Timbisha language

Timbisha
Timbisha
Panamint
Nümü nangkawih, Sosoni nangkawih
Native to	United States
Region	California, Nevada
Ethnicity	100 Timbisha (1998)
Native speakers	20 (2007)
Language family	Uto-Aztecan Numic Central Numic Timbisha; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	par
Glottolog	pana1305
ELP	Panamint
	Panamint is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
	This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Timbisha (Tümpisa) or Panamint (also called Koso) is the language of the

Lone Pine communities in California and the Beatty

community in Nevada. It was also the language spoken at the former Indian Ranch reservation in Panamint Valley.

Classification

Timbisha is one of the

Uto-Aztecan. It is most closely related to Shoshoni and Comanche

.

Geographic distribution

Timbisha was formerly spoken in the region between the

Sierra Nevada mountains of eastern California and the region just to the east of Death Valley in Nevada. Principal valleys where villages were located were (from west to east) Owens Valley, Indian Wells Valley, Saline Valley, Panamint Valley, and Death Valley. In addition, there were villages along the southern slopes of the Kawich Range

in Nevada.

Each valley had its own variety of Timbisha with mostly lexical differences between them. There was, however, a general loss of h as one moved west across Timbisha territory with h virtually gone in Owens Valley varieties. McLaughlin's grammar is based on the far eastern variety from Beatty, Nevada,^[2] while Dayley's is based on a central variety from Death Valley.^[3]

Phonology

Vowels

Timbisha also has a typical

morphemes

always contain ai and others always contain e. (The official orthography is shown in parentheses.)

	front	central	back
High	i	ɨ ⟨ü⟩	u
Non-High		a	o
Diphthong	ai ⟨ai, e⟩

Consonants

Timbisha has a typical

Numic

consonant inventory. (The official orthography is shown in parentheses.):

	Bilabial	Coronal	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
	Bilabial	Coronal	Palatal	plain	labial.	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ŋ ⟨ng⟩	ŋʷ ⟨ngw⟩
Plosive	p	t		k	kʷ	ʔ
Affricate		ts
Fricative		s				h
Semivowel			j ⟨y⟩		w

Phonotactics

Timbisha stops (including the affricate) and nasals are voiced and lenited between vowels, are voiced in nasal-stop clusters, and are lenited (but not voiced) following h.

Shoshoni and Comanche

.

Writing system

Timbisha spelling is based on Dayley [3]^[4] and uses the Roman alphabet. Ü is used for ɨ and ng for ŋ.

Grammar

Study of Timbisha has been carried on by Jon Dayley and John McLaughlin, both of whom wrote grammatical descriptions.^[3]^[2]^[5] Dayley has published a dictionary.^[4]

Word order and case marking

Timbisha word order is usually SOV as in:

taipo

white-man

kinni'a

falcon

punittai

saw

"The white man saw a falcon"

The

adverbs

. For example:

kahni-pa'a

house-on

"on the house"

Adjectives are usually prefixed to the nouns they modify, unless the relationship is temporary when they are independent words with special suffixes. Compare tosa-kapayu, 'white-horse', "palomino or other pale-colored breed" and tosapihtü kapayu, 'white/pale horse', "white or pale horse" (who happens to be white or pale, but whose siblings may be any color).

Verbs

suppletive forms for singular or plural objects. Otherwise, there is no grammatical agreement

marked by the verb.

References

^ ^a ^b Timbisha at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ ^a ^b McLaughlin, John E. (1987). Panamint Phonology and Morphology. University of Kansas PhD dissertation.
^ ^a ^b ^c Dayley, Jon P. (1989). "Tümpisa (Panamint) Shoshone Grammar". University of California Publications in Linguistics. 115. Berkeley: University of California Press.
^ ^a ^b Dayley, Jon P. (1989). "Tümpisa (Panamint) Shoshone Dictionary". University of California Publications in Linguistics. 116. Berkeley: University of California Press.
^ McLaughlin, John E. (2006). Timbisha (Panamint). Languages of the world/materials 453. Munich: LINCOM Europa.

External links

[e18-1] Timbisha at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

[panamint-2] McLaughlin, John E. (1987). Panamint Phonology and Morphology. University of Kansas PhD dissertation.

[1989a-3] Dayley, Jon P. (1989). "Tümpisa (Panamint) Shoshone Grammar". University of California Publications in Linguistics. 115. Berkeley: University of California Press.

[1989b-4] Dayley, Jon P. (1989). "Tümpisa (Panamint) Shoshone Dictionary". University of California Publications in Linguistics. 116. Berkeley: University of California Press.

[5] McLaughlin, John E. (2006). Timbisha (Panamint). Languages of the world/materials 453. Munich: LINCOM Europa.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]