Shasta language
The Shasta language was a Shastan language spoken from northern California into southwestern Oregon. In 1980, only two fluent speakers, both elderly, were alive. Today the language is extinct, and all Shasta people now speak English.
| Shasta (Shasta(?)) | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | United States |
| Region: | Primarily northern California |
| Total speakers: | 0 (extinct) |
| Ranking: | Not ranked |
| Genetic classification: | Shastan
Shasta |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | --- |
| Regulated by: | --- |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | --- |
| ISO 639-2 | --- |
| SIL | SHT |
| See also: Language – List of languages | |
| Contents |
Sounds
Consonants
| Bilabial | Dental | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | Plain | [ p ] | [ t ] | [ k ] | [ ʔ ] | |
| Ejective | [ pʹ ] | [ tʹ ] | [ kʹ ] | |||
| Affricate | Plain | [ ʦ ] | [ ʧ ] | |||
| Ejective | [ ʦʹ ] | [ ʧʹ ] | ||||
| Fricative | [ s ] | [ x ] | [ h ] | |||
| Nasal | [ m ] | [ n ] | ||||
| Rhotic | [ r ] | |||||
| Semivowel | [ w ] | [ j ] | ||||
Length was distinctive for consonants in Shasta. The affricates were generally spelled <c> and <č>, and the ejectives indicated by an apostrophe written over the character. The phoneme /j/ was spelled <y>.
Vowels
Shasta had four vowels, i, e, a, and u, with contrastive length, and two tones: high tone, marked with an acute accent, and low tone, which was unmarked.
References
- Mithun, Marianne. The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.