Maidu language
Maidu, also Northeastern Maidu or Mountain Maidu, is an extinct Maiduan language of California, United States. It was spoken by the Maidu peoples who traditionally inhabit the mountains east and south of Lassen Peak in the American River and Feather River basins. These river regions include such valleys in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains of California as: Indian Valley, American Valley, Butte Valley, and Big Meadows. Maidu may also refer to the related Konkow and Nisenan languages.
History
The pre-contact Maidu peoples lived in a hunting and gathering society in parts of central California. These peoples lived in an area around what are now called Mount Lassen, Honey Lake, Sacramento, and Lake Tahoe. They spoke closely related languages, including the living Maidu, Konkow and Nisenan languages, along with the Chico language and other extinct variations.Revitalization efforts
Farrell Cunningham, one of the youngest fluent Yamani Maidu speakers, taught "Mountain Maidu language classes in Greenville, Susanville, Nevada City and Auburn", and was active with the Maidu Theater in Nevada City, until his death on August 11, 2013, at age 37.Active language revitalization efforts have been underway since 2004. As of 2011, classes in Maidu were available in Nevada County, California.
The Maiduan language family is considered to belong to the Penutian language group, along with such families as Miwok, Wintun, Yokuts, and Ohlone.
Phonology
Notation: In the phonological discussion, phonetic symbols are encased in slashes / /, allophones are in brackets , while symbols in parentheses represent non IPA orthography.Consonants
Maidu has eighteen consonantal phonemes. The consonants listed below are from the transcription system used by Shipley. Shipley's orthography is listed in brackets when it differs from the IPA transcription.In the 1950s and 1960s, older speakers retained palatal stops /c, c'/ where younger speakers used an innovative palatal affricate , , perhaps under influence from English.
Before the velar plosives /k, k'/, /m/ is pronounced as .
Vowels
There are six phonemic vowels in Maidu. Once again, the chart comes from the orthographic system employed by Shipley.| Front | Central | Back | |
| High | |||
| Low |
These six vowels are characterized by several different allophones depending on the phonetic environments in which they occur. The base phone of the vowels occurs in initial open syllables with stress. The lowest and most central allophones occur in unstressed closed syllables. According to Shipley, and have allophones that almost converge once they have centralized, and have allophones that barely centralize and drop slightly lower, approaching and . Meanwhile, and have more change than and but less than and.
Vowel length is nonphonemic, and changes according to the vowel's place within the word. The vowels can exhibit vowel lengths of less than a mora, one mora, or 1.5–2 morae. The vowel is less than one mora in unstressed syllables, around one mora in closed stressed syllables, and more than one mora in open stressed syllables.
Syllables
The syllables in Maidu follow a basic CV or CVC structure. The majority of words consist of alternating consonants and vowels, while combinations such as CVCVCCV also occur. In all cases, the syllables are consonant initial, and diphthongs do not occur in the coda. The syllables in Maidu display pitch in conjunction with the stress in the word. Syllables with the primary stress in the word have a higher pitch and tend to be more tense and have longer vowels. Secondary stress occurs with a low to middle pitch and lengthening of the vowel. Weak stress has a low to middle pitch and short vowels.Morphology
Notation: In the morphology section, some notations are used to refer to changes occurring to the morphemes when they are conjugated or combined with one another. 'I' indicates a change whereby the preceding word goes through the following changes: after a vowel of a vowel and glottal stop the root remains the same, so /wepa/ remains /wepa/. After a k or k', the preceding vowel is duplicated, so /banak'/ becomes /banak'a/. In all other cases i is added, so /jaman/ becomes /jamani/. 'R' indicates reduplication of the previous segment, so /my/ becomes /mymy/.Nouns
Maidu nouns are divided into two classes. The first class consists of kinship terms, but these do not include the terms for child and son. The nouns of this class are more limited in use than other nouns, as they are always subject to possession by another noun. These terms, such as /ne/ 'mother' occur in conjunction with a pronoun or a demonstrative, as in:- nikne - my mother
- minne - your mother
- myne - mother
The second subclass contains nouns that are formed from several different roots. This compound may be formed from two noun roots, a noun root and an auxiliary verb, a noun root and a distributive suffix, noun roots and an unidentifiable morpheme, and a noun root with a diminutive morpheme.
Pronouns
The pronouns are /nik'/ first person, /min/ second person, /maj/ third person, and /my/ demonstrative. /maj/ does not occur in the singular, and so constructions using /my/ serve as the third person singular. These include in a noun construction, singularly and repeated. Other than /maj/, there are no special plural forms of the pronouns, as they are inflected for number along with other nouns.Number inflection in nouns">Grammatical number">Number inflection in nouns
While English distinguishes between singular and plural, Maidu distinguishes singular, dual, and plural. These inflections are most often used in conjunction with the pronouns, and are much less commonly used with other nouns. Both dual /c'o/ and plural /cy/ suffixes have several allomorphs. Along with these, there is a second plural morpheme /t'yt'y/ which indicates both plurality and a diminutive sense.Verbs
Maidu verbs consist of the verbal theme along a series of suffixes. Similar to nouns, the verb stems in Maidu result from several different sources. Some verbs, like /sol/ 'sing' are composed of a single simple root. Other verbs include a noun in the verb stem, such as /k'awba/ 'to dig a hole', which is a compound of /k'aw/ 'dirt' and /ba/ 'to dig'. Still other compound verb stems result from the conjunction of two separate verb roots, as in /t'ikc'e/ 'to believe', from /t'ik/ 'to have enough' and /c'e/ 'to see'. Like nouns, some verb stems include a component that has no meaning on its own, such as /bokweje/ 'to invoke', where /weje/ means 'to talk' and /bok/ has no known meaning. Still others are the result of a verb and an auxiliary verb, and finally a set of verbs involving motion uses /'y/ as its first compound.Verb theme
The verb theme is a combination of the verb stem along with one or more thematic suffixes. All thematic suffixes are optional, and thus may be excluded from the verb, with the base stem acting as the theme on its own.- Causative
- Designation of verbal object
- Motion-Location
- Negative
- Aspectual
- Evidential
Causative
Verbal object
The designation of the verbal object takes five different forms. /'us/ is a reflexive suffix, as in wonoti'us'am 'he killed himself.' The second suffix, /jo/ indicated both plural object and repetitive actions. This occurs in c'ani majse 'ono wojomak'as 'I'm going to hit them on the head with a stick', and humbotmenwet 'as hesbopajodom 'I kept on shoving anything into the sack.' The third suffix is used commonly and appears to have an obscure meaning. /to/ can be used with /ju/ 'rub on' to form juto 'rub in' and with /mej/ 'give' to form mejto 'buy'. It may work to create the transitive form of a verb, although this is not always the case. /toto/, a reduplication of /to/ indicates reciprocal action.Motion-location
The motion-location auxiliaries occur as 16 different suffixes.- -/c'ik/ over or into with the implication of closing or covering /puc'ik/ 'to swell shut'
- -/c'o/ up and over the edge, around from behind
- -/daw/ down and away without and indication of a goal in the movement
- -/dik/ up to and into a goal or objective
- -/doj/ upward italic=no 'to run up'
- -/je/ hither
- -/kit/ downward
- -/k'oj/ away from here
- -/lek/ hurriedly
- -/mit/ onto or into with an implication of downward motion
- -/n/ downstream, downhill
- -/no/ along, no implication of direction or attitude /weleno/ 'to run along'
- -/paj/ against, usually figurative /jodotpaj/ ' tie up/, italic=no 'to urinate against '
- -/pin/ hither, no implication of goal
- -/sip/ out of /t'upsip/ 'spit out'
- -/t'a/ on top
- -/waj/ apart
/doj/, /kit/, /k'oj/, and /mit/ all lose their final consonant before the suffix /nu/, which indicates duration. /by/-/doj/-/nu/ becomes bydonu 'to stick up'.