The
Kawaiisu language is an Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the
Kawaiisuthumb|Kawaiisu FamilyThe Kawaiisu are a Native American group who lived in the southern California Tehachapi Valley and across the Tehachapi Pass in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains to the north, toward Lake Isabella and Walker Pass...
people of
CaliforniaCalifornia 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...
.
Classification
Kawaiisu is a member of the Southern Numic division of the
Uto-Aztecan languageUto-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...
family.
Linguistic Environment
The Kawaiisu homeland was bordered by speakers of non-Numic Uto-Aztecan languages: the
KitanemukThe Kitanemuk were a Native American tribe and people who lived in the Tehachapi Mountains and the Antelope Valley area of the western Mojave Desert of southern California, United States.-Language:...
to the south spoke Takic, the
TubatulabalTübatulabal may refer to:*Tübatulabal people, Native Americans whose ancestral home was in the Kern River basin*Tübatulabal language, a Uto-Aztecan language...
to the north spoke
TubatulabalTübatulabal is a Uto-Aztecan language, traditionally spoken in Kern County, California. It is the traditional language of the Tübatulabal people, who have now largely shifted to English. The language is currently considered moribund....
, the Yokuts to the west were non-Uto-Aztecan. Because they shared the Southern Numic language, the
ChemehueviThe Chemehuevi are a federally recognized Native American tribe enrolled in the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe of the Chemehuevi Reservation. They are the southernmost branch of Paiutes.-Reservation:...
to the east are considered the closest relatives to Kawaiisu.
Geographic distribution
The remaining Kawaiisu speakers live in the
TehachapiTehachapi may refer to:*Tehachapi, California in the Tehachapi Mountains**Tehachapi High School in Tehachapi, California**Tehachapi Unified School District, based in Tehachapi, California...
area of
CaliforniaCalifornia 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...
. The language is severely
endangeredAn endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....
, with perhaps fewer than 20 remaining speakers.
Morphology
Kawaiisu is an agglutinative language, in which words use suffix complexes for a variety of purposes with several
morphemeIn linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
s strung together.
Vowels
Kawaiisu has a typical Numic
vowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
inventory of six vowels.
| | front | back
unrounded | back
rounded |
| High |
i |
ɨ |
u |
| Non-High |
e |
a |
o |
Consonants
Kawaiisu has an atypical Numic
consonantIn articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
inventory in that many of the predictable consonant alternations in other Numic languages are no longer predictable in Kawaiisu. The Kawaiisu consonant inventory, therefore is much larger than the typical Numic language.
| | BilabialIn phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
| Coronal Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such...
| PalatalPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
| VelarVelars 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
velar | GlottalGlottal 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 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 &...
voiceless |
p |
t |
|
k |
kʷ |
ʔ |
| Stop 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 &...
voiced |
b |
d |
|
|
|
|
| Affricate Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
|
|
ts |
tʃ |
|
|
|
| Fricative 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...
voiceless |
|
s |
ʃ |
|
|
h / hʷ |
| Fricative 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...
voiced |
β |
z |
ʒ |
ɣ |
ɣʷ |
|
| Nasal 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 |
|
(ŋ) |
|
|
FlapIn 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:...
|
|
ɾ |
|
|
|
|
LateralA lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....
|
|
(l) |
|
|
|
|
| Semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:...
|
|
|
j |
|
w |
|
l and ŋ are only found in loanwords.
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