Kalapuyan is a small extinct language family

Language family

A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...

 that was spoken in the Willamette Valley

Willamette Valley

The Willamette Valley is the most populated region in the state of Oregon of the United States. Located in the state's northwest, the region is surrounded by tall mountain ranges to the east, west and south and the valley's floor is broad, flat and fertile because of Ice Age conditions...

 of Western Oregon

Western Oregon

Western Oregon is a geographical term that is generally taken to mean the part of Oregon within 120 miles of the Oregon Coast, on the west side of the crest of the Cascade Range. The term is applied somewhat loosely however, and is sometimes taken to exclude the southwestern areas of the state,...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It consists of three languages.

Family division

Kalapuyan consists of

1. Northern Kalapuya

Northern Kalapuya language

Northern Kalapuyan is a Kalapuyan language indigenous to northwestern Oregon in the United States. It was spoken by Kalapuya groups in the northern Willamette Valley southwest of present-day Portland....

( Tualatin–Yamhill)

2. Central Kalapuya

Central Kalapuya language

Central Kalapuyan was a Kalapuyan language indigenous to the central and southern Willamette Valley in Oregon in the United States. It was spoken by various bands of the Kalapuya peoples who inhabited the valley up through the middle of the 19th century. The language is closely related to Northern...

( Santiam

Santiam people

Santiam people are an indigenous people of the Northwest Plateau, living in Oregon.They are a Kalapuyan tribe, whose traditional homelands were on the banks of the Santiam River, which feeds into the Willamette River....

)

3. Yoncalla

Yoncalla language

Yoncalla is a Kalapuyan language once spoken in southwest Oregon in the United States. In the 19th century it was spoken by the Yoncalla band of the Kalapuya people in the Umpqua River valley...

( Southern Kalapuya)

Genetic relations

Kalapuyan is usually connected with the various Penutian proposals with Kalapuyan lying within an Oregon Penutian sub-group (along with Takelma

Takelma language

Takelma was the language spoken by the Takelma people. It was first extensively described by Edward Sapir in his graduate thesis, The Takelma Language of Southwestern Oregon...

, Siuslaw

Siuslaw (tribe)

Siuslaw is one of the three Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians located on the southwest Oregon Pacific coast in the United States. The Siuslaw language is extinct.-External links:***...

, and Coosan

Coosan languages

The Coosan language family consists of two languages spoken along the southern Oregon coast. Both languages are now extinct.-Classification:* Hanis* Miluk...

). A special relationship with Takelma has been proposed, together forming a Takelman family; however, recent research has offered counterevidence against this relationship. Therefore, currently the Kalapuyan family is generally considered separate, but with promising connections to the Penutian hypothesis.

External links

• The Verbal Morphology of Santiam Kalapuya (Northwest Journal of Linguistics)