Numic languages
| Numic | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
Western United States |
| Linguistic classification: | Uto-Aztecan |
| Subdivisions: |
|
| Glottolog: | numi1242 |
Numic is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native American peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin, Colorado River basin, Snake River basin, and southern Great Plains. The word Numic comes from the cognate word in all Numic languages for "person." For example, in the three Central Numic languages and the two Western Numic languages it is /nɨmɨ/. In Kawaiisu it is /nɨwɨ/ and in Colorado River /nɨwɨ/, /nɨŋwɨ/ and /nuu/.
These languages are classified in three groups:
Apart from Comanche, each of these groups contains one language spoken in a small area in the southern Sierra Nevada and valleys to the east (Mono, Timbisha, and Kawaiisu), and one language spoken in a much larger area extending to the north and east (Northern Paiute, Shoshoni, and Colorado River). Some linguists have taken this pattern as an indication that Numic speaking peoples expanded quite recently from a small core, perhaps near the Owens Valley, into their current range. This view is supported by lexicostatistical studies. Fowler's reconstruction of Proto-Numic ethnobiology also points to the region of the southern Sierra Nevada as the homeland of Proto-Numic approximately two millennia ago. Recent studies have supported this linguistic hypothesis. The anthropologist Peter N. Jones thinks this evidence to be of a circumstantial nature, but this is a distinctly minority opinion among specialists in Numic. David Shaul has proposed that the Southern Numic languages spread eastward long before the Central and Western Numic languages expanded into the Great Basin.
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