| Sahaptian | |
| Also Known As: | Sħaptian |
| Region: | Pacific Northwest |
| Familycolor: | American |
| Fam1: | Penutian? |
| Fam2: | Plateau Penutian? |
| Glotto: | saha1239 |
| Glottorefname: | Sahaptian |
| Child1: | Nez Perce |
| Child2: | Sahaptin |
Sahaptian (also Sahaptianic, Sahaptin, Shahaptian) is a two-language branch of the Plateau Penutian family spoken by Native American peoples in the Columbia Plateau region of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in the northwestern United States.
The terms Sahaptian (the family) and Sahaptin (the language) have often been confused and used interchangeably in the literature.
Sahaptian includes two languages:
1. Nez Perce (Niimiipuutímt)
2. Sahaptin (Sħáptənəxw)
Nez Perce has two principal dialects, Upper and Lower. Sahaptin has somewhat greater internal diversity, with its main dialects being Umatilla and Yakama.
Noel Rude's (2012) classification of Sahaptian is as follows.
| Proto-Sahaptian | |
| Familycolor: | American |
| Target: | Sahaptian languages |
Work on Proto-Sahaptian reconstruction has been undertaken by Noel Rude (2006,[1] 2012[2]).
Proto-Sahaptian consonants:[2]
| Glottal | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lateral | central | plain | labialized | plain | labialized | |||||
| Stop/Affricate | p | t | ƛ | c | č | k | kʷ | q | qʷ | ʔ | |
| Ejective | p̓ | t̓ | ƛ̓ | c̓ | č | k̓ | k̓ʷ | q̓ | q̓ʷ | ||
| Fricative | ł | s | š | x | xʷ | x̣ | x̣ʷ | h | |||
| plain | m | n | l | y | w | ||||||
| glottalized | m̓ | n̓ | l̓ | y̓ | w̓ | ||||||
Proto-Sahaptian vowels:[2]
| front | central | back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| high | i | ɨ | u | |
| mid | o | |||
| low | æ | ɑ |