Klamath language

Klamath
Modoc
Spoken in	United States
Region	Southern Oregon and northern California
Ethnicity	Klamath, Modoc
Native speakers	1  (date missing)
Language family	Plateau Penutian Klamath
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kla
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Klamath-Modoc (also simply Klamath, historically Lutuamian) is a Native American language that was 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. As of April 1998^[update], it was spoken by only one person.^[1]

Klamath–Modoc is thought to be a member of the Plateau Penutian branch of the Penutian language family, a family in which ablaut is common, just like in Indo-European. Evidence for this classification includes some consonant correspondences between Klamath–Modoc and other alleged Penutian languages. For example, the Proto-Yokuts retroflexes */ʈ ʈʼ/ correspond to Klamath–Modoc /tʃ tʃʼ/, and the Proto-Yokuts dentals */t̪ t̪ʰ t̪ʼ/ correspond to the Klamath–Modoc alveolars /t tʰ tʼ/.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Coronal	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stop	p pʰ pʼ	t tʰ tʼ		k kʰ kʼ	q qʰ qʼ	ʔ
Nasal	m m̥ mʼ	n n̥ nʼ
Fricative		s				h
Affricate		tʃ tʃʰ tʃʼ
Approximant		l l̥ lʼ	j ȷ̊ jʼ	w w̥ wʼ

Obstruents in Klamath–Modoc except for /s/ all come in triplets of unaspirated, aspirated, and ejective sounds.^[2] Sonorant triplets are voiced, voiceless, and "laryngealized" sounds, except for /h/ and /ʔ/.^[3]

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.^[4] 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

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.^[5]

See also

• List of extinct languages of North America

Notes

1. ^ Chen, 1998; Maudlin, 1998.
2. ^ Blevins, 2004, p. 279.
3. ^ Blevins, 2004, pp. 279–80.
4. ^ Blevins, 2004.
5. ^ Rude, 1988.

References

• Barker, M. A. R. (1963a). Klamath Texts. University of California Publications in Linguistics, volume 30. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.
• ———. (1963b). Klamath Dictionary. University of California Publications in Linguistics 31. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.
• ———. (1964). Klamath Grammar. University of California Publications in Linguistics 32. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.
• Blevins, J. (2004, July). Klamath sibilant degemination: Implications of a recent sound change. IJAL, 70, 279–289.
• Chen, D. W. (1998, April 5). Blackboard: Lost languages; Kuskokwim not spoken here. New York Times.
• Maudlin, W. S. (1998, April 17). Yale linguists part of effort to save dying languages. The Yale Herald. Retrieved May 6, 2008, from http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/xxv/4.17.98/news/language.html
• Rude, Noel (1988). Semantic and pragmatic objects in Klamath. In In Honor of Mary Haas: From the Haas Festival Conference on Native American Linguistics, ed. by William Shipley, pp. 651–73. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

External links

• Klamath language at Ethnologue
• The Klamath Tribes Language Project
• Languages of Oregon: Klamath
• Modoc language overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages