Maidu ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student's Handbook, Edinburgh also Northeastern Maidu or Mountain Maidu, is an extinct Maiduan language of California, United States. It was spoken by the Maidu peoples who traditionally inhabit the mountains east and south of Lassen Peak in the American River and Feather River basins. These river regions include such valleys in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains of California as Indian Valley, American Valley, Butte Valley, and Big Meadows. Maidu may also refer to the related Konkow and Nisenan languages.
History The pre-contact Maidu peoples lived in a hunting and gathering society in parts of central California. These peoples lived in an area around what are now called Mount Lassen, Honey Lake, Sacramento, and Lake Tahoe. They spoke closely related languages, including the living Maidu, Konkow and Nisenan languages, along with the Chico language and other extinct variations.
Revitalization efforts Active language revitalization efforts have been underway since 2004. As of 2011, classes in Maidu were available in Nevada County, California. Farrell Cunningham, one of the youngest fluent Yamani Maidu speakers, taught "Mountain Maidu language classes in Greenville, Susanville, Nevada City and Auburn", and was active with the Maidu Theater in Nevada City, until his death on August 11, 2013, at age 37.
Classification The Maiduan language family is considered by some linguists to belong to the Penutian language group, along with such families as Miwok, Wintun, Yokuts, and Ohlone. However, this language family is disputed, with others claiming that it is invalid.
Phonology Consonants Maidu has eighteen consonantal phonemes. The consonants listed below are from the transcription system used by Shipley. Shipley's orthography is listed in brackets when it differs from the IPA transcription.
LabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottalNasal Stopimplosive tenuis ~ ejective ~ Fricative Approximant
In the 1950s and 1960s, older speakers retained palatal stops /c, c'/ where younger speakers used an innovative palatal affricate [tʃ], [tʃʼ], perhaps under influence from English.
Before the velar plosives /k, k'/, /m/ is pronounced as [ŋ].
Vowels There are six phonemic vowels in Maidu. Once again, the chart comes from the orthographic system employed by Shipley.
FrontCentralBackHigh Low
These six vowels are characterized by several different allophones depending on the phonetic environments in which they occur (initial/noninitial, stressed/unstressed, and open/closed syllables). The base phone of the vowels occurs in initial open syllables with stress. The lowest and most central allophones occur in unstressed closed syllables. According to Shipley, (a) and (y) have allophones that almost converge once they have centralized, (i) and (u) have allophones that barely centralize and drop slightly lower, approaching [ɪ] and [ʊ]. Meanwhile, (e) and (o) have more change than (i) and (u) but less than (a) and (y).
Vowel length is nonphonemic, and changes according to the vowel's place within the word. The vowels can exhibit vowel lengths of less than a mora, one mora, or 1.5–2 morae. The vowel is less than one mora in unstressed syllables, around one mora in closed stressed syllables, and more than one mora in open stressed syllables.
Syllables The syllables in Maidu follow a basic CV or CVC structure. The majority of words consist of alternating consonants and vowels, while combinations such as CVCVCCV also occur. In all cases, the syllables are consonant initial, and diphthongs do not occur in the coda. The syllables in Maidu display pitch in conjunction with the stress in the word. Syllables with the primary stress in the word have a higher pitch and tend to be more tense and have longer vowels. Secondary stress occurs with a low to middle pitch and lengthening of the vowel. Weak stress has a low to middle pitch and short vowels.
Morphology Notation: In the morphology section, some notations are used to refer to changes occurring to the morphemes when they are conjugated or combined with one another. 'I' indicates a change whereby the preceding word goes through the following changes: after a vowel (V) of a vowel and glottal stop (V') the root remains the same, so /wepa/ remains /wepa/. After a k or k', the preceding vowel is duplicated, so /banak'/ becomes /banak'a/. In all other cases i is added, so /jaman/ becomes /jamani/. 'R' indicates reduplication of the previous segment, so /my/ becomes /mymy/.
Nouns Maidu nouns are divided into two classes. The first class consists of kinship terms, but these do not include the terms for child and son. The nouns of this class are more limited in use than other nouns, as they are always subject to possession by another noun. These terms, such as /ne/ 'mother' occur in conjunction with a pronoun or a demonstrative, as in:
- my mother - your mother - (that) mother
The second class of nouns consists of free morphemes, and can be broken down into smaller subclasses based on the origin of the noun stem. The first subclass contains nouns whose root and stem are identical, such as /wepa/ "coyote". The stem /kyle/ 'woman' is notable in that is usually occurs as /kyle/, but may alternate to when attached with suffixes to form 'old woman' and 'women'.
The second subclass contains nouns that are formed from several different roots. This compound may be formed from two noun roots (/mom/ 'water' and /pano/ 'grizzly' become 'otter'), a noun root and an auxiliary verb (/jask'ak/ 'skinny' and /no/ 'along' become jask'akno 'skinny man'), a noun root and a distributive suffix (/jaman/ 'mountain' and /R-to/ 'all around' become jamanmanto 'mountains all around'), noun roots and an unidentifiable morpheme (/k'am/ 'belly' and /pum/ 'membrane' with a meaningless morpheme /pu/ become k'ampumpu 'tripe'), and a noun root with a diminutive morpheme (and /sol/ 'song' and /I-be/ become solibe 'ditty'.).
Pronouns The pronouns are /nik'/ first person, /min/ second person, /maj/ third person, and /my/ demonstrative. /maj/ does not occur in the singular, and so constructions using /my/ serve as the third person singular. These include in a noun construction ('that woman' for 'her'), singularly ('that one') and repeated ('that person'). Other than /maj/, there are no special plural forms of the pronouns, as they are inflected for number along with other nouns.
Number inflection in nouns While English distinguishes between singular and plural, Maidu distinguishes singular, dual, and plural. These inflections are most often used in conjunction with the pronouns, and are much less commonly used with other nouns. Both dual /c'o/ and plural /cy/ suffixes have several allomorphs. Along with these, there is a second plural morpheme /t'yt'y/ which indicates both plurality and a diminutive sense.
Verbs Maidu verbs consist of the verbal theme along a series of suffixes. Similar to nouns, the verb stems in Maidu result from several different sources. Some verbs, like /sol/ 'sing' are composed of a single simple root. Other verbs include a noun in the verb stem, such as /k'awba/ 'to dig a hole', which is a compound of /k'aw/ 'dirt' and /ba/ 'to dig'. Still other compound verb stems result from the conjunction of two separate verb roots, as in /t'ikc'e/ 'to believe', from /t'ik/ 'to have enough' and /c'e/ 'to see'. Like nouns, some verb stems include a component that has no meaning on its own, such as /bokweje/ 'to invoke', where /weje/ means 'to talk' and /bok/ has no known meaning. Still others are the result of a verb and an auxiliary verb, and finally a set of verbs involving motion uses /'y/ as its first compound.
Verb theme The verb theme is a combination of the verb stem along with one or more thematic suffixes. All thematic suffixes are optional, and thus may be excluded from the verb, with the base stem acting as the theme on its own.
Causative Designation of verbal object Motion-Location Negative Aspectual Evidential
Causative The causative suffix /ti/ indicates that the actor is causing an action to occur, as in , which means 'I walked the child, holding his hand' or 'I caused the child to walk, holding (his) hand.' This morpheme also occurs in words like /wonoti/ 'to kill', literally 'to cause to die'.
Verbal object The designation of the verbal object takes five different forms. /'us/ is a reflexive suffix, as in wonoti'us'am 'he killed himself.' The second suffix, /jo/ indicated both plural object and repetitive actions. This occurs in 'I'm going to hit them (one after another) on the head with a stick', and humbotmenwet 'as hesbopajodom 'I kept on shoving anything into the sack.' The third suffix is used commonly and appears to have an obscure meaning. /to/ can be used with /ju/ 'rub on' to form juto 'rub in' and with /mej/ 'give' to form 'buy'. It may work to create the transitive form of a verb, although this is not always the case. /toto/, a reduplication of /to/ indicates reciprocal action.
Motion-location The motion-location auxiliaries occur as 16 different suffixes.
-/c'ik/ over or into with the implication of closing or covering /puc'ik/ 'to swell shut' -/c'o/ up and over the edge, around from behind -/daw/ down and away without and indication of a goal in the movement -/dik/ up to and into a goal or objective -/doj/ upward 'to run up' -/je/ hither -/kit/ downward -/k'oj/ away from here -/lek/ hurriedly -/mit/ onto or into with an implication of downward motion -/n/ downstream, downhill (usually implies southwest) -/no/ along, no implication of direction or attitude /weleno/ 'to run along' -/paj/ against, usually figurative /jodotpaj/ ' tie up/, 'to urinate against (as a dog would)' -/pin/ hither, no implication of goal -/sip/ out of /t'upsip/ 'spit out' -/t'a/ on top -/waj/ apart
Some of these suffixes can occur together in limited constructions: /c'opin/ 'up over the edge and hither', /c'ono/ 'over the edge of something; in a circle', /noje/ 'aimlessly', and /sippin/ 'out of and hither'.
/doj/, /kit/, /k'oj/, and /mit/ all lose their final consonant before the suffix /nu/, which indicates duration. /by/-/doj/-/nu/ becomes bydonu 'to stick up'.
Negative The negative suffix /men/ has two variants, /men/ after a consonant and /n/ after a vowel. kyloknonom 'as wetemmen'usan 'the women didn't use to dance' and monma'amkano 'you won't'
Aspectual The aspectual class contains six suffixes.
-/bos/ completion wejebosk'as 'I'm through talking' -/c'yj/ unable hybonam jysipc'yjk'as 'I can't get out of the house' -/doj/ inchoative nik'i lenom 'as jotitdojdom kak'an 'My garden is beginning to bloom and become green' -/nu/ durative -/ti/ for the sake of -/bew/ a little more mym p'ybem 'as lalambewk'an 'That boy got a little taller'
Evidential The evidential class consists of three individual morphemes.
-/c'oj/ quotative 'It was that man's grandmother, it is said' -/wew/ evidential mym p'ybec'om 'as 'ydojwewk'an 'Those two boys are apparently coming up' -/ky/ seems 'How crazily he seems to talk'
Verb inflection The verb is completed by the addition of five inflectional suffixes. These suffixes mark the verb for expression of tense, aspect, mode, person, and number. There is variability in the ordering of these suffixes. There are five possible inflections for mode: indicative, subjunctive, optative, interrogative, and gerundial. Separate indicative modes occur for present-past, future, habitual past, and past punctual. The optative mode can be split into monitive, intentive, and hortatory.
Present-past indicative