Cahuilla /kəˈwiːə/ is an endangered Uto-Aztecan language, spoken by the Cahuilla tribe, living in the Coachella Valley, San Gorgonio Pass and San Jacinto Mountains region of Southern California.[1] Cahuilla call themselves Iviatam, speakers of 'Ivia' - the 'original' language.[2] A 1990 census revealed 35 speakers in an ethnic population of 800. It is nearly extinct, since most speakers are middle-aged or older.
Three dialects are known to have existed, referred to as Desert, Mountain, and Pass Cahuilla.[3]
Alvino Siva of the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeño Indians, a fluent speaker, died on June 26, 2009. He preserved the tribe's traditional bird songs, sung in the Cahuilla language, by teaching them to younger generations of Cahuilla people.[4] Katherine Siva Saubel (b. 1920 - d. 2011) was a native Cahuilla speaker dedicated to preserving the language.[5]
Phonology [edit]
Cahuilla has the following vowel and consonant phonemes (Bright 1965, Saubel and Munro 1980:1-6)
Long /oː/ only appears in borrowings.
Consonants in parentheses only occur in loans. Material in <> after a consonant shows how it is spelled in the practical orthography of Saubel and Munro (1980).
Morphology [edit]
Verb morphology [edit]
Cahuilla verbs show agreement with both their subject and object. Person agreement is shown by prefixes and number agreement is shown by suffixes. (Saubel and Munro p. 29)
| kúp-qa |
| sleep-singular:present |
| 'He is sleeping.' |
| hem-kúp-we |
| 3rd-sleep-plural:present |
| 'They are sleeping.' |
Basic sample vocabulary [edit]
- One: Súplli'
- Two: Wíh
- Three: Páh
- Four: Wíchiw
- Five: Nemaqwánang
- Man: Náxanish
- Woman: Nícill
- Sun: Támit
- Moon: Ménill
- Water: Pál[6]
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- Saubel, Katherine Siva, Pamela Munro, Chem'ivillu' (Let's Speak Cahuilla), Los Angeles, American Indian Studies Center, University of California, 1982.
- Seiler, Hansjakob, Cahuilla Texts with an Introduction, Bloomington, Language Science Monographs, Indiana University Press, 1970.
- Seiler, Hansjakob, Cahuilla Grammar, Banning, Malki Museum Press, 1977.
- Seiler, Hansjakob, Kojiro Hioki, Cahuilla Dictionary, Banning, Malki Museum press, 1979.
External links [edit]
