Salinan was the indigenous language of the Salinan people of the central coast of

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 ...

. It has been extinct since the death of the last speaker in 1958. The language is attested to some extent in colonial sources such as Sitjar (1860), but the principal published documentation is

Mason Mason may refer to: Occupations * Mason, brick mason, or bricklayer, a craftsman who lays bricks to construct brickwork, or who lays any combination of stones, bricks, cinder blocks, or similar pieces * Stone mason, a craftsman in the stone-cut ...

(1918). The main modern grammatical study, based on Mason's data and on the field notes of

John Peabody Harrington John Peabody Harrington (April 29, 1884 – October 21, 1961) was an American linguist and ethnologist and a specialist in the indigenous peoples of California. Harrington is noted for the massive volume of his documentary output, most of which h ...

and William H. Jacobsen, is Turner (1987), which also contains a complete bibliography of the primary sources and discussion of their orthography. Two dialects are recognized, ''Antoniaño'' and ''Migueleño'', associated with the missions of San Antonio and San Miguel, respectively. Antoniaño is "sometimes also termed Sextapay, associated with the area of the Franciscan Mission of San Antonio de Padua in Monterey County." There may have been a third, ''Playano'' dialect, as suggested by mention of such a subdivision of the people, but nothing is known of them linguistically. Salinan may be a part of the

Hokan The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families that were spoken mainly in California, Arizona and Baja California. Etymology The name ''Hokan'' is loosely based on the word for "two" in the various Hokan ...

family.

Edward Sapir Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Sa ...

included it in a subfamily of Hokan, along with

Chumash Chumash may refer to: *Chumash (Judaism), a Hebrew word for the Pentateuch, used in Judaism *Chumash people, a Native American people of southern California *Chumashan languages, indigenous languages of California See also * Chumash traditional ...

and

Seri Seri or SERI may refer to: People *Jean Michaël Seri, an Ivorian professional footballer Places *Seri Yek-e Zarruk, Iran *Seri, Bheri, Nepal *Seri, Karnali, Nepal *Seri, Mahakali, Nepal *Seri, Raebareli, a village in Uttar Pradesh, India Oth ...

. This hypothetical classification (which has had many skeptics) found its way into several encyclopedias and presentations of language families before much supporting evidence for this subfamily had been presented, but is currently fairly well established.

Phonology

The charts of consonants and vowels in the Salinan language:

Consonants

Voiced plosives /b d ɡ/ likely came as a result of Spanish influence.

Vowels

Mid vowels occurred likely due to Spanish influence.

Vocabulary

Salinan plant and animal names from Mason (1918):University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 14.1-154.

Animals

Plants

Bibliography

* *University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 14.1-154. * Sitjar, Fr. Buenaventura (1861) ''Vocabulario de la lengua de los naturales de la mission de San Antonio, Alta California.'' Shea's Library of American Linguistics, 7. Reprinted 1970 at New York by AMS Press. *

References

External links

Salinan language
overview at 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 ...

''Antoniaño Salinan'' field recordings
collected by William H. Jacobsen, Jr. spoken by Elario Quintana and Dave Mora *
OLAC resources in and about the Salinan language
{{DEFAULTSORT:Salinan Language Hokan languages Indigenous languages of California Salinan people Extinct languages of North America Language isolates of North America Languages extinct in the 1950s hr:Salinan