From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Extinct language of US Pacific Northwest
Molala
is an extinct language once spoken by the
Molala
people of
Oregon
. Currently it is included among the
Plateau Penutian
language family
, with
Klamath
and
Sahaptin
being considered the closest related.
Dialects
[
edit
]
There were three known dialects:
- Northern Molala, spoken in the
Molalla River
watershed.
- Upper Santiam Molala, spoken along the upper
Santiam River
.
- Southern Molala, spoken along the headwaters of the
Umpqua
and
Rogue
rivers.
Waiilatpuan family
[
edit
]
The first written vocabulary of the Molala language was published by
Horatio Hale
in 1846. As a member of the
United States Exploring Expedition
, he had visited the
Pacific Northwest
in 1841. Missionary
Marcus Whitman
was credited for providing "much valuable information" about the
Cayuse people
and other natives nearby
Waiilatpu
.
Hale also recorded a
Cayuse language
vocabulary with Whitman's assistance. In his Waiilatpuan language family, Hale put Cayuse and Molala as the sole members.
In 1910 or 1911, Stephens Savage, a
Molala
speaker, had told
Leo Frachtenberg
that the following five words were identical in both Cayuse and Molala:
sorrel horse
|
qasqasi tasiwitkwi
|
spotted horse
|
yu?k tasiwitkwi
|
black horse
|
mukimuki tasiwitkwi
|
comb
|
ta?sps
|
spoon
|
?u?pinc
|
In 1929
Edward Sapir
grouped Cayuse with Molala as part of the
Waiilatpuan
branch of the
Plateau Penutian languages
.
Bruce Rigsby
reexamined the Cayuse-Molala lexical pairs provided by Hale and found only a tenth to be potentially related terms. Whitman was credited as the origin of the Waiilatpuan linguistic family. Upon his review of extant Molala and Cayuse linguistic data, Rigsby concluded "I do not see how the two languages could have possibly been mutually intelligible."
Phonology
[
edit
]
The phonology of the Molala language:
Consonants
[
edit
]
Vowels
[
edit
]
/i/ and /a/ can also shift to
[
?
]
.
Grammar
[
edit
]
Molala is a verb-heavy
polysynthetic language
.
Case
[
edit
]
Molala nouns have seven cases:
- nominative
- accusative
- genitive
- instrumental
- locative
- allative
- ablative
Orthography
[
edit
]
This is a (unofficial) Salish-Based Orthography for the Molala Language:
Molala Alphabet (unofficial)
a
|
aa
|
c
|
c?
|
e
|
f
|
h
|
i
|
ii
|
k
|
k?
|
k?
|
l
|
?
|
?
|
m
|
n
|
ŋ
|
p
|
p?
|
p?
|
q
|
q?
|
q?
|
s
|
t
|
t?
|
t?
|
u
|
uu
|
w
|
x
|
y
|
?
|
a
|
aː
|
ts
|
ts?
|
e~?
|
?
|
h
|
i
|
iː
|
k
|
k?
|
k’
|
l
|
?
|
t?
|
m
|
n
|
ŋ
|
p
|
p?
|
p’
|
q
|
q?
|
q’
|
s
|
t
|
t?
|
t’
|
u
|
uː
|
w
|
x
|
y
|
?
|
References
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Berman, Howard (1996).
"The Position of Molala in Plateau Penutian"
.
International Journal of American Linguistics
.
62
(1). Chicago:
University of Chicago Press
: 1?30.
doi
:
10.1086/466273
.
- Hale, Horatio
(1846).
Ethnography and Philology
. Philadelphia: C. Sherman.
- NLA (2005).
"Molale (Molalla)"
.
Native Languages of the Americas
.
Archived
from the original on 2023-01-22
. Retrieved
2024-02-17
.
- Pharris, Nicholas J. (2006).
Winuunsi Tm Talapaas: A Grammar of the Molalla Language
(PDF)
(PhD thesis). Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan
.
hdl
:
2027.42/125859
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on July 14, 2022.
- Rigsby, Bruce
(Spring 1969).
Sprague, Roderick
; Goss, James A. (eds.).
"The Waiilatpuan Problem: More on Cayuse-Molala Relatability"
.
Journal of Northwest Anthropology
.
3
(1): 68?146 – via
Google Books
.
- Sapir, Edward
(1929). "Central and South American Languages".
Encyclopedia Britannica
. Vol. 5 (14th ed.). pp. 138?141.
- Wurm, Stephen A.; Muhlhausler, Peter; Tryon, Darrell T. (1996).
Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas
.
ISBN
9783110134179
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
Italics
indicate extinct languages
|
Indigenous
| |
---|
Immigrant
| |
---|
|
|
---|
Language families
and isolates
|
|
---|
Proposed groupings
| |
---|
Lists
| |
---|