Barbareño language

Barbareño
P̌atna
Spoken in	Southern Californian coastal areas
Extinct	1965, with the death of Mary Yee
Language family	Chumashan Southern Central Barbareño
Language codes
ISO 639-3	boi

Barbareño is one of the extinct Chumash languages, a group of Native American languages previously spoken along the coastal areas of Southern California from as far north as San Luis Obispo to as far south as Malibu, California. The last first-language speaker of Barbareño was Mary Yee.

Classification

Barbareño belongs to the Central Branch of the Southern Chumashan languages. Barbareño and the closely related Ineseño may have been the a dialect of the same language.

Geographic distribution

Barbareño was spoken in the region of Santa Barbara, California. It became extinct in 1965 with the death of Mary Yee.

Phonology

Consonants

Barbareño consonant phonemes

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Postalveolar/ Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	plain	m	n
	glottalized	ˀm	ˀn
Plosive	plain	p	t		k	q	ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ		kʼ	qʼ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		kʰ	qʰ
Affricate	plain		t͡s	t͡ʃ
	ejective		t͡sʼ	t͡ʃʼ
	aspirated		t͡sʰ	t͡ʃʰ
Fricative	plain		s	ʃ	x		h
	ejective		sʼ	ʃʼ	xʼ
	aspirated		sʰ	ʃʰ
Approximant	plain		l	j	w
	glottalized		ˀl	ˀj	ˀw

Vowels

Barbareño vowel phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ	u
Open	e	a	o

References

• Barbareño language at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)
• Beeler, M. S. (January 1970). "Sibilant Harmony in Chumash". International Journal of American Linguistics 36 (1): 14–17. doi:10.1086/465084 

External links

• Barbareño language overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages

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