Sahaptin language

Sahaptin
Native to United States
Region Washington, Oregon, and Idaho
Ethnicity 10,000 Sahaptins (1977)[1]
Native speakers
 100–125 (2007)[1]

Language codes
ISO 639-3 Variously:
uma – Umatilla
waa – Walla Walla
yak – Yakima
tqn – Tenino
Linguist list
 qot Sahaptin
Glottolog saha1240[2]

Sahaptin (also Shahaptin), Sħáptənəxw, is a Plateau Penutian language of the Sahaptian branch spoken in a section of the northwestern plateau along the Columbia River and its tributaries in southern Washington, northern Oregon, and southwestern Idaho, in the United States.[3] Many of the tribes that surrounded the land were skilled with horses and trading with one another.

The Yakama tribal cultural resources program has been promoting the use of the traditional name of the language, Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit, instead of Sahaptin, which means "stranger in the land."[4]

Dialects

Sahaptin has four dialects in a dialect cluster :[5]

Grammar

There are published grammars,[6][7] a recent dictionary,[8] and a corpus of published texts.[9][10] Sahaptin has a split ergative syntax, with direct-inverse voicing and several applicative constructions.[11]

The ergative case inflects third-person nominals only when the direct object is first- or second-person (the examples below are from the Umatilla dialect):

1) i-q̓ínu-šana yáka paanáy
3nom-see-asp bear 3acc.sg
‘the bear saw him’
2) i-q̓ínu-šana=aš yáka-nɨm
3nom-see-asp=1sg bear-erg
‘the bear saw me’

The direct-inverse contrast can be elicited with examples such as the following. In the inverse, the transitive direct object is coreferential with the subject in the preceding clause.

Direct:

3) wínš i-q̓ínu-šana wapaanłá-an ku i-ʔíƛ̓iyawi-ya paanáy
man 3nom-see-asp grizzly-acc and :3nom-kill-pst 3acc.sg
‘the man saw the grizzly and he killed it’

Inverse:

4) wínš i-q̓ínu-šana wapaanłá-an ku pá-ʔiƛ̓iyawi-ya
man 3nom-see-asp grizzly-acc and inv-kill-pst
‘the man saw the grizzly and it killed him’

The inverse (marked by the verbal prefix pá-) retains its transitive status, and a patient nominal is case marked accusative.

5) ku pá-ʔiƛ̓iyawi-ya wínš-na
and inv-kill-pst man-acc
‘and it killed the man’ (= ‘and the man was killed by it’)

A semantic inverse is also marked by the same verbal prefix pá-.

Direct:

6) q̓ínu-šana=maš
see-asp=1sg/2sg
‘I saw you’

Inverse:

7) pá-q̓inu-šana=nam
inv-see-=2sg
‘you saw me’

In Speech Act Participant (SAP) and third-person transitive involvement, direction marking is as follows:

Direct:

8) á-q̓inu-šana=aš paanáy
obv-see-asp=1sg 3sg.acc
‘I saw him/her/it’

Inverse:

9) i-q̓ínu-šana=aš pɨ́nɨm
3nom-see-asp=1sg 3erg
‘he/she/it saw me’

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 Umatilla at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Walla Walla at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Yakima at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Tenino at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Sahaptin". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Mithun, 1999.
  4. ↑ Beavert, Virginia and Hargus, Sharon Ichishkíin sɨ́nwit yakama = Yakima Sahaptin dictionary. Toppenish, Wash.: Heritage University, Seattle: in association with the University of Washington Press, 2009; 492 pp. OCLC 268797329.
  5. ↑ Sharon Hargus 2012, First position clitics in Northwest Sahaptin
  6. ↑ Jacobs, 1931.
  7. ↑ Rigsby and Rude, 1996.
  8. ↑ Beavert & Hargus, 2009.
  9. ↑ Jacobs, 1929.
  10. ↑ Jacobs, 1937.
  11. ↑ Rude, 2009.

References

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