Penutian is a proposed grouping of language families that includes many Native American languages of western

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, predominantly spoken at one time in

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, and

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 ...

. The existence of a Penutian stock or phylum has been the subject of debate among specialists. Even the unity of some of its component families has been disputed. Some of the problems in the comparative study of languages within the phylum are the result of their early extinction and limited documentation. Some of the more recently proposed subgroupings of Penutian have been convincingly demonstrated. The Miwokan and the Costanoan languages have been grouped into an Utian language family by

Catherine Callaghan Catherine "Cathy" Callaghan (October 31, 1931 – March 16, 2019) was Professor Emerita in the Department of Linguistics at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. She received a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California, Berkel ...

. Callaghan has more recently provided evidence supporting a grouping of Utian and

Yokutsan Yokuts, formerly known as Mariposa, is an endangered language spoken in the interior of Northern and Central California in and around the San Joaquin Valley by the Yokuts people. The speakers of Yokuts were severely affected by disease, mission ...

into a Yok-Utian family. There also seems to be convincing evidence for the Plateau Penutian grouping (originally named ''Shahapwailutan'' by J. N. B. Hewitt and

John Wesley Powell John Wesley Powell (March 24, 1834 – September 23, 1902) was an American geologist, U.S. Army soldier, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. H ...

in 1894) which would consist of Klamath–Modoc,

Molala The Molala (also Molale, Molalla, Molele) are a people of the Plateau culture area in the Oregon Cascades and central Oregon, United States. They are one of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon, with 141 of the 882 member ...

, and the

Sahaptian languages Sahaptian (also Sahaptianic, Sahaptin, Shahaptian) is a two-language branch of the Plateau Penutian family spoken by Native American peoples in the Columbia Plateau region of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in the northwestern United States. T ...

( Nez Percé and Sahaptin).

History of the hypothesis

Etymology and pronunciation

The name ''Penutian'' is based on the words meaning "two" in the

Wintuan The Wintun are members of several related Native American peoples of Northern California, including the Wintu (northern), Nomlaki (central), and Patwin (southern).Pritzker, 152Maiduan, and

Yokutsan languages Yokuts, formerly known as Mariposa, is an endangered language spoken in the interior of Northern and Central California in and around the San Joaquin Valley by the Yokuts people. The speakers of Yokuts were severely affected by disease, missio ...

(which is pronounced something like ) and the

Utian languages Utian (also Miwok–Costanoan, previously Mutsun) is a family of indigenous languages spoken in Northern California, United States. The Miwok and Ohlone peoples both spoke languages of the Utian language family. It has recently been argued that ...

(which is pronounced something like ). Although perhaps originally intended to be pronounced , which is indicated in some dictionaries, the term is pronounced by most if not all linguists.

Initial concept of five core families

The original Penutian hypothesis, offered in 1913 by Roland B. Dixon and Alfred L. Kroeber, was based on similarities observed between five California language families listed below. # Maiduan languages #

Miwok The Miwok (also spelled Miwuk, Mi-Wuk, or Me-Wuk) are members of four linguistically related Native American groups indigenous to what is now Northern California, who traditionally spoke one of the Miwok languages in the Utian family. The word ...

# Costanoan languages #

Wintuan languages Wintuan (also Wintun, Wintoon, Copeh, Copehan) is a family of languages spoken in the Sacramento Valley of central Northern California. All Wintuan languages are either extinct or severely endangered. Classification Family division Shipley (1 ...

That original proposal has since been called alternately ''Core Penutian'', ''California Penutian'', or the ''Penutian Kernel''. In 1919 the same two authors published their linguistic evidence for the proposal. The grouping, like many of Dixon & Kroeber's other phylum proposals, was based mostly on shared typological characteristics and not the standard methods used to determine genetic relationships. Starting from this early date, the Penutian hypothesis was controversial. Prior to the 1913 Penutian proposal of Dixon and Kroeber, Albert S. Gatschet had grouped Miwokan and Costanoan into a ''Mutsun'' group (1877). That grouping, now termed Utian, was later conclusively demonstrated by

. In 1903 Dixon & Kroeber noted a "positive relationship" among Costanoan, Maidu, Wintun, and Yokuts within a "Central or Maidu Type", from which they excluded Miwokan (their Moquelumnan). In 1910 Kroeber finally recognized the close relationship between the

an and Costanoan languages.

Sapir's expansion

In 1916 Edward Sapir expanded Dixon and Kroeber's California Penutian family with a sister stock, Oregon Penutian, which included the Coosan languages and also the isolates Siuslaw and Takelma: :* ''Oregon Penutian'' :** Coosan languages :** Siuslaw :** Takelma Later Sapir and Leo Frachtenberg added the Kalapuyan and the Chinookan languages and then later the Alsean and

Tsimshianic The Tsimshianic languages are a family of languages spoken in northwestern British Columbia and in Southeast Alaska on Annette Island and Ketchikan. All Tsimshianic languages are endangered, some with only around 400 speakers. Only around 2,170 ...

families, culminating in Sapir's four-branch classification (Sapir 1921a:60): : I. ''California Penutian grouping'' ::# Maiduan (Maidu) ::# Utian (Miwok–Costanoan) ::# Wintuan (Wintu) ::# Yokutsan (Yokuts) : II. ''Oregon Penutian grouping'' ::# Coosan (Coos) ::# Siuslaw ::# Takelma ::# Kalapuyan (Kalapuya) ::# Alsean (Yakonan) : III. '' Chinookan family'' (Chinook) : IV. ''

family'' (Tsimshian) By the time Sapir's 1929 ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' article was published, he had added two more branches: :* '' Plateau Penutian family'' :** Klamath–Modoc (Lutuami) :** Waiilatpuan :*** Cayuse :***

:** Sahaptian (Sahaptin) :* ''Mexican Penutian grouping'' :** Mixe–Zoque :** Huave resulting in a six-branch family: # California Penutian # Oregon Penutian # Chinookan # Tsimshianic # Plateau Penutian # Mexican Penutian (Sapir's full 1929 classification scheme including the Penutian proposal can be seen here: Classification of indigenous languages of the Americas#Sapir (1929): Encyclopædia Britannica.)

Further expansions

Other linguists have suggested other languages be included within the Penutian grouping: * Macro-Penutian hypothesis ( Benjamin Whorf) Or have produced hypotheses of relationships between Penutian and other large-scale families: * Amerind hypothesis (

Joseph Greenberg Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages. Life Early life and education Joseph Greenberg was born on ...

) Note: Some linguists link the Penutian hypothesis to the Zuni language. This link, proposed by Stanley Newman, is now generally rejected, and may have even been intended as a hoax by Newman.

Mid-twentieth century doubts

Scholars in the mid-twentieth century became concerned that similarities among the proposed Penutian language families may be the result of borrowing that occurred among neighboring peoples, not of a shared proto-language in the distant past.

Mary Haas Mary Rosamond Haas (January 23, 1910 – May 17, 1996) was an American linguist who specialized in North American Indian languages, Thai, and historical linguistics. She served as president of the Linguistic Society of America. She was electe ...

states the following regarding this borrowing:

Even where genetic relationship is clearly indicated ... the evidence of diffusion of traits from neighboring tribes, related or not, is seen on every hand. This makes the task of determining the validity of the various alleged Hokan languages and the various alleged Penutian languages all the more difficult ... ndpoint up once again that diffusional studies are just as important for prehistory as genetic studies and what is even more in need of emphasis, it points up the desirability of pursuing diffusional studies along with genetic studies. This is nowhere more necessary than in the case of the Hokan and Penutian languages wherever they may be found, but particularly in California where they may very well have existed side by side for many millennia.(Haas 1976:359)

Despite the concern of Haas and others, the Consensus Classification produced at a 1964 conference in

Bloomington, Indiana Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the central region of the U.S. state of Indiana. It is the seventh-largest city in Indiana and the fourth-largest outside the Indianapolis metropolitan area. According to the Mo ...

, retained all of Sapir's groups for North America north of Mexico within the Penutian Phylum. The opposite approach was taken following a 1976 conference at Oswego, New York, when Campbell and Mithun dismissed the Penutian phylum as undemonstrated in their resulting classification of North American language families.

Recent hypotheses

Consensus was reached at a 1994 workshop on Comparative Penutian at the University of Oregon that the families within the proposed phylum's California, Oregon, Plateau, and Chinookan clusters would eventually be shown to be genetically related. Subsequently,

Marie-Lucie Tarpent Marie-Lucie Tarpent (born November 9, 1941) is a French-born Canadian linguist, formerly an associate professor of linguistics and French at Mount Saint Vincent University SVU Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. She is known for her descriptive work on ...

reassessed

, a geographically isolated family in northern British Columbia, and concluded that its affiliation within Penutian is also probable. Earlier groupings, such as California Penutian and Takelma–Kalapuyan ("Takelman") are no longer accepted as valid nodes by many Penutian researchers. However, Plateau Penutian, Coast Oregon Penutian, and Yok-Utian (comprising the Utian and

) are increasingly supported. Scott DeLancey suggests the following relationships within and among language families typically assigned to the Penutian phylum: *Maritime Penutian ** Tsimshian ** Chinook ** Coast Oregon Penutian *** Alsea *** Siuslaw *** Coos *Inland Penutian ** Yok-Utian (from the

Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California. It is noted fo ...

) *** Utian *** Yokuts ** Maidu (from the Great Basin or Oregon) ** Plateau Penutian *** Sahaptian ***

*** Klamath The

, Takelma, and Kalapuya, absent from this list, continue to be considered Penutian languages by most scholars familiar with the subject, often in an Oregonian branch, though Takelma and Kalapuya are no longer considered to define a branch of Penutian. A lexicostatistical classification and list of probable Penutian cognates has also been proposed by Zhivlov (2014).

Evidence for the Penutian hypothesis

Perhaps because many Penutian languages have ablaut, vowels are difficult to reconstruct. However, consonant correspondences are common. For example, the proto-Yokuts (Inland Penutian) retroflexes correspond to Klamath (Plateau Penutian) , whereas the Proto-Yokuts dental correspond to Klamath alveolar . Kalapuya, Takelma, and Wintu do not show such obvious connections. Below are some Penutian sound correspondence proposed by

William Shipley William Shipley (baptised: 2 June 1715 – 28 December 1803) was an English drawing master, social reformer and inventor who, in 1754, founded an arts society in London that became The Royal Society of Arts, or Royal Society for the Encourage ...

, cited in Campbell (1997).Campbell, Lyle (1997). ''American Indian languages: the historical linguistics of Native America'', pg. 314. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . ::California Penutian and Klamath Sound Correspondences

Notes

References

* * * Callaghan, Catherine. (1997). Evidence for Yok-Utian. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''63'', pages 18–64 * Callaghan, Catherine. (2001). More evidence for Yok-Utian: A reanalysis of the Dixon and Kroeber sets ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''67'' (3), pages 313–346 * Campbell, Lyle. (1997). ''American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America''. New York: Oxford University Press. * DeLancey, Scott; & Golla, Victor. (1997). The Penutian hypothesis: Retrospect and prospect. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''63'', 171–202 * Dixon, Roland R.; & Kroeber, Alfred L. (1903). The native languages of California. ''American Anthropologist'', ''5'', 1–26 * Dixon, Roland R.; & Kroeber, Alfred L. (1913a). New linguistic families in California. ''American Anthropologist'', ''15'', 647–655 * Dixon, Roland R.; & Kroeber, Alfred L. (1913b). Relationship of the Indian languages of California. ''Science'', ''37'', 225 * Dixon, Roland R.; & Kroeber, Alfred L. (1919). ''Linguistic families of California'' (pp. 47–118) Berkeley: University of California * Goddard, Ives. (1996). "The Classification of the Native Languages of North America" In ''Languages'', Ives Goddard, ed., pp. 290–324. Handbook of North American Indians Vol. 17, W. C. Sturtevant, general ed. Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. * Golla, Victor. (2007). "Linguistic Prehistory" in ''California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity'', pp. 71–82. Terry L. Jones and Kathryn A. Klar, editors. New York: Altamira Press. * Golla, Victor. (2011). ''California Indian Languages''. Berkeley: University of California Press. * Grant, Anthony. (1997). Coast Oregon Penutian. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''63'', 144–156 * Kroeber, Alfred L. (1910). The Chumash and Costanoan languages. ''University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology'', ''9'', 259–263 * Liedtke, Stefan. (1995). ''Wakashan, Salishan and Penutian and Wider Connections Cognate Sets. Linguistic data on diskette series, no. 09. Munich: Lincom Europa, z\v1995''. * Liedtke, Stefan. (2007).''The Relationship of Wintuan to Plateau Penutian''. LINCOM studies in Native American linguistics, 55. Munich: Lincom Europa. * Mithun, Marianne. (1999). ''The languages of Native North America''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (hbk); . * Sapir, Edward. (1921a)
A Characteristic Penutian Form of Stem.
''International Journal of American Linguistics'', 2(1/2): 58–67 * Sapir, Edward. (1921b). A bird's-eye view of American languages north of Mexico. ''Science'', ''54'', 408 * Sapir, Edward. (1929). Central and North American languages. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (14th ed.; Vol. 5; pp. 138–141) * Sutton, Imre, (2002) "The Ob-Ugrian/Cal-Ugrian Connection: Rediscovering 'The Discovery of California"", American Indian Culture and Research Journal,26(4): 113–120 * Tarpent, Marie-Lucie. (1996). Reattaching Tsimshianic to Penutian. ''Survey of California and Other Indian Languages'' 9:91–112 * Tarpent, Marie-Lucie. (1997). Tsimshianic and Penutian: problems, methods, results, and implications. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 63:65–112 * Tarpent, Marie-Lucie & Daythal Kendall. (1998). "On the relationship between Takelma and Kalapuyan: another look at 'Takelman'. Paper presented to the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas: Annual Meeting, Linguistic Society of America, New York * Von Sadovszky, Otto J., (1996) The Discovery of California: A Cal-Ugrian Comparative Study, Istor Books 3 (Budapest: Akademiai Kiadó and Los Angeles: International Society for Trans-Oceanic Research)

External links

Penutian (Scott DeLancey's site)
(has online papers) *

*

* ttp://www.mip.berkeley.edu/cilc/bibs/lang.html Tribal Language Groups of Northern and Central California*
California Tribal Linguistics Groups map (.gif)
*
California Indian Tribal Groups Map (.gif)

(map after Kroeber)
Mitochondrial DNA and Prehistoric Settlements: Native Migrations on the Western Edge of North America
{{DEFAULTSORT:Penutian Languages Indigenous languages of California Indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest Coast Indigenous languages of the North American Plateau Proposed language families