Sahaptian languages


Sahaptian 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 and Sahaptin have often been confused and used interchangeably in the literature.

Family division

Sahaptian includes two languages:
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 classification of Sahaptian is as follows.
  • Proto-Sahaptian
  • *Nez Perce
  • *Sahaptin
  • **Columbia River dialect
  • **Northern dialect
  • ***Northwest dialect
  • ***Northeast dialect

    Proto-language

Work on Proto-Sahaptian reconstruction has been undertaken by Aoki and Noel Rude.
Proto-Sahaptian consonants:
Proto-Sahaptian vowels: