Endangered Uto-Aztecan language of California
Timbisha
(
Tumpisa
) or
Panamint
(also called
Koso
) is the language of the
Native American
people who have inhabited the region in and around
Death Valley
, California, and the southern
Owens Valley
since late prehistoric times. There are a few elderly individuals who can speak the language in
California
and
Nevada
, but none are monolingual, and all use
English
regularly in their daily lives. Until the late 20th century, the people called themselves and their language "Shoshone." The tribe then achieved federal recognition under the name
Death Valley Timbisha Shoshone Band of California
. This is an Anglicized spelling of the native name of
Death Valley
,
tumpisa
, pronounced
[t?mbi?a]
, which means "rock paint" and refers to the rich sources of
red ochre
in the valley. Timbisha is also the language of the so-called "Shoshone" groups at
Bishop
,
Big Pine
,
Darwin
,
Independence
, and
Lone Pine
communities in California and the
Beatty
community in Nevada. It was also the language spoken at the former Indian Ranch reservation in Panamint Valley.
Classification
[
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]
Timbisha is one of the
Central Numic
languages of the
Numic
branch of
Uto-Aztecan
. It is most closely related to
Shoshoni
and
Comanche
.
Geographic distribution
[
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]
Timbisha was formerly spoken in the region between the
Sierra Nevada
mountains of eastern
California
and the region just to the east of
Death Valley
in
Nevada
. Principal valleys where villages were located were (from west to east)
Owens Valley
,
Indian Wells Valley
,
Saline Valley
,
Panamint Valley
, and
Death Valley
. In addition, there were villages along the southern slopes of the
Kawich Range
in Nevada.
Dialects
[
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]
Each valley had its own variety of Timbisha with mostly
lexical
differences between them. There was, however, a general loss of
h
as one moved west across Timbisha territory with
h
virtually gone in
Owens Valley
varieties. McLaughlin's grammar is based on the far eastern variety from
Beatty, Nevada
,
[2]
while Dayley's is based on a central variety from
Death Valley
.
[3]
Phonology
[
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]
Vowels
[
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]
Timbisha also has a typical
Numic
vowel
inventory of five vowels. In addition, there is the common
diphthong
ai
, which varies rather freely with
e
, although certain
morphemes
always contain
ai
and others always contain
e
. (The official orthography is shown in parentheses.)
Consonants
[
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]
Timbisha has a typical
Numic
consonant inventory. (The official orthography is shown in parentheses.):
Phonotactics
[
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]
Timbisha stops (including the affricate) and nasals are voiced and lenited between vowels, are voiced in nasal-stop clusters, and are lenited (but not voiced) following
h
.
Voiceless vowels
are less common in Timbisha than in
Shoshoni
and
Comanche
.
Writing system
[
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]
Timbisha spelling is based on Dayley
[3]
[4]
and uses the Roman alphabet.
U
is used for
?
and
ng
for
ŋ
.
Grammar
[
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]
Study of Timbisha has been carried on by Jon Dayley and John McLaughlin, both of whom wrote grammatical descriptions.
[3]
[2]
[5]
Dayley has published a dictionary.
[4]
Word order and case marking
[
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]
Timbisha
word order
is usually SOV as in:
taipo kinni'a punittai
white-man falcon saw
"The white man saw a falcon"
The
accusative case
and
possessive case
are marked with
suffixes
. Adverbial relationships are marked with
postpositions
on
nouns
as well as with true
adverbs
. For example:
kahni-pa'a
house-on
"on the house"
Adjectives are usually prefixed to the nouns they modify, unless the relationship is temporary when they are independent words with special suffixes. Compare
tosa-kapayu
, 'white-horse', "palomino or other pale-colored breed" and
tosapihtu kapayu
, 'white/pale horse', "white or pale horse" (who happens to be white or pale, but whose siblings may be any color).
Verbs
[
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]
Verbs
are marked for
grammatical aspect
with
suffixes
.
Valence
is marked with both
prefixes
and
suffixes
. Some common
intransitive verbs
have
suppletive
forms for singular or plural subjects and some common
transitive verbs
have
suppletive
forms for singular or plural objects. Otherwise, there is no
grammatical agreement
marked by the verb.
References
[
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]
- ^
a
b
Timbisha
at
Ethnologue
(18th ed., 2015)
(subscription required)
- ^
a
b
McLaughlin, John E. (1987).
Panamint Phonology and Morphology
.
University of Kansas
PhD dissertation.
- ^
a
b
c
Dayley, Jon P. (1989). "Tumpisa (Panamint) Shoshone Grammar".
University of California Publications in Linguistics
.
115
. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- ^
a
b
Dayley, Jon P. (1989). "Tumpisa (Panamint) Shoshone Dictionary".
University of California Publications in Linguistics
.
116
. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- ^
McLaughlin, John E. (2006).
Timbisha (Panamint)
. Languages of the world/materials 453. Munich: LINCOM Europa.
External links
[
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]
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