Takelma language

Takelma
Taakelmàʔn
Native to	United States
Region	Oregon, Rogue Valley along the middle course of the Rogue River
Ethnicity	Takelma people
Extinct	19th century
Language family	Penutian or language isolate
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tkm
Takelma (south), with the Kalapuyan languages to the north

Takelma /təˈkɛlmə/ was the language spoken by the Takelma people. It was first extensively described by Edward Sapir in his graduate thesis, The Takelma Language of Southwestern Oregon. The last fluent speaker of Takelma, with whom Sapir worked while writing about the language, was Frances Johnson (Gwísgwashãn).

Dialects

• Latgawa dialect, spoken in southwestern Oregon along the upper Rogue River
• Lowland dialect, spoken in southwestern Oregon in the Rogue Valley

There was possibly a Cow Creek dialect spoken in southwestern Oregon along the South Umpqua River, Myrtle Creek, and Cow Creek.

Genealogical relations

Takelma is a language isolate.

Takelma was once considered part of a Takelma-Kalapuyan language family together with the Kalapuyan languages (Swadesh 1965).^{[citation needed]} However, a paper by Tarpent & Kendall (1998)^{[citation needed]} finds this relationship to be unfounded because of the extremely different morphological structures of Takelma and Kalapuyan. DeLancey follows this position.^{[citation needed]} However, Takelma is commonly proposed as part of the Penutian super-family, as first suggested by Edward Sapir.

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
			central	lateral
Nasal		m	n
Plosive	plain	p	t				k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ				kʰ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ				kʼ
Affricate			tsʼ		tʃʼ
Fricative	voiceless		s	ɬ	ʃ		x	h
Approximant							ʍ
	voiced			l		j	w

Words

• [mìːʔskaʔ] – one
• [kàːʔm] – two
• [xìpiní] – three
• [kamkàm] – four
• [déːhal] – five
• [haʔiːmìʔs] – six
• [haʔiːkàːʔm] – seven
• [haʔiːxín] – eight
• [haʔiːkó] – nine
• [ìxtiːl] – ten

Further reading

• Edward Sapir (1914). Takelma texts. University Museum. Retrieved 24 August 2012.