Yahi language
| Yana | |
|---|---|
| Native to | USA |
| Region | California |
| Ethnicity | Yana |
| Extinct | 1916, with death of Ishi |
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Hokan?
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| Dialects |
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| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
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Linguist list
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ynn |
| Glottolog | yana1271 |
Pre-contact distribution of the Yana language
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Yana (also Yanan) is an extinct language formerly spoken by the Yana people, who lived in north-central California between the Feather and Pit rivers in what is now the Shasta and Tehama counties.
The language perished in 1916 with the death of Ishi, who spoke the Yahi dialect. Yana is fairly well-documented (mostly by Edward Sapir) compared to other extinct American languages.
The names Yana and Yahi are derived from the word for "people" in the respective dialects.
There are four known dialects:
Northern Yana, Central Yana, and Yahi were well recorded by Edward Sapir through work with Betty Brown, Sam Batwi, and Ishi respectively. Only a small collection of words and phrases of Southern Yahi were recorded by Sapir in his work with Sam Batwi, who spoke the dialect only in his childhood. Because Southern Yana is poorly attested, it is unclear how many subdialects there are beyond Yahi.
Northern and Central Yana are close, differing mainly in phonology (mostly by innovations in Northern Yana), and Southern Yana and Yahi are similarly close. The two pairs differ from each other in phonological, lexical, and grammatical elements, and can only be understood by the other side with difficulty.
Yana is often classified as a branch of the Hokan family. Sapir suggested a grouping of Yana within a Northern Hokan sub-family with Karuk, Chimariko, Shastan, Palaihnihan, and Pomoan. Contemporary linguists generally consider Yana to be a language isolate.
The use of bipartite verb stem formation in Yana is not a Hokan characteristic, but is used in other non-Hokan languages in the area, suggesting that Yana has stayed geographically stable.
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