Yokuts, formerly known as Mariposa, is an

endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead lang ...

spoken in the interior of Northern and Central

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 ...

in and around the

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven ...

by the Yokuts people. The speakers of Yokuts were severely affected by disease, missionaries, and the

Gold Rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New ...

. While descendants of Yokuts speakers currently number in the thousands, most of the constituent dialects are now extinct. Yokuts detailed map

The

Yawelmani dialect Yawelmani Yokuts (also spelled Yowlumne and Yauelmani) is an endangered dialect of Southern Valley Yokuts historically spoken by the Yokuts living along the Kern River north of Kern Lake in the Central Valley of California. Today, most Yawelman ...

of Valley Yokuts has been a focus of much linguistic research.

Dialects

The Yokuts language consists of half a dozen primary dialects. An estimated forty linguistically distinct groups existed before Euro-American contact. The following classification appears in Whistler & Golla (1986). Poso Creek *

Palewyami Yokuts Palewyami, also known as Altinin and Poso Creek Yokuts, was a Yokuts dialect of California. Palewyami was spoken in Kern County, along Poso Creek. The language has not been spoken since the 1930s. References Sources * Gamble, Geoffrey, ''Yo ...

(also known as Poso Creek, Altinin) General Yokuts (all others) *

Buena Vista Buena Vista, meaning "good view" in Spanish, may refer to: Places Canada *Bonavista, Newfoundland and Labrador, with the name being originally derived from “Buena Vista” *Buena Vista, Saskatchewan * Buena Vista, Saskatoon, a neighborhood in ...

:: Tulamni :: Hometwali * Nim :* Tule–Kaweah :: Wukchumni :: Yawdanchi (also known as Nutaa) :: Bokninuwad Yokutsan lang tree

:*Northern Yokuts ::* Gashowu ::* Kings River :::Chukaymina (also spelled Chukaimina) ::: Michahay ::: Ayitcha (also known as Aiticha, Kocheyali) ::: Choynimni (also spelled Choinimni) ::* Valley Yokuts (see)

Speakers and language revitalization

Most Yokuts dialects are extinct, as noted above. Those that are still spoken are endangered. Until recent years,

Choinimni Choynimni (also spelled Choinumne) is a dialect of Kings River Yokuts historically spoken along the Kings River between Sanger and Mill Creek (near Piedra). The language is the best documented dialect of Kings River Yokuts. Information on the ...

Wikchamni Wukchumni or Wikchamni is a dialect of Tule-Kaweah Yokuts that was historically spoken by the Wukchumni people of the east fork of the Kaweah River of California. As of 2014, Marie Wilcox (1933–2021) was the last remaining native speaker of t ...

, Chukchansi, Kechayi,

Tachi A is a type of traditionally made Japanese sword (''nihonto'') worn by the samurai class of feudal Japan. ''Tachi'' and ''katana'' generally differ in length, degree of curvature, and how they were worn when sheathed, the latter depending on t ...

and

Yawelmani Yawelmani Yokuts (also spelled Yowlumne and Yauelmani) is an endangered dialect of Southern Valley Yokuts historically spoken by the Yokuts living along the Kern River north of Kern Lake in the Central Valley of California. Today, most Yawelma ...

all had a few fluent speakers and a variable number of partial speakers. Choynimni went extinct in 2017. Wikchamni, Chukchansi, Tachi, and Yawelmani were being taught to at least a few children during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Chukchansi is now a written language, with its own alphabet developed on a federal grant. Chukchansi also has a phrase book and dictionary that are partially completed. In May 2012, the Linguistics Department of Fresno State University received a $1 million grant to compile a Chuckchansi dictionary and grammar texts, and to "provide support for scholarships, programs, and efforts to assemble native texts and create a curriculum for teaching the language so it can be brought back into social and ritual use."

Genetic relations

Yokutsan is a key member in the proposed

Penutian 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 ...

language stock. Some linguists consider most relationships within Penutian to be undemonstrated (cf. Campbell 1997). Others consider a genetic relationship between Yokuts, Utian, Maiduan, Wintuan, and a number of Oregon languages to be definite (cf. DeLancey and Golla 1997). Regardless of higher-order disagreement, Callaghan (1997) provides strong evidence uniting Yokuts and the

Utian languages Utian (also Miwok–Costanoan, previously Mutsun) is a family of indigenous languages spoken in Northern California, United States. The Miwok and Ohlone peoples both spoke languages of the Utian language family. It has recently been argued that ...

as branches of a '' Yok-Utian'' language family. The term "Delta Yokuts" has recently been introduced in lieu of the longer "Far Northern Valley Yokuts" for the dialect spoken by the people in the present Stockton and Modesto vicinities of San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties, California, prior to their removal to Mission San Jose between 1810 and 1827. Of interest, Delta Yokuts contains a large number of words with no cognates in any of the other dialects, or for that matter in the adjacent Utian languages, although its syntax is typically Northern Valley Yokuts (Kroeber 1959:15-17). This anomaly has led Whistler (cited by Golla 2007:76) to suggest, "The vocabulary distinctive of some of the Delta Yokuts dialects may reflect substratal influence from pre-proto-Yokuts or from an extinct Yok-Utian language." Golla (2007:77) suggests that a "pre-proto-Yokuts" homeland was in the Great Basin, citing a rich plant and animal vocabulary for a dry environment and a close connection between Yokuts basketry styles and those of prehistoric central Nevada.

Proto-language

Proto-Yokuts reconstructions from Whistler and Golla (1986): :

References

* * * Campbell, Lyle. (1997). ''American Indian Languages: The Historic Linguistics of Native America''. New York, Oxford University Press. * * * Golla, Victor. (1964). ''Comparative Yokuts Phonology''. University of California Publications in Linguistics (No. 34); Studies in Californian Linguistics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. * Golla, Victor. (2007). "Linguistic Prehistory" in ''California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity'', pp. 71–82. Jones, Terry L. and Klar, Kathryn A., editors. New York: Altamira Press. . * Golla, Victor. (2011). ''California Indian Languages.'' Berkeley: University of California Press. . * * Kroeber, A. L. (1959). Northern Yokuts. ''Anthropological Linguistics'' 1(8):1-19. Bloomington, Indiana. * Kroeber, A. L. (1963). Yokuts Dialect Survey. ''University of California Anthropological Records'' 11(3):177-251. Berkeley. * Mithun, Marianne. (1999). ''The Languages of Native North America''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (hbk); . * Newman, Stanley S. (1944). ''Yokuts Language of California''. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology No. 2. New York. * Newman, Stanley S. (1946). The Yawelmani Dialect of Yokuts. ''Linguistic Structures of Native America'', pp. 222–248, C. Osgood, ed., Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology No. 6. New York. * Powell, John Wesley Powell. (1891).
Indian Linguistic Families of America, North of Mexico
', Washington: Government Printing Office, pages 90–91. *

External links