Alsea or Alsean (also Yakonan) and Yaquina were two closely related speech varieties spoken along the central

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

coast until the early 1950s. They are sometimes taken to be different languages, but it is difficult to be sure given the poor state of attestation; Mithun believes they were probably dialects of a single language. Mithun, Marianne. (1999). ''The languages of Native North America''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (hbk); They are commonly held to be components of a language isolate.

Classification

Alsea is usually considered to belong to the

Penutian Penutian is a proposed grouping of language family, language families that includes many Native Americans in the United States, Native American languages of western North America, predominantly spoken at one time in British Columbia, Washington ( ...

phylum, and may form part of a Coast Oregon Penutian subgroup together with Siuslaw and the

Coosan languages Coosan () is a townland and suburb north of Athlone, County Westmeath in Ireland. Coosan, which is situated on the shores of Lough Ree, is surrounded by water on three sides and bordered by Athlone on the fourth. Coosan attracts tourists over t ...

. Numerous lexical resemblances between Alsea and the Northern Wintuan languages, however, are more likely the result of borrowing about 1,500 years ago when the (Northern) Wintuan speech community appears to have been located in Oregon. Alsea is also considered to be a

language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...

Varieties

* Alsea ** Alsea (Alséya) ** Yaquina (Yakwina, Yakona) Both are now

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

. The name ''Alsea'' derives from the Coosan name for them, ''alsí'' or ''alsí·'', and the Marys River Kalapuyan name for them, ''alsí·ya''. Alsea was last recorded in 1942 from the last speaker, John Albert, by J. P. Harrington. Albert died in 1951. The name ''Yaquina'' derives from the Alsean name for the Yaquina Bay and the Yaquina River region, ''yuqú·na''. Yaquina was last recorded in 1884 by James Owen Dorsey.

Phonology

Consonants

Alsea had 34

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

s: , and are spelled as ''s'', ''c'' and ''c̓'' in modern descriptions. Their phonetic value has been described as "palatal", or "between alveolar and palatal".

Vowels

Three vowels are listed as . Long vowel variants of are . A mid vowel occurs as a phonetically inserted vowel sound.

Classification

Varieties

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

References

Further reading