Gosiute is a dialect of the endangered

Shoshoni language Shoshoni, also written as Shoshoni-Gosiute and Shoshone ( ; Shoshoni: soni ta̲i̲kwappe'', ''newe ta̲i̲kwappe'' or ''neme ta̲i̲kwappeh''), is a Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family, spoken in the Western United States by the Shoshon ...

historically spoken by the Goshute people of the American

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

in modern

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and

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

. Modern Gosiute speaking communities include the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation and the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians. Goshute_placenames

Status

Historical

20th century

Research by Wick R. Miller documenting the use of Gosiute in family settings on the Goshute Reservation in the 1960s reported the dialect to remain in use as primary means of communication and described comparatively low displacement by English, a fact attributed to the reservation's geographic isolation. Miller additionally reported that younger speakers tended to use Gosiute most, though noted that such a tendency could be a function of the development of English proficiency with age.

Monolingual Monoglottism ( Greek μόνος ''monos'', "alone, solitary", + γλῶττα , "tongue, language") or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism, is the condition of being able to speak only a single language, as opposed to multilingualism. ...

speakers of Gosiute were reported as recently as 1970. By 1994, language transmission to youth on the under 18 on the Goshute Reservation had become uncommon although fluent speakers represented the majority of the tribal members over 26 years of age.

21st century

An estimated 20 to 30 fluent speakers of the dialect remain including only four in the Skull Valley band, though a number more are passive speakers. Although a few children in Goshute communities continue to learn the dialect as their

first language A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period hypothesis, critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' ...

, the majority of fluent speakers are over 50.

Phonology

Distinct from other dialects of Shoshoni is the Gosiute use of the interdental affricate ̪θin the place of the strident alveolar affricate s Speakers of Gosiute may also drop the initial

Documentation

A great deal of early documentation of Gosiute was carried out by ethnobotanist and

ethnographer Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

Ralph Chamberlin who compiled and published Gosiute plant, animal, and place names in the first decades of the 20th century. Linguist Wick R. Miller published a number of works on Shoshoni including a 1972 dictionary and collection of texts that includes several Gosiute texts. The description of Shoshoni in Volume 17 of the ''Handbook of North American Indians'' is based on the Gosiute dialect.

Revitalization efforts

A 1997 plan to store nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Reservation allotted funds to develop a cultural center with language programs; however, the plans were halted. The Ibapah primary school taught classes in Gosiute in the 2000s although such courses have since stopped.

References

External links

Shoshoni Dictionary (includes Gosiute)Oral history recorded in GosiuteCoyote and Frog story in GosiuteAnimal names and anatomical terms of the Goshute Indians (1908)
{{Uto-Aztecan languages Endangered Uto-Aztecan languages Numic languages Goshute