Colorado River Numic language


Colorado River Numic, of the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, is a dialect chain that stretches from southeastern California to Colorado. Individual dialects are Chemehuevi, which is in danger of extinction, Southern Paiute, and Ute. According to the Ethnologue, there were a little less than two thousand speakers of Colorado River Numic Language in 1990, or ca. 40% out of an ethnic population of 5,000.
The Southern Paiute dialect has played a significant role in linguistics, as the background for a famous article by linguist Edward Sapir and his collaborator Tony Tillohash on the nature of the phoneme.

Dialects

The three major dialect groups of Colorado River are Chemehuevi, Southern Paiute, and Ute, although there are no strong isoglosses. The threefold division is primarily one of culture rather than strictly linguistic. There are, however, three major phonological distinctions among the dialects:
There are no strong isoglosses between Southern Paiute and Ute for the changes but an increasing level of change, as one moves from Kaibab Southern Paiute to Southern Ute.

Phonology

Consonant and vowel charts for the westernmost and easternmost dialects are given.

Consonants

labialdentalpalatalvelarglottal
stoppttʃk, kʷʔ
voiceless fricatives
tap/flapɾ
voiced fricativeβɣ, ɣʷ
nasalmn
glidewj

Vowels

frontfront-roundedcentralback-unroundedback
highiɯu
midø
lowɑ

Vowels can be long or short. Short unstressed vowels can be devoiced.

Morphology

The Colorado River Numic language is an agglutinative language, in which words use suffix complexes for a variety of purposes with several morphemes strung together.