Maiduan languages


Maiduan is a small endangered language family of northeastern California.

Family division

The Maiduan consists of 4 languages:
  1. Maidu †
  2. Chico †
  3. Konkow
  4. Nisenan †
The languages have similar sound systems but differ significantly in terms of grammar. They are not mutually intelligible, even though many works often refer to all of the speakers of these languages as Maidu. The Chico dialects are little known due to scanty documentation, so their precise genetic relationship to the other languages probably cannot be determined, and in any case may have been not a fourth Maiduan language, but widely divergent dialects of Konkow.
Three of the languages went extinct by approximately the year 2000. Konkow was reported to have 3 elderly speakers in 2007.

Genetic relations

Maiduan is often considered in various Penutian phylum proposals. It was one of the original members of California Penutian.