Everything about Shoshone Language totally explained
Shoshone is a
Native American language spoken by the
Shoshone people.
Shoshone speaking Native Americans occupy areas of
Wyoming,
Utah,
Nevada,
Idaho and
Montana. The number of people who speak Shoshone has been steadily dwindling over the last few decades, so there are only a few hundred people who speak the language fluently today, although a few thousand know it to one degree or another.
Shoshone is northernmost member of the large
Uto-Aztecan language family, which includes over thirty languages whose speakers originally inhabited a vast territory stretching from the
Salmon River in central Idaho down into northern and central
Mexico. Shoshone belongs to the
Numic subbranch of Uto-Aztecan. The word Numic comes from the cognate word in all Numic languages for "Person". For example, in Shoshone the word is "neme", in
Timbisha it's "nümü", and in Southern Paiute the word is "nuwuvi". Shoshone is most closely related to
Timbisha and Comanche
Comanche
Sounds
Vowels
Shoshone has a typical
Numic vowel inventory of five vowels. In addition, there's the common
diphthong ai, which varies rather freely with e, although certain
morphemes always contain ai and others always contain e.
| |
front |
back
unrounded |
back
rounded |
| High | i |
ɨ |
u
|
| Non-High | |
a |
o
|
| Diphthong | ai |
|
|
Consonants
Shoshone has a typical
Numic consonant inventory:
Phonology
Shoshone 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.
Short vowels are commonly
devoiced in unstressed syllables preceding /h/ and word-finally.
Writing System
There are two main spelling systems in use. The older system is the Crum-Miller system used in Miller 1972; and Crum & Dayley 1993 and 1997, and Crum, Crum, & Dayley 2001. The other system is the Idaho State University system and is used in Gould & Loether (2002). The Idaho State system is more phonetically based while the Crum-Miller is more phonemically based. Both systems use "e" to represent the vowel ɨ.
Grammar
Shoshone is an agglutinative language, in which words, especially verbs, tend to be quite complex with several
morphemes strung together.
Shoshone speaking tribes consist of a loose affiliation of clans and groups. Each tribe occupies a specific area of land.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Shoshone Language'.
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