Ipai, also known as 'Iipai or Northern Diegueño, is the Native American language spoken by the
Kumeyaay
The Kumeyaay, also known as 'Iipai-Tiipai or by the historical Spanish name Diegueño, is a tribe of Indigenous peoples of the Americas who live at the northern border of Baja California in Mexico and the southern border of California in the Uni ...
people of central
San Diego County, California
San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county (United States), county in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of California, north to its Mexico-United States border, border with Mexico. As of the 2020 United States Cen ...
. Professor
Leanne Hinton
Leanne Hinton (born 28 September 1941) is an American linguist and emerita professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley.
Education and career
Hinton received her PhD in 1977 from UC San Diego, with a dissertation entitl ...
suggested a conservative estimate of 25 surviving Ipai speakers.
Ipai belongs to the
Yuman language family and to the Delta–California branch of that family. Ipai and its neighbors to the south,
Kumeyaay
The Kumeyaay, also known as 'Iipai-Tiipai or by the historical Spanish name Diegueño, is a tribe of Indigenous peoples of the Americas who live at the northern border of Baja California in Mexico and the southern border of California in the Uni ...
and
Tipai, were often considered to be dialects of a single Diegueño language, but the current consensus among linguists seem to be that at least three distinct languages are present within the dialect chain (e.g., Langdon 1990). Confusingly, Kumeyaay is commonly used as a designation both for the central language in this family and for the Ipai-Kumeyaay-Tipai people as a whole.
Published documentation for the Ipai language includes reference and teaching grammars, a dictionary, and several texts (cf.
Mithun 1999:578).
There is no standardized
orthography
An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis.
Most national ...
for Ipai, and focus is put on pronunciation instead of notes.
Documentation
A language revitalization effort for Santa Ysabel Iipaay Aa is underway. Classes are available through Kumeyaay Community College paired with Cuyamaca Community College. There is also a language immersion program.
Notes
References
* Couro, Ted and Christina Hutcheson. 1973. ''Dictionary of Mesa Grande Diegueño;: 'Iipay Aa-English/English-'Iipay Aa'', Malki Museum Press, California.
* Couro, Ted & Langdon, Margaret. 1975. ''Let's talk 'Iipay Aa: An introduction to the Mesa Grande Diegueño language'', Malki Museum Press, California.
* Hinton, Leanne. 1994. ''Flutes of Fire: Essays on California Indian Languages''. Heyday Books, Berkeley, California.
* Langdon, Margaret. 1970. ''A Grammar of Diegueño: The Mesa Grande Dialect.'' University of California Press, Berkeley, California.
* Langdon, Margaret. 1990. "Diegueño: how many languages?" In ''Proceedings of the 1990 Hokan–Penutian Languages Workshop'', edited by James E. Redden, pp. 184–190. University of Southern Illinois, Carbondale.
* Mithun, Marianne. 1999. ''The Languages of Native North America''. Cambridge University Press.
External links
Mesa Grande Ipai basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database'Iipay Aa lessons and vocabulary
{{Hokan languages
Kumeyaay
Indigenous languages of California
Yuman–Cochimí languages
Endangered Indigenous languages of the Americas