Atsugewi language

Atsugewi
Spoken in	California
Native speakers	Extinct  (date missing)
Language family	Palaihnihan Atsugewi
Language codes
ISO 639-3	atw

Atsugewi is an extinct Palaihnihan language of northeastern California spoken by the Hat Creek and Dixie Valley people. In 1962, there were four speakers out of an ethnic group of 200, all elderly.

Astugewi is related to Achumawi. They have long been considered as part of the hypothetical Hokan stock, and it has been supposed that within that stock they comprise the Palaihnihan family.

The name properly is Atsugé, to which the -wi of the Achumawi or Pit River language was erroneously suffixed.

Sounds

Consonants

Atsugewi has 32 consonants. Most of these form pairs of plain and glottalized. Plosives and affricates also have a third, aspirated member of the series (except for the single glottal stop).

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	plain	m	n
	glott.	mˀ	nˀ
Stop	plain	p	t	t	k	q	ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	tʃʼ	kʼ	qʼ
	aspir.	pʰ	tʰ	tʃʰ	kʰ	qʰ
Fricative	plain		s				h ɦ
	ejective		sʼ
Rhotic	plain		r
	glott.		rˀ
Approximant	plain		l	j	w
	glott.		lˀ	jˀ	wˀ

Vowels

Atsugewi language has basically only three vowels: /a/, /o/, and /i/; /e/ is the allophone of /i/ while /o/ is the allophone of /u/. However, it has been supported by Leonard Talmy (1972) that there are instances such as the word ce "the eye(s)" where e can be analyzed as a proper phoneme.

External links

• Semantic Structures in English and Atsugewi
• Atsugewi Phonology
• Atsugewi language overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages

Bibliography

• Bright, William. (1965). [Review of A history of Palaihnihan phonology by D. L. Olmstead]. Language, 41 (1), 175-178.
• Good, Jeff. (2004). A sketch of Atsugewi phonology. Boston, MA. (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, January 8–11).
• Good, Jeff; McFarland, Teresa; & Paster, Mary. (2003). Reconstructing Achumawi and Atsugewi: Proto-Palaihnihan revisited. Atlanta, GA. (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, January 2–5).
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
• Olmsted, David L. (1954). Achumawi-Atsugewi non-reciprocal intelligibility. International Journal of American Linguistics, 20, 181-184.
• Olmsted, David L. (1956). Palaihnihan and Shasta I: Labial stops. Language, 32 (1), 73-77.
• Olmsted, David L. (1957). Palaihnihan and Shasta II: Apical stops. Language, 33 (2), 136-138.
• Olmsted, David L. (1958). Atsugewi phonology. International Journal of American Linguistics, 24, 215-220.
• Olmsted, David L. (1959). Palaihnihan and Shasta III: Dorsal stops. Language, 35 (4), 637-644.
• Olmsted, David L. (1961). Atsugewi morphology I: Verb Inflection. International Journal of American Linguistics, 27, 91-113.
• Olmsted, David L. (1964). A history of Palaihnihan phonology. University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 35). Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Talmy, Leonard. (n.d.). Midway phonological analysis of Atsugewi. (Unpublished notes).
• Talmy, Leonard. (1972). Semantic structures in English and Atsugewi. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley).