Patwin (Patween) is a critically endangered
Wintuan language of
Northern California
Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's List of counties in California, 58 counties. Northern Ca ...
. As of 2021, there was one documented first language speaker of Patwin.
[
] As of 2010, Patwin language classes were taught at the
Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation (formerly
Rumsey Rancheria) tribal school (Dubin 2010).
Patwin has two (excl. Southern Patwin) or three (incl. Southern Patwin) dialects: "River Patwin (or Valley Patwin) was traditionally spoken along the Sacramento River in Colusa County ... Hill Patwin, was spoken in the plains and foothills to the west."
became extinct shortly after contact. It is very poorly attested, and may be a separate Southern Wintuan language (Mithun 1999).
As of 2012, the Tewe Kewe Cultural Center of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation has "a California Indian Library Collection and an extensive Patwin language and history research section."
Phonemes
Consonants
Patwin has 25
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
phonemes.
In the table below, the
IPA form(s) of each consonant are given. This is followed by the form commonly used in Lawyer (2021)'s grammar, if this is different from the IPA form.
* /ʔ/ is a marginal phoneme, occurring exclusively at morpheme boundaries. Its distribution is not entirely predictable, however.
* Glottalized and aspirated consonants occur only syllable-initially.
* Some or all of the "alveolar" consonants (both central and lateral) would be more accurately described as being
retracted alveolar consonants.
Vowels
Patwin has 10 vowels:
* Patwin vowels have a simple length distinction (short vs. long).
* All vowels are voiced and oral.
Orthography
References
Further reading
*Dubin, Margaret. "'Pass me that squirrel, toss me my iPod': Language learning at the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation." News From Native California 23 (3), 2010.
* Lawyer, Lewis. 2015. "Patwin Phonemics, Phonetics, and Phonotactics". ''International Journal of American Linguistics''. 81 (2). 221–260
* Lawyer, Lewis. 2015. "A Description of the Patwin Language". Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Davis.
* Lawyer, Lewis. ''A Grammar of Patwin''. Bloomington:
University of Nebraska Press
The University of Nebraska Press (UNP) was founded in 1941 and is an academic publisher of scholarly and general-interest books. The press is under the auspices of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the main campus of the University of Ne ...
, 2021.
*Mithun, Marianne, ed. ''The Languages of Native North America''. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...
, 1999.
External links
Overviewat the
Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
The Survey of California and Other Indian Languages (originally the Survey of California Indian Languages) at the University of California at Berkeley documents, catalogs, and archives the indigenous languages of the Americas. The survey also hosts ...
California Language Archive: PatwinWorld Atlas of Language Structures: PatwinPatwin language bibliographyOLAC Patwin resources, on Wintu page
{{Penutian languages
Patwin
Wintuan languages
Indigenous languages of California
Endangered Indigenous languages of the Americas
Native American language revitalization