Shoshoni, also written as Shoshoni-Gosiute and Shoshone (; Shoshoni: soni''
' ta̲i̲kwappe'', ''newe ta̲i̲kwappe'' or ''neme ta̲i̲kwappeh'') is a
Numic
Numic is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native American peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin, Colorado River basin, Snake River basin, and southern Great Plains. The word Numic com ...
language of the
Uto-Aztecan family, spoken in the
Western United States
The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...
by the
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions:
* Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming
* Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho
* Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah
* Goshute: western Utah, easter ...
people. Shoshoni is primarily spoken in the
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 areas of
Wyoming
Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...
,
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 ...
,
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
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...
.
The consonant inventory of Shoshoni is rather small, but a much wider range of surface forms of these phonemes appear in the spoken language. The language has six vowels, distinguished by length.
Shoshoni is a strongly suffixing language, and it inflects for nominal number and case and for verbal aspect and tense using suffixes. Word order is relatively free but shows a preference toward SXV order.
The endonyms ''newe ta̲i̲kwappe'' and ''Sosoni' ta̲i̲kwappe'' mean "the people's language" and "the Shoshoni language," respectively.
Shoshoni is classified as threatened, although attempts at revitalization are underway.
Classification and dialects
Shoshoni is the northernmost member of the large
Uto-Aztecan language
Uto-Aztecan, Uto-Aztekan or (rarely in English) Uto-Nahuatl is a family of indigenous languages of the Americas, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The n ...
family, which includes nearly sixty living languages, spoken in the Western United States down through
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
and into
El Salvador
El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...
. Shoshoni belongs to the
Numic
Numic is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native American peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin, Colorado River basin, Snake River basin, and southern Great Plains. The word Numic com ...
subbranch of Uto-Aztecan.
The word ''Numic'' comes from the cognate word in all Numic languages for "person". For example, in Shoshoni the word is ''neme'' or, depending on the dialect, ''newe'' , in Timbisha it is ''nümü'' , and in Southern Paiute, ''nuwuvi'' .
Shoshoni's closest relatives are the Central Numic languages
Timbisha
The Timbisha ("rock paint", Timbisha language: Nümü Tümpisattsi) are a Native American tribe federally recognized as the Death Valley Timbisha Shoshone Band of California. They are known as the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe and are located in sout ...
and
Comanche
The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ ( com, Nʉmʉnʉʉ, "the people") are a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in La ...
. Timbisha, or Panamint, is spoken in southeastern
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
by members of the
Timbisha Shoshone Tribe
The Timbisha ("rock paint", Timbisha language: Nümü Tümpisattsi) are a Native American tribe federally recognized as the Death Valley Timbisha Shoshone Band of California. They are known as the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe and are located in sout ...
, but it is considered a distinct language from Shoshoni. The
Comanche
The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ ( com, Nʉmʉnʉʉ, "the people") are a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in La ...
split from the Shoshone around 1700, and consonant changes over the past few centuries have limited mutual intelligibility of Comanche and Shoshoni.
Principal dialects of Shoshoni are Western Shoshoni in Nevada, Gosiute in western Utah, Northern Shoshoni in southern Idaho and northern Utah, and Eastern Shoshoni in Wyoming.
The main differences between these dialects are phonological.
Status
The number of people who speak Shoshoni has been steadily dwindling since the late 20th century. In the early 21st century, fluent speakers number only several hundred to a few thousand people, while an additional population of about 1,000 know the language to some degree but are not fluent.
The
Duck Valley and
Gosiute
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 ...
communities have established programs to teach the language to their children.
Ethnologue
''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...
lists Shoshoni as "threatened" as it notes that many of the speakers are 50 and older.
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
has classified the Shoshoni language as "severely endangered" in Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. The language is still being taught to children in a small number of isolated locations. The tribes have a strong interest in language revitalization, but efforts to preserve the language are scattered, with little coordination. However, literacy in Shoshoni is increasing. Shoshoni dictionaries have been published and portions of the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
were translated in 1986.
As of 2012,
Idaho State University
, mottoeng = "The truth will set you free"
, established =
, former_names = Academy of Idaho(1901–1915)Idaho Technical Institute(1915–1927)University of Idaho—Southern Branch(1927–1947)Idaho State ...
offers elementary, intermediate, and conversational Shoshoni language classes, in a 20-year project to preserve the language. Open-source Shosoni audio is available online to complement classroom instruction, as part of the university's long-standing Shoshoni Language Project.
The
Shoshone-Bannock Tribe teaches Shoshoni to its children and adults as part of its Language and Culture Preservation Program. On the
Wind River Reservation
The Wind River Indian Reservation, in the west-central portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming, is shared by two Native American tribes, the Eastern Shoshone ( shh, Gweechoon Deka, ''meaning: "buffalo eaters"'') and the Northern Arapaho ( arp, ho ...
in Wyoming, elders have been active in digital language archiving. Shoshoni is taught using Dr. Steven Greymorning's Accelerated Second Language Acquisition techniques.
A summer program known as the Shoshone/Goshute Youth Language Apprenticeship Program (SYLAP), held at the
University of Utah
The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...
's
Center for American Indian Languages
The Center for American Indian Languages (CAIL) was a research and outreach arm of the Department of Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, ...
since 2009, has been featured on
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
's ''
Weekend Edition
''Weekend Edition'' is a set of American radio news magazine programs produced and distributed by National Public Radio (NPR). It is the weekend counterpart to the NPR radio program ''Morning Edition''. It consists of ''Weekend Edition Saturday'' ...
.''
Shoshoni youth serve as interns, assisting with digitization of Shoshoni language recordings and documentation from the Wick R. Miller collection, in order to make the materials available for tribal members.
The program released the first Shoshone language
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
in August 2013.
In July 2012,
Blackfoot High School
Blackfoot High School is a four-year public secondary school located in Blackfoot, Idaho, the only traditional high school in the Blackfoot School District #55 in south central Bingham County.
History
Founded in the early 1890s, the current ...
in Southeastern Idaho announced it would offer Shoshoni language classes. The Chief Tahgee Elementary Academy, a Shoshone-Bannock charter school teaching English and Shoshoni, opened at
Fort Hall
Fort Hall was a fort in the western United States that was built in 1834 as a fur trading post by Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth. It was located on the Snake River in the eastern Oregon Country, now part of present-day Bannock County in southeastern Ida ...
in 2013.
Phonology
Vowels
Shoshoni has a typical
Numic
Numic is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native American peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin, Colorado River basin, Snake River basin, and southern Great Plains. The word Numic com ...
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
inventory of five vowels. In addition, there is the common
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
, which functions as a simple vowel and varies rather freely with ; however, certain
morphemes
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology.
In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone a ...
always contain and others always contain . All vowels occur as short or long, but / is rare.
Consonants
Shoshoni has a typical
Numic
Numic is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native American peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin, Colorado River basin, Snake River basin, and southern Great Plains. The word Numic com ...
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
inventory.
Syllable structure
Shoshoni syllables are of the form (C)V(V)(C). For instance: ''nɨkka'' "dance" (CVC CV), ''ɨkkoi'' "sleep" (VC CVV), and ''paa'' "water" (CVV). Shoshoni does not allow onset clusters.
Typical Shoshoni roots are of the form CV(V)CV(V). Examples include ''kasa'' "wing" and ''papi'' "older brother."
Stress
Stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
in Shoshoni is regular but not distinctive. Primary stress usually falls on the first
syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
(more specifically, the first
mora
Mora may refer to:
People
* Mora (surname)
Places Sweden
* Mora, Säter, Sweden
* Mora, Sweden, the seat of Mora Municipality
* Mora Municipality, Sweden
United States
* Mora, Louisiana, an unincorporated community
* Mora, Minnesota, a city
* M ...
) of a word; however, primary stress tends to fall on the second syllable if that syllable is long.
For instance, ''natsattamahkantɨn''
nazattamaxandɨ"tied up" bears primary stress on the first syllable; however, ''kottoohkwa'' "made a fire" bears primary stress on the second syllable, with long vowel , instead of the first syllable with short vowel .
As in other Numic languages, stress in Shoshoni is distributed based on mora-counting. Short Shoshoni vowels have one mora, while
long vowels
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
and vowel clusters ending in have two morae. Following the primary stress, every other mora receives secondary stress. If stress falls on the second mora in a long vowel, the stress is transferred to the first mora in the long vowel and mora counting continues from there. For example, ''natsattamahkantɨn'' "tied up" bears the stress pattern , with stress falling on every other mora.
With some dialectical variation, mora counting resets at the border between stems in compound words. Final syllables need not be stressed and may undergo optional final vowel devoicing.
Phonological processes
Given here are a few examples of regular, well-documented phonological rules in Shoshoni:
* Short, unclustered, unstressed vowels, when part of final syllables and followed by , are
devoiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
. These same vowels, when preceded by , are usually devoiced. These processes represent Shoshoni "organic devoicing." For instance, ''tɨkkahkwan'' → "ate up".
* Final vowels may be devoiced optionally, representing Shoshoni "inorganic devoicing." If the final vowel is devoiced, the long or short consonant preceding it is also devoiced. Thus, ''kammu'' → "jackrabbit".
* Stops, affricates, and nasals are voiced and
lenited
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
between vowels. The stops and affricate become voiced fricatives; the nasals become
nasalized
In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is .
In the Internationa ...
glides. Thus ''papi'' → "brother", ''tatsa'' → "summer," and ''imaa'' → "tomorrow".
* Stops, affricates, and nasals are lenited, but remain unvoiced, when they are preceded by underlying . This is deleted in the surface form. Thus, ''paikkahkwa'' → "killed".
* Stops, affricates, and nasals are voiced when part of an intervocalic nasal cluster. Thus, ''pampi'' → "head" and ''wantsi'' → "antelope".
Morphology
Shoshoni is a
synthetic,
agglutinative
In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative langu ...
language, in which words, especially verbs, tend to be complex with several
morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology.
In English, morphemes are ...
s strung together. Shoshoni is a primarily
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
ing language.
Nouns
Absolutive suffixes
Many nouns in Shoshoni have an absolutive suffix (unrelated to the
absolutive case
In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative ...
). The absolutive suffix is normally dropped when the noun is the first element in a compound, when the noun is followed by a suffix or postposition, or when the noun is incorporated into a verb. For instance, the independent noun ''sɨhɨpin'' "willow" has the absolutive suffix ''-pin''; the root loses this suffix in the form ''sɨhɨykwi'' "to gather willows". The correlation between any particular noun stem and which of the seven absolutive suffixes it has is irregular and unpredictable. The absolutive suffixes are as follows:
* ''-pin''
* ''-ppɨh''
* ''-ppɨ''
* ''-pittsih, -pittsɨh''
* ''-mpih''
* ''-pai''
* ''-ttsih''
Number and case
Shoshoni is a
nominative-accusative language. Shoshoni nouns inflect for three
cases (
subjective,
objective
Objective may refer to:
* Objective (optics), an element in a camera or microscope
* ''The Objective'', a 2008 science fiction horror film
* Objective pronoun, a personal pronoun that is used as a grammatical object
* Objective Productions, a Brit ...
, and
possessive
A possessive or ktetic form (abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict owne ...
) and for three
numbers
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
(singular, dual, and plural).
Number is marked by suffixes on all human nouns and optionally on other animate nouns. The regular suffixes for number are listed in the table below. The Shoshoni singular is unmarked.
Case is also marked by suffixes, which vary depending on the noun. Subjective case is unmarked. Many nouns also have a zero objective case marker; other possible objective markers are ''-tta'', ''-a'', and ''-i''. These suffixes correspond with the possessive case markers ''-n'', ''-ttan'' or ''-n'', ''-an'', or ''-n'' (in Western Shoshoni; this last suffix also appears as ''-an'' in Gosiute and is replaced by ''-in'' in Northern Shoshoni). These case markers can be predicted only to a degree based on phonology of the noun stem.
Derivational morphology
Nominal derivational morphology is also often achieved through suffixing. For instance, the instrumental suffix ''-(n)nompɨh'' is used with verb stems to form nouns used for the purpose of the verb: ''katɨnnompɨh'' "chair" is derived from ''katɨ'' "sit"; ''puinompɨh'' "binoculars" is derived from ''pui'' "see".
The characterization suffix ''-kantɨn'' be used with a root noun to derive a noun characterized by the root: ''hupiakantɨn'' "singer" is derived from ''hupia'' "song"; ''puhakantɨn'' "shaman" is derived from ''puha'' "power", as one characterized by power.
Verbs
Number
Shoshoni verbs may mark for number, mainly through
reduplication
In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.
The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwa ...
or
suppletion. The dual is commonly marked through reduplication of the first syllable of the verb stem, so that singular ''kimma'' "come" becomes ''kikimma'' in the dual (and remains ''kima'' in the plural). A suppletive form is often used for the dual or plural forms of the verb; for instance, singular ''yaa'' "carry" becomes ''hima'' in both the dual and plural. Suppletion and reduplication frequently work in tandem to express number: singular ''nukki'' "run" becomes the reduplicated ''nunukki'' in the dual and the suppleted ''nutaa'' in the plural; singular ''yɨtsɨ'' "fly" is reduplicated, suppleted dual ''yoyoti'' and suppleted plural ''yoti''.
Instrumental prefixes
Shoshoni uses prefixes to add a specific instrumental element to a verb. For instance, the instrumental prefix ''to"-'' "with the hand or fist" can be used with the verb ''tsima'' "scrape" to yield ''tottsima'' "wipe," as in ''pɨn puihkatti tottsimma yakaitɨn'' "he wiped at his eyes, crying".
Common instrumental prefixes include:
* ''kɨ"-'' "with the teeth or mouth"
* ''ku"-'' "by heat"
* ''ma-'' "with a non-grasping hand"
* ''mu"-'' "with the nose or front of body"
* ''ni"-'' "with the voice"
* ''pi"-'' "with the buttocks or back of body"
* ''sɨ"-'' "by cold"
* ''sun-'' "with the mind"
* ''ta"-'' "with the feet"
* ''ta"-'' "with a hard instrument or rock"
* ''to"- "''with the hand or fist"
* ''tsa"-'' "with a grasping hand"
* ''tsi"-'' "with a sharp point"
* ''tso"-'' "with the head"
* ''wɨ"-'' "with a long instrument or body"; generic instrumental
Syntax
Word order
Subject-object-verb (SOV) is the typical word order for Shoshoni.
In
ditransitive
In grammar, a ditransitive (or bitransitive) verb is a transitive verb whose contextual use corresponds to a subject and two objects which refer to a theme and a recipient. According to certain linguistics considerations, these objects may be ca ...
sentences, the
direct
Direct may refer to:
Mathematics
* Directed set, in order theory
* Direct limit of (pre), sheaves
* Direct sum of modules, a construction in abstract algebra which combines several vector spaces
Computing
* Direct access (disambiguation), a ...
and
indirect object
In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
are marked with the objective case. The indirect object can occur before the direct object, or vice versa. For example, in ''nɨ tsuhnippɨha satiia uttuhkwa'' "I gave the bone to the dog", ''tsuhnippɨh'' "bone" and ''satii'' "dog" take the objective case suffix ''-a''.
The
subject is not a mandatory component of a grammatical Shoshoni sentence. Therefore, impersonal sentences without subjects are allowed; those sentences have an object-verb word order.
In particular, it is common for the subject to be deleted when a
coreferential pronoun appears elsewhere in the sentence. For example, ''pɨnnan haintsɨha kai paikkawaihtɨn'' "he won't kill his (own) friend" uses the coreferential possessive pronoun ''pɨnnan'' and lacks a word for "he" as an explicit subject.
Likewise, the subject can be deleted from the sentence when the subject can be inferred from context. For example, in a narrative about one man who shoots another, ''u paikkahkwa'' "he killed him" (literally, "him killed") is acceptable, because the killer is clear from the context of the narrative.
State-of-being sentences express “be” by excluding an overt verb, resulting in a basic subject-object order.
Sentence meaning is not dependent on word order in Shoshoni.
For example, if the subject is an unstressed pronoun then it is grammatical for the subject to follow the object of the sentence.
Constituent order
The basic order of constituent morphemes in Shoshoni verbs is as follows:
(Valence) - (Instrumental) - Stem - (Causative/Benefactive) - (Secondary Verb) - (Directional) - (Prefinal Aspect) - (Aspect) - (Imperative) - (Number) - (Subordination)
Any verb form must include a verb stem, but other prefixes and suffixes may not be present, depending on the particular verb form.
Subordination
Relative clauses
Relative clauses tend to share the same head noun as the main clause, and the case of this noun must agree in both clauses. When the subject of the relative clause matches the subject of the main clause, the verb of the relative clause takes on the same-subject subordination suffix ''-tɨn'' or ''-h/kkantɨn'', depending on whether the events of the clauses occur simultaneously or not. These suffixes agree with the head noun of the main clause in both case and number.
For example, ''wa'ippɨ yakaitɨn pitɨnuh'' "the woman who was crying arrived," where the subject ''wa'ippɨ'' "woman" is the same for both clauses and ''yakai-'' "cry" in the relative clause takes the suffix ''-tɨn''.
However, when the subject of the relative clause is not the head noun of the main clause, the subject of the relative clause takes the possessive case and a different set of verbal suffixes are used; the head noun may be deleted from the relative clause altogether. These different-subject subordinate suffixes also mark verb tense and aspect: in the nominative case, they are -''na'' if present'', -h/kkan'' if stative, -''h/kkwan'' if momentaneous, -''ppɨh'' if perfect, ''-tu'ih'' if future, and -ih if unmarked.
The subject "we" of the relative clause appears as the possessive pronoun ''nɨhɨn'' "our," and ''tɨkka-'' "eat" takes the suffix ''-nna'' to indicate the present action of eating.
Switch reference
Shoshoni exhibits
switch reference
In linguistics, switch-reference (SR) describes any clause-level morpheme that signals whether certain prominent arguments in 'adjacent' clauses are coreferential. In most cases, it marks whether the subject of the verb in one clause is corefe ...
, in which a non-relative, subordinate clause is marked when its subject is a pronoun that differs from the subject of the main clause. In such subordinate clauses, the subject takes the objective case and the verb takes on a switch reference suffix: -''ku'' if the events of both clauses occur simultaneously, -''h/kkan'' if the events of the subordinate clause occur first, or the combined -''h/kkanku'' if the events of the subordinate clause occur over an extended amount of time.
For example, ''sunni naaku wihyu nɨnɨttsi utɨɨkatti tattɨkwa'' "when that happened, something scary came to them." In the relative clause ''sunni naaku'' "when that happened", the verb ''naa-'' "be" or "happen" takes on the suffix ''-ku'' to indicate that the relative and main clauses co-occur in the narrative.
Writing system
Shoshoni lacks a single agreed-upon writing system. Multiple orthographies exist, with differing levels of acceptance among Shoshoni speakers. Among the Shoshone, there are conflicting views on whether Shoshoni should be written at all.
Traditionalists advocate to keep Shoshoni an oral language, better protected from outsiders who might exploit the language. Meanwhile, progressives argue that writing the language down will better preserve it and make it useful today.
The older Crum-Miller system and the Idaho State University system (or Gould system) are the two main Shoshoni writing systems in use.
The Crum-Miller orthography was developed in the 1960s by Beverly Crum, a Shoshone elder and linguist, and
Wick Miller, a non-Native anthropologist and linguist. The system is largely phonemic, with specific symbols mapping to specific
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s, which reflects the underlying sounds but not necessarily surface pronunciations.
The newer Idaho State system was developed by the Shoshone elder Drusilla Gould and the non-Native linguist Christopher Loether and is used more commonly in southern Idaho.
Compared to the Crum-Miller system, the Idaho State system is more phonetic, with spellings more closely reflecting the surface pronunciations of words, but it lacks the deeper phonemic information that the Crum-Miller system provides.
Online Shoshoni dictionaries are available for everyday use.
See also
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Shoshone people
The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Tribe (Native American), Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions:
* Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming
* Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho
* Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah
* Goshu ...
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Shoshonean languages
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Timbisha language
Timbisha (''Tümpisa'') or Panamint (also called Koso) is the language of the Native American people who have inhabited the region in and around Death Valley, California, and the southern Owens Valley since late prehistoric times. There are a fe ...
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Comanche language
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Sacagawea
Sacagawea ( or ; also spelled Sakakawea or Sacajawea; May – December 20, 1812 or April 9, 1884)[Sacagawea]
...
, the Shoshone woman who translated for Lewis and Clark
References
External links
Shoshoni Language Project- Project for Shoshoni language revitalization at the University of Utah
The Enee Game- Shoshone language video game
Shoshoni Swadesh vocabulary list(Wiktionary)
Portions of the Book of Common Prayer in ShoshoniTranslated by Charles Lajoe and the Reverend John Roberts (Wind River Reservation, Wyoming: no publisher, 1899) digitized by Richard Mammana
Open source audio for introductory Shoshoni course (via links to iTunesU)
Shoshoni Online DictionaryOLAC resources in and about the Shoshoni languageShoshoni language program at Idaho State University
{{Languages of Nevada
Shoshone
Agglutinative languages
Numic languages
Native American language revitalization
Indigenous languages of the Southwestern United States
Indigenous languages of the North American Southwest
Indigenous languages of the North American Great Basin
Indigenous languages of Idaho
Indigenous languages of Nevada