The Ramaytush language is one of the eight

Ohlone languages The Ohlone languages, also known as Costanoan, are a small family of indigenous languages spoken by the Ohlone people. The pre-contact distribution of these languages ranged from the southern San Francisco Bay Area to northern Monterey County. ...

, historically spoken by the Ramaytush people who were indigenous to California. Historically, the Ramaytush inhabited the

San Francisco Peninsula The San Francisco Peninsula is a peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area that separates San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. On its northern tip is the City and County of San Francisco. Its southern base is Mountain View, south of Palo Alt ...

between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean in the area which is now

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

and San Mateo Counties. Ramaytush is a dialect or language within the Ohlone branch of the Utian family. The term Ramaytush was first applied to it during the 1970s. The Ramaytush language territory was largely bordered by ocean, except in the south, which was bordered by the people of the Santa Clara Valley who spoke the Tamyen language and the people of the Santa Cruz Mountains and Pacific Coast at Point Año Nuevo who spoke dialects merging toward the

Awaswas language Awaswas, or Santa Cruz, is one of eight Ohlone languages. It was historically spoken by the Awaswas people, an indigenous people of California. Linguists originally called the language Santa Cruz after the mission in the area but it was ren ...

. To the east, across San Francisco Bay, were tribes that spoke the Chochenyo language. To the north, across the

Golden Gate The Golden Gate is a strait on the west coast of North America that connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. It is defined by the headlands of the San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Peninsula, and, since 1937, has been spanned by t ...

, was the Huimen local tribe of

Coast Miwok language Coast Miwok was one of the Miwok languages spoken in California, from San Francisco Bay to Bodega Bay. The Marin and Bodega varieties may have been separate languages. All of the population has shifted to English. Grammar According to Catherine ...

speakers. The northernmost Ramaytush local tribe, the Yelamu of San Francisco, were intermarried with the Huchiun Chochenyos of the Oakland area at the time of Spanish colonization.Milliken 1995:260 European disease took a heavy toll of life on all tribal people who came to

Mission Dolores Dolores, Spanish for "pain; grief", most commonly refers to: * Our Lady of Sorrows or La Virgen María de los Dolores * Dolores (given name) Dolores may also refer to: Film * ''Dolores'' (2017 film), an American documentary by Peter Bratt * ' ...

after its creation in 1776. The Ohlone people were forced to use Spanish, resulting in the loss of their language. Hundreds of Ohlone people at Mission Dolores were taken to the north bay to construct

Mission San Rafael Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

, which was then used as a hospital for sick neophytes.

Alfred L. Kroeber Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the first ...

claimed that the west bay people were extinct by 1915.

Notes

References

* Heizer, Robert F. 1974. ''The Costanoan Indians''. De Anza College History Center: Cupertino, California. * Milliken, Randall. ''A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769–1910'' Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication, 1995. . Ohlone languages Extinct languages of North America Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area History of the San Francisco Bay Area {{na-lang-stub hr:Ramaytush

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