The Miwok or Miwokan languages (; ), also known as ''Moquelumnan'' or ''Miwuk'', are a group of
endangered language
An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead langua ...
s spoken in central California by the
Miwok
The Miwok (also spelled Miwuk, Mi-Wuk, or Me-Wuk) are members of four linguistically related Native Americans in the United States, Native American groups indigenous to what is now Northern California, who traditionally spoke one of the Miwok lan ...
peoples, ranging from the
Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...
to the
Sierra Nevada
The Sierra Nevada ( ) is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...
. There are seven Miwok languages, four of which have distinct regional dialects. There are a few dozen speakers of the three Sierra Miwok languages, and in 1994 there were two speakers of Lake Miwok. The best attested language is
Southern Sierra Miwok, from which the name ''
Yosemite
Yosemite National Park ( ) is a national park of the United States in California. It is bordered on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service ...
'' originates. The name Miwok comes from the Northern Sierra Miwok word meaning 'people.'
Languages
Language family by Mithun (1999):
* Eastern Miwok
**
Plains Miwok †
**
Bay Miwok
The Bay Miwok are a cultural and linguistic group of Miwok, a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people in Northern California who live in Contra Costa County, California, Contra Costa County. They joined the Franciscan missi ...
( Saclan) †
**
Sierra Miwok
The Plains and Sierra Miwok were once the largest group of Indigenous peoples of California, California Indian Miwok people, Indigenous to California. Their homeland included regions of the Sacramento Valley, San Joaquin Valley, and the Sierra N ...
***
Northern Sierra Miwok (†) (
Camanche,
Fiddletown,
Ione, and
West Point
The United States Military Academy (USMA), commonly known as West Point, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York that educates cadets for service as Officer_(armed_forces)#United_States, comm ...
dialects)
***
Central Sierra Miwok (nearly extinct) (East Central and West Central dialects)
***
Southern Sierra Miwok (nearly extinct) (
Yosemite
Yosemite National Park ( ) is a national park of the United States in California. It is bordered on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service ...
,
Mariposa, and Southern dialects)
* Western Miwok
**
Coast Miwok
The Coast Miwok are an Indigenous people of California that were the second-largest tribe of the Miwok people. Coast Miwok inhabited the general area of present-day Marin County and southern Sonoma County in Northern California, from the Golde ...
† (
Bodega and
Marin dialects)
**
Lake Miwok
The Lake Miwok are a branch of the Miwok, a Native American people of Northern California. The Lake Miwok lived in the Clear Lake basin of what is now called Lake County. While they did not have an overarching name for themselves, the Lake Mi ...
†
Proto-language
Reconstructions of Proto-Miwok plant and animal names by Callaghan (2014):
[Callaghan, Catherine. (2014). ]
Proto-Utian Grammar and Dictionary: With Notes on Yokuts
'. Trends in Linguistics Documentation 31. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
:
:
References
Further reading
* Berman, Howard. 1982
''Freeland's Central Sierra Miwok Myths'' Survey of California and Other Indian Languages Report #3.
*
Broadbent, Sylvia M., and Callaghan, Catherine A. 1960. "Comparative Miwok: A Preliminary Survey". ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', vol. 26, no. 4: 301–316.
* Broadbent, Sylvia M. 1964
''The Southern Sierra Miwok Language'' Publications in Linguistics (Vol. 38). Berkeley: University of California Press.
* Broadbent, Sylvia M., and Pitkin, Harvey. 1964. "A Comparison of Miwok and Wintun." In ''Studies in Californian Linguistics'', ed. W. Bright, 19–45. University of California Publications in Linguistics, vol. 34. Berkeley: University of California Press.
*
Callaghan, Catherine A. 1965. ''Lake Miwok Dictionary''. University of California Press.
* Callaghan, Catherine A. 1970. ''Bodega Miwok Dictionary''. Publications in Linguistics 60. University of California Press.
* Callaghan, Catherine A. 1984. ''Plains Miwok Dictionary''. Publications in Linguistics 105. University of California Press.
* Callaghan, Catherine A. 1987. ''Northern Sierra Miwok Dictionary''. Publications in Linguistics 110. University of California Press.
*
Freeland, Lucy S. 1947. "Western Miwok Texts with Linguistic Sketch". ''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 13:31-46.
* Freeland, Lucy Shepherd. 1951. ''Language of the Sierra Miwok''. Waverly Press.
* Freeland, Lucy Shepherd and Broadbent, Sylvia M. 1960
Sierra Miwok Dictionary with Texts'' University of California Press.
* Keeling, Richard. 1985. "Ethnographic Field Recordings at Lowie Museum of Anthropology". Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. v. 2. North-Central California: Pomo, Wintun, Nomlaki, Patwin, Coast Miwok, and Lake Miwok Indians.
* Sloan, Kelly Dawn. 1991
''Syllables and Templates: Evidence from Southern Sierra Miwok'' Ph.D. thesis. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT. . .
External links
at Languagegeek
{{Miwok