Mutsun (also known as San Juan Bautista Costanoan) is a Utian language spoken in Northern California. It was the primary language of a division of the

Ohlone people The Ohlone ( ), formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited ...

living in the

Mission San Juan Bautista Mission San Juan Bautista is a Spanish mission in San Juan Bautista, San Benito County, California. Founded on June 24, 1797, by Fermín de Lasuén of the Franciscan order, the mission was the fifteenth of the Spanish missions established in ...

area. It initially went extinct in 1930 when the last speaker died, Ascencion Solórzano de Cervantes. The

Tamien Nation Tamien may have several meanings: * Tamien, San Jose, California * Tamyen dialect, an indigenous language of California * Tamien Nation, a non-profit; see * Tamien people, a Native American people in Santa Clara Valley, California * Tamien Statio ...

and band is currently working to restore the use of the language, using a modern alphabet.

Studies of the language

Maria Ascención Solórsano de Garcia y de Cervantes, the last known fluent speaker of Mutsun, amassed large amounts of language and cultural data specific to the Mutsun. The

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent Religious institute, religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor bei ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

and

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta (1780–1842) was a Spanish Franciscan missionary and linguist notable for his work on native languages. Arroyo de la Cuesta was born in Cubo de Bureba, Burgos, Spain in 1780. He arrived in the Spanish territory of ...

wrote extensively about the language's grammar, and linguist

John Peabody Harrington John Peabody Harrington (April 29, 1884 – October 21, 1961) was an American linguist and ethnologist and a specialist in the indigenous peoples of California. Harrington is noted for the massive volume of his documentary output, most of whic ...

made very extensive notes on the language from Solórsano. Harrington's field notes formed the basis of the grammar of Mutsun written by

Marc Okrand Marc Okrand (; born July 3, 1948) is an American linguist. His professional work is in Native American languages, and he is well known as the creator of the Klingon language in the ''Star Trek'' science fiction franchise. Career As a linguist, ...

as a

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

dissertation in 1977 which to this day remains the only grammar ever written of any

Costanoan The Ohlone ( ), formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited ...

language. Scholars from the U.S., Germany, and the Netherlands have discussed methods that could facilitate the revitalization of Mutsun.

Phonology

Vowel and consonant phonemes are represented here with the descriptions and orthography of the English-Mutsun dictionary, with additions from an earlier paper by Warner, Butler, and Luna-Costillas.

Vowels

* is

open-mid An open-mid vowel (also mid-open vowel, low-mid vowel, mid-low vowel or half-open vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned approximat ...

, whereas is close-mid. * Vowels and consonants are doubled to indicate longer pronunciation (ex: IPA for 'knee' is )

Consonants

Alphabet

Unlike many Latin-script alphabets, Mutsun uses capital letters as separate sounds. The following alphabet is based on the alphabetization of the Mutsun-English dictionary and includes an example word.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * *

External links

Mutsun Language Talking phrasebook

Indian Canyon - recognized "Indian Country" in HollisterMutsun language
overview at the

Survey of California and Other Indian Languages The Survey of California and Other Indian Languages (originally the Survey of California Indian Languages) at the University of California at Berkeley documents, catalogs, and archives the indigenous languages of the Americas. The survey also hosts ...

---- {{DEFAULTSORT:Mutsun Language Ohlone languages Extinct languages of North America History of San Benito County, California