Coosan languages
Coosan () is a townland and suburb north of Athlone, County Westmeath in Ireland. Coosan, which is situated on the shores of Lough Ree, is surrounded by water on three sides and bordered by Athlone on the fourth.
Coosan attracts tourists over t ...
of Oregon, and the better documented. It was spoken north of the Miluk around the
Coos River
The Coos River flows for about into Coos Bay along the Pacific coast of southwest Oregon in the United States. Formed by the confluence of its major tributaries, the South Fork Coos River and the Millicoma River, it drains an important timber- ...
and
Coos Bay
Coos Bay (Hanis language, Coos language: Atsixiis or Hanisich) is an estuary where the Coos River enters the Pacific Ocean, the estuary is approximately 12 miles long and up to two miles wide. It is the largest estuary completely within Oregon sta ...
. was the Hanis name for themselves. The last speaker of Hanis was Martha Harney Johnson, who died in 1972. Another speaker was Annie Miner Peterson, who worked with linguist
Melville Jacobs
Melville Jacobs (July 3, 1902 – July 31, 1971) was an American anthropologist and folklorist known for his work preserving indigenous cultures and languages of the Pacific Northwest United States. Jacobs was a doctoral student of Franz Boas, a ...
to document the language.
As of 2007, classes in Hanis were offered by the
Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians
The Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians of Oregon are a federally recognized Native American tribe of Hanis Coos, Miluk Coos, Lower Umpqua (or Kuitsh), and Siuslaw people in Oregon. A book and CD, ''Hanis for Beginners'', were published in 2011, and a companion website is available for tribal members.
Phonology
Vowels may be long or short; there is also a short .
The series are optionally voiced. may be syllabic. Stress is phonemic.
Sounds may be heard as palatalized when before front vowels. may also have labialized equivalents as .
References
* Frachtenberg, Leo J. (1913). ''Coos texts''. California University contributions to anthropology (Vol. 1). New York: Columbia University Press. (Reprinted 1969 New York: AMS Press).
* Frachtenberg, Leo J. (1922). Coos: An illustrative sketch. In ''Handbook of American Indian languages'' (Vol. 2, pp. 297–299, 305). Bulletin, 40, pt. 2. Washington:Government Print Office (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology).
*Grant, Anthony. (1996). John Milhau's 1856 Hanis vocabularies: Coos dialectology and philology. In V. Golla (Ed.), ''Proceedings of the Hokan–Penutian workshop: University of Oregon, Eugene, July 1994 and University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, July 1995''. Survey of California and other Indian languages (No. 9). Berkeley, CA: Survey of California and Other Languages.
*Pierce, Joe E. 1971. Hanis (Coos) phonemics. Linguistics 75. 31–42.