Yang is an extinct isolate language that existed in central and northern California in the area between the Feather and Pete Rivers, where Shasta and Theam counties are now located. It was spoken by the related tribes of Yana and Yahi.
| Yana, Yahi | |
|---|---|
| Self name | Yana, Yahi |
| Countries | USA |
| Regions | California : Shasta and Theam Counties |
| Total number of speakers | no |
| Status | disappeared |
| Extinct | 1916 |
| Classification | |
| Category | Languages of North America |
| isolated language | |
| Writing | latin |
| Language Codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | - |
| ISO 639-2 | - |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| WALS | |
| IETF | |
| Glottolog | |
The tongue disappeared in 1916 with the death of Isha , the last speaker to speak the dialect of Yahi. The Yang language is relatively well documented (mainly by the efforts of E. Sepira ) compared to other disappeared languages of America.
The names Yana and Yahi come from the word "people" in the two indicated dialects.
Content
- 1 Dialects
- 2 Genetic relationships
- 3 Features
- 4 Literature
Dialects
There are 4 known dialects of this language (sometimes considered as a group of “Yang languages”).
- 1. North Yana
- 2. Central Yana
- (a) Southern dialects
- 3. South Yana
- 4. Yahi
- 2. Central Yana
Genetic relationships
Sepir attributed the yana to the northern branch of the Hawk languages, in which he also included the languages of Karuk , Chimariko , Shasta , Palaikhni and Pomoian .
Features
The language had a polysynthetic structure and SVO word order . Differing forms of male and female speech.
Literature
- Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America . New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1 .
- Goddard, Ives (Ed.). (1996). Languages . Handbook of North American Indians (WC Sturtevant, General Ed.) (Vol. 17). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-048774-9 .
- Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X .
- Sapir, Edward . 1910. Yana Texts . University of California Publications in American Archeology and Ethnology, vol. 1, no. 9. Berkeley: University Press. ( Online version at the Internet Archive ).
- Sturtevant, William C. (Ed.). (1978-present). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 1-20). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. (Vols. 1-3, 16, 18-20 not yet published).