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Maiduan (also Maidun, Pujunan) is a small
"Konkow Grammar,"
unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California at Berkeley
Maidu, An Illustrative Sketch
{{- *Language Indigenous languages of California Penutian languages Language families
Maiduan (also Maidun, Pujunan) is a small endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...
language family of northeastern California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
.
Family division
The Maiduan consists of 4 languages: #Maidu
The Maidu are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of northern California. They reside in the central Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada, in the watershed area of the Feather River, Feather and American River, American ...
''†'' (also known as Maidu proper, Northeastern Maidu, Mountain Maidu)
# Chico ''†'' (also known as Valley Maidu)
# Konkow
The Maidu are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of northern California. They reside in the central Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada, in the watershed area of the Feather River, Feather and American River, American ...
(also known as Northwestern Maidu)
# Nisenan ''†'' (also known as Southern Maidu)
The languages have similar sound systems
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...
but differ significantly in terms of grammar. They are not mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...
, even though many works often refer to all of the speakers of these languages as ''Maidu''. The Chico dialects are little known due to scanty documentation, so their precise genetic relationship to the other languages probably cannot be determined (Mithun 1999), and in any case may have been not a fourth Maiduan language, but widely divergent dialects of Konkow (Ultan 1967).
Three of the languages went extinct
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
by approximately the year 2000. Konkow was reported to have 3 elderly speakers in 2007.
Genetic relations
Maiduan is often considered in variousPenutian
Penutian is a proposed grouping of language families that includes many Native American languages of western North America, predominantly spoken at one time in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California. The existence of a Penutian s ...
phylum proposals. It was one of the original members of California Penutian (the Penutian "core").
See also
*Maidu
The Maidu are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of northern California. They reside in the central Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada, in the watershed area of the Feather River, Feather and American River, American ...
References
Bibliography
* Callaghan, Catherine A. (1997). "Evidence for Yok-Utian", ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', Vol. 63, No. 1 (Jan., 1997), pp. 18–64. * Heizer, Robert F. (1966). ''Languages, territories, and names of California Indian tribes''. University of California Press. * Mithun, Marianne. (1999). ''The languages of Native North America''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (hbk); . * Shipley, William. (1961). "Maidu and Nisenan: A Binary Survey", ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', Vol. 27, No. 1 (Jan., 1961), pp. 46–51. * Ultan, Russell. (1964). "Proto-Maidun phonology," ''International Journal of American Linguistics'', Vol. 30, No. 4 (Oct., 1964) pp. 355-370. * Ultan, Russell. (1967)"Konkow Grammar,"
unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California at Berkeley
External links
Maidu, An Illustrative Sketch
{{- *Language Indigenous languages of California Penutian languages Language families