New River Shasta language explained

New River Shasta
States:United States
Region:Salmon River, northern California
Ethnicity:Shasta
Extinct:after 1926
Familycolor:American
Fam1:Hokan ?
Fam2:Shasta–Palaihnihan
Fam3:Shastan
Iso3:none
Glotto:newr1237
Glottorefname:New River Shasta

New River Shasta is an extinct Shastan language formerly spoken in northern California. It may have had only 300 speakers before contact, and they soon went extinct; the language is attested in only a few short wordlists.[1] Kroeber regarded them as possibly "nearest to the major group in speech, although [...] their tongue as a whole must have been unintelligible to the Shasta proper." The last recorded speaker of New River Shasta was Saxy Kidd, who only remembered some words and had mostly forgotten his language.[2] [3]

Notes and References

  1. Kroeber (1925)
  2. Merriam . C. Hart . April 1930 . THE NEW RIVER INDIANS TLÓ‐HŌTM‐TAH‘‐HOI 1 . American Anthropologist . en . 32 . 2 . 280–293 . 10.1525/aa.1930.32.2.02a00030 . 0002-7294.
  3. Book: Golla, Victor . California Indian languages . University of California Press . 2011 . 9780520266674 . 90–91 . 767533019.