Extinct Plateau Penutian language of US
Klamath
(
),
[3]
also
Klamath?Modoc
(
) and historically
Lutuamian
(
), is a
Native American language
spoken around
Klamath Lake
in what is now southern
Oregon
and northern
California
. It is the traditional language of the
Klamath
and
Modoc
peoples, each of whom spoke a dialect of the language. By 1998, only one native speaker remained,
and by 2003, this last fluent Klamath speaker who was living in
Chiloquin, Oregon
, was 92 years old.
[6]
As of 2006 there were no fluent native speakers of either the Klamath or Modoc dialects;
however, as of 2019, revitalization efforts are underway with the goal of creating new speakers.
Klamath is a member of the
Plateau Penutian
language family
, which is in turn a branch of the proposed
Penutian
language family. Like other proposed Penutian languages, Plateau Penutian languages are rich in
ablaut
, much like
Indo-European
and
Afro-Asiatic
languages. Further evidence for this classification includes some consonant correspondences between Klamath and other alleged Penutian languages. For example, the Proto-
Yokuts
retroflexes
*/?
??/
correspond to Klamath
/t?
t??/
, and the Proto-Yokuts
dentals
*/t?
t??
t??/
correspond to the Klamath
alveolars
/t
t?
t?/
.
Phonology
[
edit
]
Vowels
[
edit
]
Consonants
[
edit
]
Klamath alphabet
[9]
Spelling
|
a
|
aa
|
b
|
c
|
c?
|
d
|
e
|
ee
|
g
|
?
|
h
|
i
|
ii
|
j
|
k
|
k?
|
l
|
L
|
l?
|
m
|
M
|
m?
|
n
|
N
|
n?
|
o
|
oo
|
p
|
p?
|
q
|
q?
|
s
|
s?
|
t
|
t’
|
w
|
W
|
w’
|
y
|
Y
|
y?
|
?
|
Phoneme
|
?
|
?ː
|
p
|
t??
|
t??
|
t
|
?
|
æː
|
k
|
q
|
h
|
?
|
iː
|
t?
|
k?
|
k?
|
l
|
l?
|
l?
|
m
|
m?
|
m?
|
n
|
n?
|
n?
|
?
|
oː
|
p?
|
p?
|
q?
|
q?
|
s
|
s?
|
t?
|
t’
|
w
|
w?
|
w?
|
j
|
??
|
j?
|
?
|
Plosives
in Klamath, aside from /?/, come in triplets of
unaspirated
, aspirated, and
ejective
sounds.
Sonorant
triplets are
voiced
, voiceless, and glottalized sounds.
Most consonants can be
geminated
. The fricative
/s/
is an exception, and there is evidence suggesting this is a consequence of a recent
sound change
.
Albert Samuel Gatschet
recorded geminated
/sː/
in the late 19th century, but this sound was consistently recorded as degeminated
/s/
by
M. A. R. Barker
in the 1960s. Sometime after Gatschet recorded the language and before Barker did the same,
*/sː/
may have degeminated into
/s/
.
Syntax
[
edit
]
Klamath word order is conditioned by pragmatics. There is no clearly defined verb phrase or noun phrase. Alignment is nominative?accusative, with nominal case marking also distinguishing adjectives from nouns. Many verbs obligatorily classify an absolutive case. There are directive and
applicative
constructions.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- Barker, M. A. R.
(1963a).
Klamath Texts
. University of California Publications in Linguistics. Vol. 30. University of California Press.
- Barker, M. A. R.
(1963b).
Klamath Dictionary
. University of California Publications in Linguistics. Vol. 31. University of California Press.
- Barker, M. A. R.
(1964).
Klamath Grammar
. University of California Publications in Linguistics. Vol. 32. University of California Press.
- Barker, Philip. (1959). The Klamath language. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley
- Blevins, Juliette
(July 1993). "Klamath Laryngeal Phonology".
International Journal of American Linguistics
.
59
(3): 237?279.
JSTOR
1265523
.
- Blevins, Juliette
(July 2004).
"Klamath Sibilant Degemination: Implications of a Recent Sound Change"
.
International Journal of American Linguistics
.
70
(3). The University of Chicago Press: 279?289.
doi
:
10.1086/425602
.
- Chen, David W. (April 5, 1998).
"BLACKBOARD: LOST LANGUAGES; Kuskokwim Not Spoken Here"
.
New York Times
. Archived from
the original
on Jan 13, 2014.
- de Angulo, Jaime
(1931).
The Lutuami language (Klamath-Modoc)
. Societe des Americanistes.
OCLC
27210767
.
- Dupris, Joseph (2019). "maqlaqsyalank hemyeega: Goals and expectations of Klamath-Modoc revitalization".
Language Documentation & Conservation
.
13
: 155?196.
hdl
:
10125/24851
.
ISSN
1934-5275
.
- Golla, Victor
(2011).
California Indian Languages
. Berkeley/Los Angeles, California: University of California Press.
ISBN
9780520266674
.
- Mauldin, William S. (April 17, 1998).
"Yale linguists part of effort to save dying languages"
.
The Yale Herald
. Archived from
the original
on Dec 3, 2008.
- Rude, Noel (1987).
"Some Sahaptian-Klamath grammatical correspondences"
.
Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics
.
12
: 67?83.
doi
:
10.17161/KWPL.1808.511
.
- Rude, Noel (1988).
"Semantic and pragmatic objects in Klamath"
. In William Shipley (ed.).
In Honor of Mary Haas: From the Haas Festival Conference on Native American Linguistics
. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 651?73.
- Rude, Noel (1991). "Verbs to promotional suffixes in Sahaptian and Klamath". In Elizabeth C. Traugott; Bernd Heine (eds.).
Approaches to Grammaticalization
. Typological Studies in Language. Vol. 19. New York and Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 185?199.
doi
:
10.1075/tsl.19.2.10rud
.
Online texts
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
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