Gosiute is a dialect of the endangered

Shoshoni language Shoshoni, also written as Shoshoni-Gosiute and Shoshone (; Shoshoni: soni ta̲i̲kwappe'', ''newe ta̲i̲kwappe'' or ''neme ta̲i̲kwappeh'') is a Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family, spoken in the Western United States by the Shoshone ...

historically spoken by the

Goshute people The Goshutes are a tribe of Western Shoshone Native Americans. There are two federally recognized Goshute tribes today: * Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation, located in Nevada and Utah * Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians of Utah of ...

of the American

Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic basin, endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California ...

in modern

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

and

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

. Modern Gosiute speaking communities include the

Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation The Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation is located in Juab County, Utah, Tooele County, Utah, and White Pine County, Nevada, United States. It is one of two federally recognized tribes of Goshute people, the other being the Skull Val ...

and the

Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians The Skull Valley Indian Reservation ( Gosiute dialect: Wepayuttax) is located in Tooele County, Utah, United States, approximately southwest of Salt Lake City. It is inhabited by the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians of Utah, a federally re ...

Status

Historical

20th century

Research by

Wick R. Miller Wickliffe Raper Miller (January 6, 1932May 9, 1994) was an American linguist most well known for his work on Keresan languages and Uto-Aztecan, especially Shoshoni and Guarijio. He worked both on synchronic description and historical linguistics ...

documenting the use of Gosiute in family settings on the Goshute Reservation in the 1960s reported the dialect to remain in use as primary means of communication and described comparatively low displacement by English, a fact attributed to the reservation's geographic isolation. Miller additionally reported that younger speakers tended to use Gosiute most, though noted that such a tendency could be a function of the development of English proficiency with age.

Monolingual Monoglottism (Greek μόνος ''monos'', "alone, solitary", + γλῶττα , "tongue, language") or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism, is the condition of being able to speak only a single language, as opposed to multilingualism. ...

speakers of Gosiute were reported as recently as 1970. By 1994, language transmission to youth on the under 18 on the Goshute Reservation had become uncommon although fluent speakers represented the majority of the tribal members over 26 years of age.

21st century

An estimated 20 to 30 fluent speakers of the dialect remain including only four in the Skull Valley band, though a number more are passive speakers. Although a few children in Goshute communities continue to learn the dialect as their

first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...

, the majority of fluent speakers are over 50.

Phonology

Distinct from other dialects of Shoshoni is the Gosiute use of the interdental affricate ̪θin the place of the strident alveolar affricate s Speakers of Gosiute may also drop the initial

Documentation

A great deal of early documentation of Gosiute was carried out by

ethnobotanist Ethnobotany is the study of a region's plants and their practical uses through the traditional knowledge of a local culture and people. An ethnobotanist thus strives to document the local customs involving the practical uses of local flora for m ...

and

ethnographer Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

Ralph Chamberlin Ralph Vary Chamberlin (January 3, 1879October 31, 1967) was an American biologist, ethnographer, and historian from Salt Lake City, Utah. He was a faculty member of the University of Utah for over 25 years, where he helped establish the School o ...

who compiled and published Gosiute plant, animal, and place names in the first decades of the 20th century. Linguist

published a number of works on Shoshoni including a 1972 dictionary and collection of texts that includes several Gosiute texts. The description of Shoshoni in Volume 17 of the ''Handbook of North American Indians'' is based on the Gosiute dialect.

Revitalization efforts

A 1997 plan to store nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Reservation allotted funds to develop a cultural center with language programs however the plans were halted. The

Ibapah Ibapah ( ) is a small unincorporated community in far western Tooele County, Utah, United States, near the Nevada state line. Description The settlement is located near the Deep Creek Mountains. The site was originally established in 1859 by M ...

primary school taught classes in Gosiute in the 2000s although such courses have since stopped.

References

External links

Shoshoni Dictionary (includes Gosiute)Oral history recorded in GosiuteCoyote and Frog story in GosiuteAnimal names and anatomical terms of the Goshute Indians (1908)
{{Uto-Aztecan languages Endangered Uto-Aztecan languages Numic languages Goshute