Palaihnihan (also Palaihnih) is a
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...
of northeastern
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. It consists of two closely related languages, both now extinct:
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Atsugewi
The Atsugewi are Native Americans residing in northeastern California, United States. Their traditional lands are near Mount Shasta, specifically the Pit River drainage on Burney, Hat, and Dixie Valley or Horse Creeks. They are closely related ...
''(†)''
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Achumawi
Achomawi (also Achumawi, Ajumawi and Ahjumawi), are the northerly nine (out of eleven) bands of the Pit River tribe of Palaihnihan Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans who live in what is now northeastern California in the Un ...
''(†)'' (ís siwa wó disi, also known as Achomawi, Pit River Indian)
Reconstruction
The original reconstruction of proto-Palaihnihan suffered from poor quality data. David Olmsted's dictionary depends almost entirely upon de Angulo, who did not record the phonological distinctions consistently or well, and carelessly includes
Pomo
The Pomo are an Indigenous people of California. Historical Pomo territory in Northern California was large, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake, and mainly between Cleone and Duncans Point. One small ...
vocabulary from a manuscript in which he (de Angulo) set out to demonstrate that Achumawi and Pomo are not related.
William Bright
William O. Bright (August 13, 1928 – October 15, 2006) was an American linguist and toponymist who specialized in Native American and South Asian languages and descriptive linguistics.
Biography
Bright earned a bachelor's degree in lingui ...
has also pointed out problems with Olmsted's methods of reconstruction.
The reconstruction is being refined with newer data.
[Good, McFarland, & Paster (2003) "Reconstructing Achumawi and Atsugewi: Proto-Palaihnihan revisited"]
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Good, McFarland, & Paster (2003) conclude there were at least three vowels, *a *i *u, and possibly marginal *e, along with vowel length and ablaut. Consonants were as follows:[
]
Genetic relations
The Palaihnihan family is often connected with the hypothetical Hokan stock. Proposed special relationships within Hokan include Palaihnihan with Shastan (known as ''Shasta-Achomawi'') and within a ''Kahi'' sub-group (also known as ''Northern Hokan'') with Shastan, Chimariko, and Karuk
The Karuk people are an indigenous people of California, and the Karuk Tribe is one of the largest tribes in California. Karuks are also enrolled in two other federally recognized tribes, the Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad ...
.
References
Bibliography
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* 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. (hbk); .
* Nevin, Bruce E. (1991). "Obsolescence in Achumawi: Why Uldall Too?". Papers from the American Indian Languages Conferences, held at the University of California, Santa Cruz, July and August 1991. Occasional Papers on Linguistics 16:97-127. Department of Linguistics, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
* Nevin, Bruce E. (1998). ''Aspects of Pit River phonology''. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
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* Olmsted, David L. (1958). Atsugewi Phonology, ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', Vol. 24, No. 3, Franz Boas Centennial, Volume (Jul., 1958), pp. 215–220.
* Olmsted, David L. (1964). ''A history of Palaihnihan phonology''. University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 35). Berkeley: University of California Press.
{{North American languages
Language families