Atsugewi is a recently extinct

Palaihnihan Palaihnihan (also Palaihnih) is a language family of northeastern California. It consists of two closely related languages, both now extinct: # Atsugewi ''(†)'' # Achumawi Achomawi (also Achumawi, Ajumawi and Ahjumawi), are the northerly ...

language 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 ...

spoken by the Atsugewi people of Hat Creek and Dixie Valley. In 1962, there were four fluent speakers out of an ethnic group of 200, all elderly; the last of these died in 1988. The last fluent native speaker was Medie Webster; as of 1988, other tribal members knew some expressions in the language. For a summary of the documentation of Atsugewi see Golla (2011: 98-99). Atsugewi is related to

Achumawi Achomawi (also Achumawi, Ajumawi and Ahjumawi), are the northerly nine (out of eleven) bands of the Pit River tribe of Palaihnihan Native Americans who live in what is now northeastern California in the United States. These 5 autonomous bands ...

. They have long been considered as part of the hypothetical Hokan stock, and it has been supposed that within that stock they comprise the Palaihnihan family. The name properly is Atsugé, to which the -wi of the Achumawi or Pit River language was erroneously suffixed.

History

Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. Kroeber estimated the combined 1770 population of the

and Atsugewi as 3,000. A more detailed analysis by Fred B. Kniffen arrived at the same figure. T. R. Garth (1978:237) estimated the Atsugewi population at a maximum of 850.Garth, T. R. Atsugewi. In ''Handbook of North American Indians,'' William C. Sturtevant, general editor, vol. 8, California, edited by Robert F. Heizer, pp. 236-243. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1978. p. 237 Kroeber estimated the combined population of the Achumawi and Atsugewi in 1910 as 1,100. The population was given as about 500 in 1936.

Sounds

Consonants

Atsugewi has 32 consonants. Most of these form pairs of plain and glottalized. Plosives and affricates also have a third, aspirated member of the series (except for the single glottal stop).

Vowels

Atsugewi language has basically only three vowels: /a/, /o/, and /i/; /e/ is the

allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...

of /i/ while /o/ is the allophone of /u/. However, it has been supported by Leonard Talmy (1972) that there are instances such as the word ''ce'' "the eye(s)" where ''e'' can be analyzed as a proper

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

References

Bibliography

* Bright, William. (1965). eview of ''A history of Palaihnihan phonology'' by D. L. Olmsted ''Language'', ''41'' (1), 175-178. * Golla, Victor. ''California Indian Languages.'' Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. . * Good, Jeff. (2004)
A sketch of Atsugewi phonology
Boston, MA. (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, January 8–11). * 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 Marianne Mithun (born 1946) is an American linguist specializing in American Indian languages and language typology. She is professor of linguistics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where she has held an academic position since 19 ...

. (1999). ''The languages of Native North America''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (hbk); . * Olmsted, David L. (1954). Achumawi-Atsugewi non-reciprocal intelligibility. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''20'', 181-184. * Olmsted, David L. (1956). Palaihnihan and Shasta I: Labial stops. ''Language'', ''32'' (1), 73-77. * Olmsted, David L. (1957). Palaihnihan and Shasta II: Apical stops. ''Language'', ''33'' (2), 136-138. * Olmsted, David L. (1958). ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''24'', 215-220. * Olmsted, David L. (1959). Palaihnihan and Shasta III: Dorsal stops. ''Language'', ''35'' (4), 637-644. * Olmsted, David L. (1961). Atsugewi morphology I: Verb Inflection. ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', ''27'', 91-113. * Olmsted, David L. (1964). ''A history of Palaihnihan phonology''. University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 35). Berkeley: University of California Press. * Talmy, Leonard. (n.d.). Midway phonological analysis of Atsugewi. (Unpublished notes). * Talmy, Leonard. (1972)
Semantic structures in English and Atsugewi
(Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley).

External links

Atsugewi language
overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
Atsugewi, World Atlas of Language Structures Online

Atsugewi, California Language Archive

OLAC resources in and about the Atsugewi language
{{authority control Pit River tribes Palaihnihan languages Languages of the United States Extinct languages of North America Native American history of California