Lake Miwok language explained

Lake Miwok
States:	United States
Region:	Lake County, California
Ethnicity:	Lake Miwok
Extinct:	1990s
Ref:	e25
Familycolor:	American
Fam1:	Yok-Utian
Fam2:	Utian
Fam3:	Miwokan
Fam4:	Western
Iso3:	lmw
Glotto:	lake1258
Glottorefname:	Lake Miwok
Map:	CLfromHWY175.jpg
Mapcaption:	Clear Lake
Notice:	IPA
Map2:	Lang Status 20-CR.svg

The Lake Miwok language is an extinct language of Northern California, traditionally spoken in an area adjacent to the Clear Lake. It is one of the languages of the Clear Lake Linguistic Area, along with Patwin, East and Southeastern Pomo, and Wappo.

Phonology

Vowels

	Short		Long
	Front	Back	Front	Back
High (close)	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Mid	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Low (open)	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	plain	pronounced as /link/	(t) pronounced as /link/		(ṭ) pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
	aspirated	pronounced as /link/	(tʰ) pronounced as /link/		(ṭʰ) pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
	ejective	pronounced as /link/	(tʼ) pronounced as /link/		(ṭʼ) pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
	voiced	pronounced as /link/		(d) pronounced as /link/
Fricative	voiceless			pronounced as /link/	(ṣ) pronounced as /link/	(ł) pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
	ejective					(ƛʼ) pronounced as /link/
Affricate	voiceless			(c) pronounced as /link/	(č) pronounced as /link/
	ejective			(cʼ) pronounced as /link/	(čʼ) pronounced as /link/
Nasal		pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
Approximant		pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/ (pronounced as /link/)		pronounced as /link/

The consonant inventory of Lake Miwok differs substantially from the inventories found in the other Miwok languages. Where the other languages only have one series of plosives, Lake Miwok has four: plain, aspirated, ejective and voiced. Lake Miwok has also added the affricates č, c, čʼ, cʼ, ƛʼ and the liquids r and ł. These sounds appear to have been borrowed through loanwords from other, unrelated languages in the Clear Lake area, after which they spread to some native Lake Miwok words.

Grammar

The word order of Lake Miwok is relatively free, but SOV (subject–object–verb) is the most common order.

Verb morphology

Pronominal clitics

		Singular	Dual	Plural
1st person		ka	ʔic	ma, ʔim
2nd person		ʔin	moc	mon
3rd person	non-reflexive	ʔi	koc	kon
	reflexive	hana	hanakoc	hanakon
indefinite		ʔan

In her Lake Miwok grammar, Callaghan reports that one speaker distinguishes between 1st person dual inclusive ʔoc and exclusive ʔic. Another speaker also remembers that this distinction used to be made by older speakers.

Noun morphology

Case inflection

Nouns can be inflected for ten different cases:

• the Subjective case marks a noun which functions as the subject of a verb. If the subject noun is placed before the verb, the Subjective has the allomorph -n after vowel (or a vowel followed by /h/), and -Ø after consonants. If it is placed after the verb, the Subjective is -n after vowels and -nu after consonants.

• the Possessive case is -n after vowels and -Ø after consonants

• the Objective case marks a noun which functions as the object of a verb. It has the allomorph -u (after a consonant) or -Ø (after a vowel) when the noun is placed immediately before a verb which contains the 2nd person prefix ʔin- (which then has the allomorph -n attached to the noun preceding the verb; compare the example below) or does not contain any subject prefix at all.

It has the allomorph -Ø before a verb containing any other subject prefix:

If the object noun does not immediately precede the verb, or if the verb is in the imperative, the allomorph of the Objective is -uc:

• the allative case is -to or -t depending on the environment. It has a variety of meaning, but often expresses direction towards a goal.
• the locative case -m gives a less specific designation of locality than the Allative, and occurs more rarely.
• the ablative case is -mu or -m depending on the context, and marks direction out of, or away from, a place.
• the instrumental case -ṭu marks instruments, e.g. tumáj-ṭu "(I hit him) with a stick".
• the comitative case -ni usually translates as "along with", but can also be used to coordinate nouns, as in kaʔunúu-ni ka ʔáppi-ni "my mother and my father".
• the vocative case only occurs with a few kinship terms, e.g. ʔunúu "mother " from ʔúnu "mother".
• the Appositive case is the citation form of nouns.

Possessive clitics

Lake Miwok uses pronominal clitics to indicate the possessor of a noun. Except for the 3d person singular, they have the same shape as the nominative pronominal clitics, but show no allomorphy.

		Singular	Dual	Plural
1st person		ka	ʔic	ma
2nd person		ʔin	moc	mon
3rd person	non-reflexive	ʔiṭi	koc	kon
	reflexive	hana	hanakoc	hanakon
indefinite		ʔan

The reflexive hana forms have the same referent as the subject of the same clause, whereas the non-reflexive forms have a different referent, e.g.:

• hana háju ʔúṭe – "He sees his own dog"
• ʔiṭi háju ʔúṭe – "He sees (somebody else's) dog"

References

• Book: Callaghan, Catherine A. . 1963 . A Grammar of the Lake Miwok Language . University of California, Berkeley.
• Book: Callaghan, Catherine A. . 1964 . Phonemic Borrowing in Lake Miwok . 46–53 . Studies in Californian Linguistics . William Bright. Berkeley . University of California Press.
• Book: Callaghan, Catherine A. . 1965 . Lake Miwok Dictionary . Berkeley. University of California Press.
• Book: Campbell, Lyle . 1997 . American Indian Languages. The Historical Linguistics of Native America . New York. Oxford University Press.
• Callaghan, Catherine A. "Note of Lake Miwok Numerals." International Journal of American Linguistics, vol. 24, no. 3 (1958): 247.
• Keeling, Richard. "Ethnographic Field Recordings at Lowie Museum of Anthropology," 1985. Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. v. 2. North-Central California: Pomo, Wintun, Nomlaki, Patwin, Coast Miwok, and Lake Miwok Indians
• Lake Miwok Indians. "Rodriguez-Nieto Guide" Sound Recordings (California Indian Library Collections), LA009. Berkeley: California Indian Library Collections, 1993. "Sound recordings reproduced from the Language Archive sound recordings at the Language Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley." In 2 containers.

External links

• Lake Miwok language overview at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
• Lake Miwok audio recordings at the California Language Archive (login required)
• Web site: Lake Miwok sound recordings. Collections Search Center, Smithsonian Institution. 2012-07-20.
• OLAC resources in and about the Lake Miwok language
• Lake Miwok basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database