The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families that were spoken mainly in

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 ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

and

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

Etymology

The name ''Hokan'' is loosely based on the word for "two" in the various Hokan languages: ''*xwak'' in Proto-Yuman, ''c-oocj'' (pronounced ) in

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, Indi ...

, ''ha'k'' in

Achumawi Achomawi (also Achumawi, Ajumawi and Ahjumawi), are the northerly nine (out of eleven) bands of the Pit River tribe of Palaihnihan Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans who live in what is now northeastern California in the Un ...

, etc.

History of the proposal

In the first half-century after the "Hokan hypothesis" was first proposed by Roland B. Dixon and Alfred L. Kroeber, and further elaborated by

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. Sap ...

, little additional evidence was found that these families were

related ''Related'' is an American comedy-drama television series that aired on The WB from October 5, 2005, to March 20, 2006. It revolves around the lives of four close-knit sisters of Italian descent, raised in Brooklyn and living in Manhattan. The ...

to each other. But since about 1950, increased efforts to document Hokan languages and to establish sound correspondences in proposed lexical resemblance sets have added weight to the Hokan hypothesis, leading to its acceptance by many specialists in the languages of California, Oregon, and

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Wit ...

. However, some skepticism remains among scholars. The

Yurumanguí language Yurumanguí is an extinct language that was spoken along the Yurumanguí River of Colombia. It is known only through a short list of words and phrases recorded by Father Christoval Romero and given by him to Captain Sebastián Lanchas de Estrad ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the ...

was claimed to be Hokan by Rivet. This claim has not been accepted by historical linguists. Terrence Kaufman wondered if Hokan might be related to Oto-Mangean. An automated computational analysis ( ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013)Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013.
ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013)
'. found lexical similarities among

, Yuman and Tequistlatecan. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing or genetic inheritance.

Distribution

The geographic distribution of the Hokan languages suggests that they became separated around the

Central Valley of California The Central Valley is a broad, elongated, flat valley that dominates the interior of California. It is wide and runs approximately from north-northwest to south-southeast, inland from and parallel to the Pacific coast of the state. It cov ...

by the influx of later-arriving

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 ...

and other peoples; archaeological evidence for this is summarized in Chase-Dunn & Mann (1998). These languages are spoken by Native American communities around and east of

Mount Shasta Mount Shasta ( Shasta: ''Waka-nunee-Tuki-wuki''; Karuk: ''Úytaahkoo'') is a potentially active volcano at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California. At an elevation of , it is the second-highest peak in the Cascad ...

, others near

Lake Tahoe Lake Tahoe (; was, Dáʔaw, meaning "the lake") is a freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the United States. Lying at , it straddles the state line between California and Nevada, west of Carson City. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake i ...

, the

Pomo The Pomo are an Indigenous people of California. Historical Pomo territory in Northern California was large, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake, and mainly between Cleone and Duncans Point. One small ...

on the California coast, and the Yuman peoples along the lower

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...

. Some linguists also include

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 n ...

, between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and other families, but the evidence is insubstantial, and most now restrict Hokan to some or all of the languages listed below.

Languages

The Hokan languages retained by Kaufman (1988) due to regular sound correspondences and common core vocabulary are as follows. (The data on which these conclusions were drawn have not been published or evaluated by anyone else.) Apart from Shasta–Palaihnihan and Yuman, all branches are single languages or shallow families. * Chimariko * Yana/Yahi *

Karuk The Karuk people are an indigenous people of California, and the Karuk Tribe is one of the largest tribes in California. Karuks are also enrolled in two other federally recognized tribes, the Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad ...

* Shasta–Palaihnihan ** Shastan (4) **

Palaihnihan Palaihnihan (also Palaihnih) is a language family of northeastern California. It consists of two closely related languages, both now extinct: # Atsugewi ''(†)'' # Achumawi ''(†)'' (ís siwa wó disi, also known as Achomawi, Pit River India ...

(2) * Pomoan (7) * Washo *

Esselen The Esselen are a Native American people belonging to a linguistic group in the hypothetical Hokan language family, who are indigenous to the Santa Lucia Mountains of a region south of the Big Sur River in Big Sur, Monterey County, Califor ...

Salinan The Salinan are a Native American tribe whose ancestral territory is in the southern Salinas Valley and the Santa Lucia Range in the Central Coast of California. Today, the Salinan governments are now working toward federal tribal recognition ...

* Yuman (12) *

Coahuilteco Coahuilteco was one of the Pakawan languages that was spoken in southern Texas (United States) and northeastern Coahuila (Mexico). It is now extinct. Classification Coahuilteco was grouped in an eponymous Coahuiltecan family by John Wesley Powe ...

* Comecrudan (3) * Tequistlatecan (3) * Jicaquean (Tolan, 2) Marlett (2008) reevaluated the evidence and concluded that the evidence for Seri and Salinan has not been systematically or convincingly presented. The inclusion of the Tequistlatecan languages has also not received much support. The Chumash languages were once included, but that position has been almost universally abandoned.

Zhivlov (2013)

A lexicostatistical classification of the Hokan languages by Zhivlov (2013) is roughly presented as follows. *Northern: Chimariko,

, Shasta,

*Southern ** Pomoan,

** Yana,

, Tequistlatecan (Chontal), Yuman Zhivlov (2013) does not consider Jicaquean (Tol) and Washo to be Hokan languages.

Vocabulary

Some Hokan lexical correspondences from Mary R. Haas (1963) are provided below. : Similar forms for 'tongue' include: *

''elʔew'', ''elew'' < *ipariwa * Washo ''alŋ'' < *ipariwa *

''épal'', ''ipaL'' < *ipari *

''apɬ'' < *ipari * Chontal ''pala'', ''peɬ''- < *ipari

Similarties with Uto-Aztecan

Shaul (2019) notes the following similarities between Proto-Hokan (based on Kaufman 2015Kaufman, Terrence. 2015.
A research program for reconstructing proto-Hokan: first gropings
'

) and

Proto-Uto-Aztecan Proto-Uto-Aztecan is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Uto-Aztecan languages. Authorities on the history of the language group have usually placed the Proto-Uto-Aztecan homeland in the border region between the United States and Mexico, na ...

. :

References

Sources

* * * * Golla, Victor. (2011). ''California Indian Languages''. Berkeley: University of California Press. . *Kaufman, Terrence. 1988. "A Research Program for Reconstructing Proto-Hokan: First Gropings." In Scott DeLancey, ed. ''Papers from the 1988 Hokan–Penutian Languages Workshop'', pp. 50–168. Eugene, Oregon: Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon. (University of Oregon Papers in Linguistics. Publications of the Center for Amerindian Linguistics and Ethnography 1.) *Kaufman, Terrence. 2015a.
A research program for reconstructing proto-Hokan: first gropings
'

*Kaufman, Terrence. 2015b.
Some hypotheses regarding proto-Hokan grammar
'

*Marlett, Stephen A. 2007. Las relaciones entre las lenguas “hokanas” en México: ¿Cuál es la evidencia?. In Cristina Buenrostro & others (eds.), Memorias del III Coloquio Internacional de Lingüística Mauricio Swadesh, 165-192. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México & Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas. *Marlett, Stephen A (2008)
The Seri and Salinan connection revisited.
''International Journal of American Linguistics'' 74.3: 393–99. * *Zhivlov, Mikhail. 2013.
The Hokan family and lexicostatistics
'. Comparative-Historical Linguistics of the XXIst Century: Issues and Perspectives. Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies, Russian State University for the Humanities. Moscow, March 20-22, 2013.

External links

* (

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

Las relaciones entre las lenguas “hokanas” en México: ¿Cuál es la evidencia?
(prepublication version)

{{North American languages Indigenous languages of California Indigenous languages of Mexico Indigenous languages of the North American Great Basin Indigenous languages of the North American Southwest Indigenous languages of the Southwestern United States Mesoamerican languages Indigenous languages of North America Proposed language families