Yawelmani Yokuts

Southern Valley Yokuts dialect of America

Yawelmani

Yowlumne
Yawʼlamnin ṭeexil

Yawelmani sentence documented by A. L. Kroeber

Native to| California

Native speakers

| 20–25 (2007, fluent and semispeakers)[1]

Language family

Yok-Utian ?

* Yokutsan
* General Yokuts
* Nim
* Northern Yokuts
* Valley Yokuts
* Southern
* Koyeti–Yawelmani
* Yawelmani

Language codes
ISO 639-3| –

Historical distribution of Yawelmani

Closeup map of historical Yawelmani distribution

Yawelmani Yokuts (also spelled Yowlumne and Yauelmani) is an endangered dialect of Southern Valley Yokuts historically spoken by the Yokuts living along the Kern River north of Kern Lake in the Central Valley of California.[2] Today, most Yawelmani speakers live on or near the Tule River Reservation.[3]

## Name

[edit]

Academic sources frequently use the name Yawelmani while referring to the language, though tribe members more often use the name Yowlumne.[3]

When referencing their language, modern speakers of Yawelmani use the terms inyana (Indian), and yaw'lamnin ṭeexil (speech of the Yowlumne).[3]

## Phonology

[edit]

### Consonants

[edit]

|  | Bilabial | Dental | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal

|
|
|
|
|
|
|

Stop | plain  | p /p/ | t /t/ | ṭ /ʈ/ |  | k /k/ | ʼ /ʔ/
aspirated | ph /pʰ/ | th /tʰ/ | ṭh /ʈʰ/ |  | kh /kʰ/ |
ejective | pʼ/pʼ/ | tʼ/tʼ/ | ṭʼ /ʈʼ/ |  | kʼ /kʼ/ |
Affricate | plain  |  | c /t͡s/ |  | č /t͡ʃ/ |  |
aspirated |  | ch /t͡sʰ/ |  | čh /t͡ʃʰ/ |  |
ejective |  | cʼ /t͡sʼ/ |  | čʼ /t͡ʃʼ/ |  |
Fricative |  | s /s/ | ṣ /ʂ/ |  | x /x/ | h /h/
Nasal | plain  | m /m/ | n /n/ |  |  |  |
glottalized | mʼ /mˀ/ | nʼ /nˀ/ |  |  |  |
Approximant | plain  | w /w/ | l /l/ |  | y /j/ |  |
glottalized | wʼ /wˀ/ | lʼ /lˀ/ |  | yʼ /jˀ/ |  |

* Sounds /t͡ʃ, t͡ʃʰ, t͡ʃʼ/ may be heard freely as retroflex [t͡ʂ, t͡ʂʰ, t͡ʂʼ] among speakers.[4]

### Vowels

[edit]

Yawelmani has 10 vowel phonemes:

| Unrounded | Rounded

|
|

short | long | short  | long
High | i | iː | u | uː
Mid | ɛ | ɛː | ɔ | ɔː
Low | a | aː |  |

* There are 4 short-long vowel pairs.
* Short high vowels may become more centralized in fast speech: /i/ → [ɪ], /u/ → [ʊ].
* Long high vowels are almost always lower than their short counterparts: /iː/ → [ɛː], /uː/ → [ɔː].
* All long vowels may be shortened by a phonological process. Thus, a single long vowel has two different phonetic realizations:
* /iː/ → [ɛ, ɛː],
* /aː/ → [a, aː],
* /uː/ → [ɔ, ɔː],
* /ɔː/ → [ɔ, ɔː].
* Note that the high long vowel /uː/ is usually pronounced the same as /ɔ/ and /ɔː/.

As can be seen, Yawelmani vowels have a number of different realizations (phones) which are summarized below:

| Front | Back

|
|

short | long | short | long
High | i |  | u |
Near-high | ɪ |  | ʊ |
Mid | ɛ | ɛː | ɔ | ɔː
Low |  |  | a | aː

### Syllable & phonotactics

[edit]

The Yawelmani syllables can be either a consonant-vowel sequence (CV), such as deeyi- 'lead', or a consonant-vowel-consonant sequence (CVC), such as xata- 'eat'.[clarification needed] Thus the generalized syllable is the following:

CV(C)

Word roots are bisyllabic and have either one of two shapes:

* CV.CV
* CV.CVC

### Phonological processes

[edit]

#### Vowel shortening

[edit]

When long vowels are in closed syllables, they are shortened:

/p’a.xaː.t’it/ | →  | [p’axaːt’it] | p̓axaat̕it | 'mourn (passive aorist)'  | (/aː/ remains long)

|
|
|
|
|

/p’a.xaːt’.hin/ | →  | [p’axat’hin] | p̓axat̕hin | 'mourn (aorist)'  | (/aː/ is shortened)
/ts’u.juː.hun/ | →  | [ts’ujɔːhun] | c̓uyoohun | 'urinate (aorist)'  | (/uː/ remains long)
/ts’u.juːt/ | →  | [ts’ujɔt] | c̓uyot | 'urinate (passive aorist)'  | (/uː/ is shortened)

#### Vowel harmony

[edit]

Yawelmani has suffixes that contain either an underspecified high vowel /I/ or an underspecified non-high vowel /A/.

* Underspecified /I/ will appear as /u/ following the high rounded vowel /u/ and as /i/ following all other vowels /i, a, ɔ/:

/-hIn/ |  |  | -hun/-hin | (aorist suffix)

|
|
|
|

/muʈhIn/ | →  | [muʈhun] | muṭhun | 'swear (aorist)'
/ɡij’hIn/ | →  | [ɡij’hin] | giy̓hin | 'touch (aorist)'
/ɡɔphIn/ | →  | [ɡɔphin] | gophin | 'take care of infant (aorist)'
/xathIn/ | →  | [xathin] | xathin | 'eat (aorist)'

* Underspecified /A/ will appear as /ɔ/ following the non-high rounded vowel /ɔ/ and as /a/ following all other vowels /i, u, a/:

/-tAw/ |  |  | -tow/-taw | (nondirective gerundial suffix)

|
|
|
|

/ɡɔptAw/ | →  | [ɡɔptɔw] | goptow | 'take care of infant (nondir. ger.)'
/ɡij’tAw/ | →  | [ɡij’taw] | giy̓taw | 'touch (nondir. ger.)'
/muʈtAw/ | →  | [muʈtaw] | muṭtaw | 'swear (nondir. ger.)'
/xattAw/ | →  | [xatːaw] | xattaw | 'eat (nondir. ger.)'

#### Vowel epenthesis

[edit]

Yawelmani adds vowels to stems, when suffixes with an initial consonant are affixed to word with two final consonants in order to avoid a triple-consonant-cluster.

## Grammar

[edit]

### Case system

[edit]

Yawelmani is a primary object language.[3]

A. L. Krober documented the language's case system in his 1907 paper The Yokuts language of south central California.[5]

Case suffixes (per Kroeber)  Objective  | Noun  | -a (i)

|
|

Demonstrative | -n, -in
(plural), Pronoun  | -wa
Possessive |  | -in
Instrumental |  | ni
Locative |  | u
Ablative |  | nit

## Speakers

[edit]

A 2011 estimate by Victor Golla placed the number of fluent and semi-fluent Yawelmani speakers at "up to twenty-five"[6]

## Revitalization efforts

[edit]

In 1993, the Master-Apprentice Language Learning Program piloted a series of language programs that included Yawelmani. The program was reportedly effective in teaching conversational Yawelmani to tribal members without prior knowledge and increasing language use among elders.[7]

## Selected vocabulary

[edit]

* Yawelmani anatomy

* Yawelmani kinship terms

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Yokuts at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. ^ Whistler, Kenneth W.; Golla, Victor (1986). "Proto-Yokuts Reconsidered". International Journal of American Linguistics. 52 (4): 317–358. doi:10.1086/466028. ISSN 0020-7071. JSTOR 1265536. S2CID 144822697.
3. ^ a b c d Weigel, William (2005). "Yowlumne in the Twentieth Century". `{{cite journal}}`: Cite journal requires `|journal=` (help)
4. ^ Newman, Stanley S. (1946). The Yawelmani Dialect of Yokuts. In Harry Hoijer (ed.), Linguistic Structures of Native America: New York: Viking Fund. pp. 222–248.
5. ^ Kroeber, A. L. (1907). "The Yokuts language of south central California" (PDF). University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnography: 281.
6. ^ Golla, Victor (2011-08-02). California Indian Languages. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520266674.
7. ^ "Survival of Endangered Languages: The California Master-Apprentice Program". International Journal of the Sociology of Language (123): 177–191. 2009. doi:10.1515/ijsl.1997.123.177. ISSN 1613-3668.

## External links

[edit]

* English/Yowlumne dictionary
* Yowlum'nen Trexul: Yowlumne phrase and lesson book