Cahuilla language
Encyclopedia
Cahuilla is an endangered Uto-Aztecan
language, spoken by the Cahuilla
tribe, living in the Coachella Valley
, San Gorgonio Pass
and San Jacinto Mountain region of Southern California
. Cahuilla call themselves Iviatam, speakers of 'Ivia' - the 'original' language. A 1990 census revealed 35 speakers in an ethnic population of 800. It is nearly extinct, since most speakers are middle-aged or older.
Three dialects are known to have existed, referred to as Desert, Mountain, and Pass Cahuilla.
Alvino Siva of the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeño Indians
, a fluent speaker, died on June 26, 2009. He preserved the tribe's traditional bird songs, sung in the Cahuilla language, by teaching them to younger generations of Cahuilla people. Katherine Siva Saubel
(b. 1920 - d. 2011) was a native Cahuilla speaker dedicated to preserving the language.
Long /oː/ only appears in borrowings.
Consonants in parentheses only occur in loans. Material in <> after a consonant shows how it is spelled in the practical orthography of Saubel and Munro (1980).
Uto-Aztecan languages
Uto-Aztecan or Uto-Aztekan is a Native American language family consisting of over 30 languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found from the Great Basin of the Western United States , through western, central and southern Mexico Uto-Aztecan or Uto-Aztekan is a Native American language family...
language, spoken by the Cahuilla
Cahuilla
The Cahuilla, Iviatim in their own language, are Indians with a common culture whose ancestors inhabited inland areas of southern California 2,000 years ago. Their original territory included an area of about . The traditional Cahuilla territory was near the geographic center of Southern California...
tribe, living in the Coachella Valley
Coachella Valley
Coachella Valley is a large valley landform in Southern California. The valley extends for approximately 45 miles in Riverside County southeast from the San Bernardino Mountains to the saltwater Salton Sea, the largest lake in California...
, San Gorgonio Pass
San Gorgonio Pass
The San Gorgonio Pass el. cuts between the San Bernardino Mountains on the north and the San Jacinto Mountains to the south. Like the Cajon Pass to the northwest, it was also created by the San Andreas Fault...
and San Jacinto Mountain region of Southern California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Cahuilla call themselves Iviatam, speakers of 'Ivia' - the 'original' language. A 1990 census revealed 35 speakers in an ethnic population of 800. It is nearly extinct, since most speakers are middle-aged or older.
Three dialects are known to have existed, referred to as Desert, Mountain, and Pass Cahuilla.
Alvino Siva of the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeño Indians
Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians
Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians of the Los Coyotes Reservation is a federally recognized tribe of Cahuilla and Cupeño Indians, who are Mission Indians located in California.-Reservation:...
, a fluent speaker, died on June 26, 2009. He preserved the tribe's traditional bird songs, sung in the Cahuilla language, by teaching them to younger generations of Cahuilla people. Katherine Siva Saubel
Katherine Siva Saubel
Katherine Siva Saubel was a Native American scholar, educator, tribal leader, author, and activist committed to preserving her Cahuilla history, culture and language. Her efforts focused on preserving the language of the Cahuilla people...
(b. 1920 - d. 2011) was a native Cahuilla speaker dedicated to preserving the language.
Phonology
Cahuilla has the following vowel and consonant phonemes (Bright 1965, Saubel and Munro 1980:1-6)| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|
| High | iː i | uː u |
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
eː e | (oː) |
| Low | a |
Long /oː/ only appears in borrowings.
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Labio- dental Labiodental consonant In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Labialized Labialisation Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve the lips, they are called rounded.The most common... |
Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
p | t (d) | k | qʷ | q | ʔ <'> | ||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||
| Flap Flap consonant In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:... |
r | |||||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
(f) v | s (z) | ʃ | x ɣ |
xʷ | h | ||
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
t͡ʃ |
|||||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
w | j |
||||||
| Lateral | l | ʎ |
Consonants in parentheses only occur in loans. Material in <> after a consonant shows how it is spelled in the practical orthography of Saubel and Munro (1980).
Verb morphology
Cahuilla verbs show agreement with both their subject and object. Person agreement is shown by prefixes and number agreement is shown by suffixes. (Saubel and Munro p. 29)| kúp-qa |
| sleep-singular:present |
| 'He is sleeping.' |
| hem-kúp-we |
| 3rd-sleep-plural:present |
| 'They are sleeping.' |
Basic sample vocabulary
- One: Súplli'
- Two: Wíh
- Three: Páh
- Four: Wíchiw
- Five: Nemaqwánang
- Man: Náxanish
- Woman: Nícill
- Sun: Támit
- Moon: Ménill
- Water: Pál
External links
- The Limu Project active language revitalization
- Resources in and about the Cahuilla language
- Cahuilla pronunciation guide
- Cahuilla grammar, available through the Long Now Foundation
- Cahuilla language overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian LanguagesSurvey of California and Other Indian LanguagesThe Survey of California and Other Indian Languages at the University of California at Berkeley documents, catalogs, and archives the indigenous languages of the Americas...