The Shastan (or Sastean) languages are an extinct language family which consists of four languages, spoken in present-day northern
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
and southern
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 ...
:
* Shastan
**
Konomihu
**
New River Shasta
**
Okwanuchu
**
Shasta (also known as Shastika)
Konomihu appears to have been the most divergent Shastan language. Okwanuchu may have been a dialect of Shasta proper, which is known to have had a number of dialects.
The entire Shastan family is 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 ...
. Shasta was the last language that was spoken. Three elderly speakers were reported in the 1980s.
Shastan has often been considered to be in the hypothetical
Hokan stock.
References
*Mithun, Marianne, ed. ''The Languages of Native North America''. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...
, 1999.
External links
Native Tribes, Groups, Language Families and Dialects of California in 1770(after Kroeber)
Language families
Hokan languages
Indigenous languages of California
Indigenous languages of Oregon
L
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