
nativelanguages.org

Experimental Cahto lexical database

OLAC resources in and about the Kato language

Kato basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
Pacific Coast Athabaskan languages Extinct languages of North America Languages of the United States Languages extinct in the 1960s {{indigenousAmerican-lang-stub