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Categories: Languages of the United States | Palaihnihan languages | Native American languages of California

Atsugewi language

Atsugewi is a moribund Palaihnihan language of northeastern California spoken by the Atsugewi people. As of 1962, there were four speakers out of an ethnic group of 200, all elderly. Possibly extinct.

Astugewi is related to Achumawi.

The Palaihnihan family is being considered as part of the hypothetical Hokan stock.

Contents

1 Sounds

1.1 Consonants
1.2 Vowels

2 Bibliography

Sounds

Consonants

The 32 consonants of Atsugewi:

			Bilabial	Labio-dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stop		unaspirated			t		k	q
		aspirated	pʰ		tʰ		kʰ	qʰ
		ejective	p’		t’		k’	q’	ʔ
Affricate		unaspirated				ʧ
		aspirated				ʧʰ
		ejective				ʧ’
Nasal		plain	m		n
Nasal		glottalized	m’		n’
Rhotic		plain			r
Rhotic		glottalized			r’
Fricative		plain			s				h
Fricative		glottalized			s’				ĥ
Approximant	central	plain		w		j
	central	glottalized		w’		j’
	lateral	plain			l
	lateral	glottalized			l’

Vowels

Bibliography

Bright, William. (1965). [Review of A history of Palaihnihan phonology by D. L. Olmstead]. Language, 41 (1), 175-178.
Good, Jeff. (2004). A sketch of Atsugewi phonology. Boston, MA. (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, January 8–11).
Good, Jeff; McFarland, Teresa; & Paster, Mary. (2003). Reconstructing Achumawi and Atsugewi: Proto-Palaihnihan revisited. Atlanta, GA. (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, January 2–5).
Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
Olmstead, David L. (1954). Achumawi-Atsugewi non-reciprocal intelligibility. International Journal of American Linguistics, 20, 181-184.
Olmstead, David L. (1956). Palaihnihan and Shasta I: Labial stops. Language, 32 (1), 73-77.
Olmstead, David L. (1957). Palaihnihan and Shasta II: Apical stops. Language, 33 (2), 136-138.
Olmstead, David L. (1958). Atsugewi phonology. International Journal of American Linguistics, 24, 215-220.
Olmstead, David L. (1959). Palaihnihan and Shasta III: Dorsal stops. Language, 35 (4), 637-644.
Olmstead, David L. (1961). Atsugewi morphology I: Verb Inflection. International Journal of American Linguistics, 27, 91-113.
Olmstead, David L. (1964). A history of Palaihnihan phonology. University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 35). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Talmy, Leonard. (n.d.). Midway phonological analysis of Atsugewi. (Unpublished notes).
Talmy, Leonard. (1972). Semantic structures in English and Atsugewi. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley).